Flake, Fake, Fantasist or Shill? No. 43: Prof. Michio Kaku

Our glorious future, as a Type 1 civilization. (Image source)

Michio Kaku is the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York.

He is also an advocate of globalism, which he says, will transform Earth's mishmash of lowly competing civilizations, which he terms collectively a Type Zero civilization, to a Type 1 civilization.

This transition, he tells us, will be a splendid thing, which makes him feel privileged to be alive as it occurs.

But what is this Type 1 civilization to which Kaku looks forward with such delight?

Here's his explanation:

A Type 1 civilization has harnessed its planetary power. They control earthquakes, the weather, volcanoes, they have cities on the ocean. Anything planetary, they control.

A Type 2 civilization is stellar. They've exhausted the power of the planet, and they get their energy directly from their mother star. ... They use the power of the sun to energize their huge machines. Eventually, they exhaust the power of a star, and they go galactic. They harness the power of billions of stars within a galaxy.

Now for example Buck Rogers would correspond to a Type 1 civilization, a planetary civilization. Star Trek and the Federation of Planets that colonize a few star systems, would correspond to a Type 2 [civilization]. And the Empire, of Star Wars, would correspond to a Type 3 civilization.

Now what are we, on this scale? We are Type Zero. We don't rate on this scale. ... But we can calculate when we will attain Type 1 status. In about a hundred years.

So let's get this straight.

Kaku's telling us we're about to mutate from a rubbish world of competing petty and worthless civilizations to the glory of a Type 1 civilization as defined by a classification of civilizations of which there is not a single known example in the entire universe, our own paltry effort here on Earth being off the bottom of the scale.

Ah, but his classificatory scheme is admirably illustrated by examples drawn from the sci-fi fantasy movies. Who will not be satisfied with that?

What's more, Kaku tells us we can calculate almost exactly when we will take the first step up the ladder of heretofore non-existent civilizations.

But can we? Um, well apparently not, for what Kaku offers in verification of his prediction is not calculation but that trusty source of knowledge, the MSM:

Every time I read the newspaper, I see evidence of this historic transition from Type Zero to Type 1.

O.K., so we just need to take a daily newspaper and we'll be clued in on the most important event in the history of mankind. Like:

PROTEST FEAR: G-8 MOVED OUT OF CHICAGOLAND...
GODFATHER 'SURPRISED'...
Netanyahu: Israel 'reserves right' to strike Iran...
REPORT: Israel has already made decision...
HERE WE GO AGAIN: Obama moves to aid Syrian 'rebels'...
Secret Meth Lab Sparked Fatal Fire at Ohio Nursing Home... (Headlines source)

To quote just today's headlines.

But, wait, we're reading the wrong headlines, Kaku tells us:

I read the newspaper and I see evidence of this everywhere. What is the European Union? The European Union has been formed to oppose Nafta, that is the United States, Canada and Mexico. But why? Because we're seeing the beginnings of a Type 1 economy. Huge planetary trading blocks are the beginnings of a Type 1 economy.

Oh, yeah?

Well, O.K., no.

The EU arose out of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, a litle bit ahead of the 1994 Nafta agreement in opposition to which Kaku claims the EU was formed.

And the term "planetary trade block" is self-contradictory. A planetary economy requires global free trade. Trade blocks, are what prevent trade being free and global.

But let's not quibble.

Type 1 Culture. (Image source)

Not only are we to have a Type 1 economy and a Type 1 language, "probably English," we are to have a Type 1 culture.

This Type 1 culture will be characterized, so he says, by the universal recognition of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Madonna (Madonna? or Madonna's crotch, which is surely better known than her face).

Then he says:

Some people don't want it. They fear this transition, because this transition is to a planetary civilization tolerant of many cultures. These are the terrorists.

Wait a minute, didn't he just talk about integration, and the creation of a global culture? So where's the tolerance for many cultures? Those who seek to preserve their national identity, their race, their culture and their religion under the onslaught of globalization are the folk's Kaku calls terrorists.

Murderous intolerance, it seems, the accepted standard of totalitarian empires, is to be the new tolerance. Although some correctly call it genocide

Kaku offers no reason to suppose that global governance will promote the technological advancement of human civilization. History suggests that it was competition among the nation states, first in Western Europe, then globally, that drove the recent acceleration in technological innovation, not imperialism.

Rome sank into decadence and stagnation, as did the Turkish Empire, the Soviet Union and all the other empires that ever were. Only the American empire remains, and that sinking, punch-drunk, into a financial swamp, ever more at risk of a peasant revolt.

So why will a global empire not stagnate too, the people distracted with bread and circuses or food stamps and TV, while the culture degrades to a cult of foot binding, calligraphy and the study of ancient literature, or if America is the inspiration, Madonna's crotch, breast enhancement and Christmas cleansed of the baby Jeusus and beginning in June.

Kaku, who, by implication, labels me a terrorist and thus, presumably, a legitimate target for assassination by drone or other means, talks, so it seems to me, like a mouthpiece for a fascist global empire, a charlatan spouting pseudoscience in the service of totalitarianism: an example of the total corruption of science by politics as occurs under all totalitarianisms.

But how do you rate him: flake, fake, fantasist, charlatan or shill? Comments welcome.