Social science explanations: goals and motivations

Reconstructing human intentions is one of the most challenging tasks for social sciences, and dealing with the intentions of aliens should be much more problematic. Yet, explanations based on the attribution of certain motives (stable dispositions), goals (specific future conditions achieved by actions) or intentions (readiness for such an action) to ETCs resulting in the absence of their visible manifestations, are widespread in the discussions on the Fermi paradox. Webb and other authors give many specific explanations of this kind (Webb, Reference Webb2015). Perhaps they live a contemplative lifestyle and are not interested in space exploration. Perhaps they are too advanced and we are not interesting for them. Perhaps they are afraid of attracting attention from aggressive races. Perhaps they do not want to interfere in the development of primitive societies and therefore make sure that we do not notice them. Perhaps they have too alien ideas, motives and interests that manifest themselves in actions that we simply cannot recognize. Perhaps they are listening to the signals, but not sending them because it is too expensive. And so on.

For the most part, such explanations are a kind of ‘folk sociology’ and are an example of naive anthropomorphism. But the problem is not that such explanations extrapolate possible human motives to the entire universe. On the contrary, the problem is that such explanations de facto exclude the only kind of empirical evidence available to us as a reference point, deliberately abandoning the scientific method. If we look at the problem of ETCs from the point of view of motivation and intentional action, then the main conclusion from human experience available to us is the irreducible and significant variety of goals and motives, and even more importantly, the variety of strategies and modes of action arising from contextual differences even when the motives are similar. All of the above-mentioned types of explanations take one of the possible motives that could underlie human behaviour, and in some incomprehensible way extrapolate it to all possible intelligent species at all periods of the existence of the universe. The fantastic implausibility of such an assumption of the universal uniformity of the motivation of all ETCs is quite obvious and was noted even by authors who do not belong to the social sciences.

The diversity of motives and goals, both between and within civilizations, associated with differences in knowledge, available resources and other factors, is one of few assumptions regarding ETCs, about which we can be reasonably sure. This means that if there were many ETCs in the universe, then at least some of them would be sufficiently active and motivated to space exploration, communication and/or colonization. However, there are aspects of the motivation problem that seem more relevant to the explanation of the Fermi paradox. These are the problem of coordination and the problem of stability of motives and goals.

The problem of coordination arises as a consequence of the existence of many individual actors with their own goals and motives (let's conservatively assume that ETCs’ social organization is based on many interacting individuals). In case an action can be performed by an individual actor, the diversity of motives in a population practically guarantees that some possible action will be performed by at least someone. However, if an individual actor cannot perform such an action (e.g. send a signal into space), then its implementation requires coordination of the motives of many actors. Complex tasks and endeavours may require coordination of the efforts of the majority of the entire population.

The second problem is related to the stability of motivation. Space exploration and the implementation of complex projects aimed at communication with other civilizations, colonization, the creation of large astroengineering structures, etc., require not only an appropriate motive and purpose but also the readiness and persistence to pursue them for a long time, probably significantly exceeding the individual lifespan. Taking into account the huge periods necessary for interstellar travel and communication, the stability of motivation seems to be a particularly important condition for the possibility of detecting ETCs or their technosignatures.

In both cases, the problem of motivation is closely related to the second type of sociological explanation – the possibilities of civilization. The desire to participate in space exploration and communication with other civilizations has no practical meaning without real opportunities to do so.

Social science explanations: capacity

Discussions about the Fermi paradox primarily focus on the material aspects of the ETCs’ capabilities and resources which are important for interstellar travel or other large-scale activity. These are communication technologies, space flights (from engines to life support systems), energy, geoengineering, etc. The technological level of civilization is not only a necessary condition for space exploration, colonization or interstellar communications, but it also determines the list of possible technosignatures – manifestations of technological activity that indicate the existence of a highly developed civilization (Pass, Reference Pass2019; Romanovskaya, Reference Romanovskaya2022). The presence of technosignatures is an important aspect of the problem since they potentially make it possible to detect traces of the existence of civilizations from a distance and regardless of their motivation. Modern human civilization, by the very fact of its daily functioning, creates such technosignatures in the form of specific electromagnetic radiation, traces of substances that are not found in Nature, spacecraft and large-scale artificial structures on the surface of the planetFootnote ³. Several researchers classify hypothetical ETCs according to the level of technology, consumption and sources of energy (da Silva, Reference da Silva2022). For example, the well-known classification of Kardashev distinguishes three types of space civilizations, depending on what scale of energy they can operate with the energy of their planet, the energy of their star and the energy of their galaxyFootnote ⁴. Some authors expand this classification with additional, even higher levels (Ćirković, Reference Ćirković2015). The meaning of such hypothetical classifications is that higher levels of technological development should manifest themselves in technosignatures which are themselves signs of a space civilization and do not require reconstruction of ETCs’ motives.

From the social science perspective, the content and level of technologies necessary for space activity as well as their feasibility, are of little importance. What matters is a much more important and usually ignored or only superficially mentioned question about the social structures that support such technologies, their emergence, development, dissemination and practical use. First of all, a technologically advanced society requires structures supporting the creation, accumulation and application of objective knowledge, that is, science, as well as its systematic conversation into technologies, i.e. an innovation economy. Science as a social institution is not limited to individual cognitive activity, rationality or the development of specific methods. It requires several social conditions: specific roles and organizations, including those necessary for the transfer of accumulated knowledge to new generations, scientific ethos and the readiness of the whole society to allocate resources for research (Merton, Reference Merton and Barnes1972). Some explanations of the Fermi paradox point to the fact that science as a special social institution is not a universal attribute of human societies, and in its modern form appeared relatively recently (Webb, Reference Webb2015, 319–321). The same can be said about the innovation economy based on the introduction of new scientific knowledge into production technologies. The corresponding social organization began to take shape in full scale only in the second half of the 20th century, with the rise of postindustrial society (Bell, Reference Bell1973), and the development of science and technology was relatively independent of each other until recently (Weingart, Reference Weingart, Krohn, Layton and Weingart1978).

The use of such arguments to explain the Fermi paradox is not very convincing. Even recognizing that the emergence of specific forms of social organization requires a combination of relatively independent factors, as was suggested by M. Weber regarding the emergence of modern Western capitalism (Weber, Reference Weber2001), it is impossible to deny the fact of technological progress that accompanied the development of human civilization, across societies and historical periods. There are good reasons to suppose that intelligent life, organized as social and political communities, will, sooner or later, invent science or any other core institution necessary for rapid technological developmentFootnote ⁵.

More importantly, even if the emergence of experimental science requires a combination of different conditions and therefore contains an element of historical chance, its reproduction and adaptation in various social, political and cultural systems turns out to be a much simpler task. Although there are important differences in the ability of societies to support research and innovation, to some extent any society with a minimally efficient economy can maintain institutions of science and innovation. It is also significant that different types of cultures and political systems can maintain a high level of scientific and innovative development. The Soviet Union and the USA differed significantly in the form of political organization, but they were equally successful at the initial stage of space exploration, including efforts in SETI. Now countries like USA and Japan, Sweden and Israel, the UK and Germany, South Korea and China are equally successful in science and innovation, even though they are very different in terms of national culture, as can be seen from any large comparative project in the study of cultures (e.g. Hofstede et al., Reference Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov2010).

Experimental science and innovative economics are not the only components of the social conditions necessary for space activities. At least in the initial stages of development, space exploration seems to require a large concentration of resources and effort. Managing them is a complex task in its own right, requiring not only the political commitment to allocate these resources but also the organizational structures that can ensure the implementation of large-scale projects. In terms of institutional development, what matters for space exploration is not simply the emergence of science but the emergence of Big Science (de Solla Price, Reference de Solla Price1963).

In human history, space exploration has become and remains one of the areas that stimulate the development of unique organizational and managerial models, particularly project management. Contemporary project management, as a system of purposeful actions and standardized tools, began to develop in the second half of the 20th century (Kwak, Reference Kwak, Carayannis, Kwak and Anbari2005; Garel, Reference Garel2013). The Apollo project was one of the first examples of scientifically based project management, contributing to establishing it as a new field of management science.

The development of contemporary project management was largely due to Second World War and the subsequent Cold War; the majority of the first large projects (the Manhattan Project, Polaris, Apollo) were driven, in one way or another, by geopolitical conflicts. This leads to the question: Does the development of organizational mechanisms supporting complex projects of space exploration require specific political conditions, namely conflicts between large political structures, which can accumulate significant resources and are motivated to use them in space exploration?

In human history, political conflicts, particularly wars, are recognized as an important factor in both technological and institutional development (Lee, Reference Lee2016; Turchin et al., Reference Turchin, Whitehouse, Gavriletz, Hoyer, Francois, Bennett, Feeney, Peregrine, Feinman, Korotayev, Kradin, Levine, Reddish, Cioni, Wacziarg, Mendel-Gleason and Benam2022). In a more general sense, conflicts between states are a manifestation of the role of intergroup conflicts as a factor in the evolution of human sociality (Van Hoof, Reference Van Hoof, van der Dennen and Falger1990; Shkurko, Reference Shkurko, Shackelford and Weekes-Shackelford2021). The importance of such conflicts in complex projects can be explained by two main mechanisms. First, the political conflict, that is, the conflict between large political entities, ensures the concentration of efforts and resources necessary for the implementation of large-scale projects. Second, the political conflict provides the conditions for the stability of motivation that surpasses the private and short-term motives and interests of individuals and groups, thus creating opportunities for the maintenance of selected goals related to the conflict. In other words, if a society perceives its life through the prism of actual or potential conflict with other/other societies, this contributes to the allocation of resources on a systematic basis, as well as the creation of innovations that promise to preserve and/or win such conflict. If a project has value, real or imagined, in terms of strengthening a society's position in a political conflict, it may receive support, otherwise, resources may be allocated to other purposes.

From a conflict perspective, space exploration must be supported by political conflicts, both in terms of motivation (because space provides new opportunities and is a new arena for political confrontation) and in terms of creating specific tools. At a larger scale, this perspective corresponds to the discussion of ‘grabby civilizations’, which should be rapidly expanding in the Universe (Hanson et al., Reference Hanson, Martin, McCarter and Paulson2021; Friederich and Wenmackers, Reference Friederich and Wenmackers2023). Explaining the Fermi paradox from this perspective (if ETCs exist) is difficult and can be due to one of two reasons: either ETCs are exceptionally peaceful, and the basis of their social organization does not include intergroup conflicts or is not even based on group relations at all, or their social organization does not allow the emergence of large political formations capable of accumulating the number of resources necessary for the implementation of large projects. Both options are of theoretical interest, but the idea that any of them can be a general, universal rule seems implausible.

The fact that political conflicts are important for technological development on Earth doesn't itself mean it is the only social factor supporting large projects. Cooperation was as important as competition in the evolution of humans, and cooperation between groups can be necessary to achieve common goals. International cooperation in human civilization takes place and can support the coordination and implementation of large-scale efforts in areas of common interests, such as scientific research (e.g. human genome project, many space projects), climate change and other issues. There are many social and cognitive mechanisms that help to mitigate the effects of intergroup conflict, from survival needs and other common interests to the complexity of group affiliations or identity policy and management.

Irrespective of the evolutionary and social basis of intergroup relations, the interrelated problems of goals’ stability and accessibility of opportunities remain a potential barrier when it comes to projects with an extremely long implementation period, significantly exceeding the time horizon of the practical motives of individuals. Projects related to the exploration of deep space, interstellar communication and space colonization require planning for hundreds and thousands of years. On Earth, biological evolution relies primarily on immediate rewards that secure certain ways of acting. One of the main differences and competitive advantages of humans as a biological species is associated with the ability to focus on delayed rewards. Any complex activities (e.g. training or work) and social organizations depend on delayed gratification. However, time discounting restricts the effectiveness of regulating behaviour via delayed rewards. If the reward extends beyond the lifetime of the individual, maintaining his regulatory function becomes a difficult task. In turn, institutional conditions also have a certain time horizon for effective planning. In modern societies, it does not exceed several decades. Moreover, some features of the institutional organization of the most technologically advanced societies significantly shorten the possible planning horizon, particularly the duration of electoral cycles and political competition, which contribute to a focus on quick results and, consequently, short time horizons. In non-competitive political systems, institutional conditions for long-term planning are more favourable, but such systems seem to be less innovative, less efficient, do not benefit from intellectual diversity and are more dependent on the individual predispositions of leaders.

The social conditions for the implementation of large and long-term projects required for space exploration can be an insurmountable barrier when it comes to projects that require an exceptionally high level of coordination, a very large amount of resources and a very long implementation time. However, the experience of human civilization shows that with economic and technological development, the feasibility of projects increases and they become more accessible to smaller groups and associations. In a socially and politically heterogeneous population, this creates opportunities for at least some of these groups to start projects in space exploration. The nature of the political and cultural organization of society, therefore, should indeed be considered as a possible source of barriers to space activities, but the possibility that they impose universal institutional restrictions on space exploration does not seem very plausible.

Social science explanations: consequences

One of the most important achievements in sociological theory, associated with the functional approach and particularly Merton, was the idea that to explain social phenomena, what matters are not so much the motives and intentions of human actions, but their objective consequences, including unforeseen, unintended ones (Merton, Reference Merton and Merton1968). Attention to the consequences may be a more promising strategy in the sociological explanation of the Fermi paradox than attempts to assess ETCs’ motives and capacities.

Pessimistic assumptions that ETCs at a certain stage perform actions that lead to self-destruction are common in the explanations of the Fermi paradox. Specific mechanisms may vary: environmental degradation, mutual destruction in wars, pandemics, etc. (Casti, Reference Casti2011; Webb, Reference Webb2015; Schleicher and Bovino, Reference Schleicher and Bovino2023). All of these options describe the consequences of certain actions, usually unintended. The experience of human history shows that any of these options looks quite possible. However, the question is whether such possibilities form a universal rule, that is, a necessity.

The L variable in the Drake equation contains an implicit assumption about the finiteness of the ETC lifetime, an assumption which, strictly speaking, is by no means self-evident. Even though political and cultural communities (often called ‘civilizations’) arose and died in the history of mankind, the idea of some natural ‘life cycle’ looks like nothing more than a poetic metaphor. Such ‘civilizations’ never were completely isolated, and their ‘dying’ was accompanied by many processes ensuring their connection and continuity with the entire history of mankind (migration, cultural influence, the emergence of new political entities, etc.). The fact is that the history of human civilization shows the absence of any ‘life cycle’ of humanity as such.

An alternative version of this argument refers to the finite life span of biological species, resulting in the conclusion that humans as a biological species, has a finite life span as well (da Silva, Reference da Silva2022). However, such an argument is also highly problematic. The transition to the cultural stage and technological development leads to a weakening of the biological factors that determine the limited life span of species. Social organization, science and technology provide enough opportunities to overcome the effects of typical biological factors of extinction of species, associated primarily with changes in the ecosystem, and to control the further biological evolution, from effective medicine to a transition to a postbiological stage. The explanation of the finiteness of the life cycle of the civilization of intelligent beings therefore cannot be based on the biological analogies of the ‘life cycle’.

Also, eschatological explanations of the Fermi paradox cannot rely on external influences as a universal mechanism. As da Silva (Reference da Silva2022) correctly points out, it is unlikely that cataclysms on a planetary and cosmic scale that can lead to the sterilization of the planet or the destruction of civilization (falling asteroids, burning out a star, supernova explosion, gamma-ray bursts, etc.) will regularly occur precisely in that short period in which civilization is at the stage of technological development; it is more likely that they will destroy life as such before the appearance of intelligence. But at some level of technological development, most of these cataclysms will not pose an existential threat to civilization, since it will be able to find ways to protect itself or, at least, to manifest their presence to future civilizations.

That's why, if there is a universal mechanism underlying civilizations’ destruction, it should rather be endogenous (da Silva, Reference da Silva2022). da Silva (Reference da Silva2022) recently proposed a ‘closed bottleneck’ solution to the problem, by arguing that in the course of civilization evolution, there is a bottleneck, which prevents technologically advanced societies (like ours) from going to the next stage of evolution and transition to the ‘adult civilization’, which can successfully solve major developmental problems. The bottleneck is related to the inability of a technologically advanced civilization to find a sustainable strategy of development, i.e. to maintain the balance between technological and ethical development. The author doesn't clearly explain the nature of ‘ethical development’ but mentions the inability to deal with the growing complexity of a technological society as a universal barrier preventing the transition through the bottleneck due to extremely high vulnerability to internal or external shocks. But actually, the main argument supporting this view is the Fermi paradox itself, i.e. the author deduces the danger of the bottleneck situation directly from the fact that we don't see any examples of a successful transition to the next stage.

From the social science perspective, the argument looks poorly elaborated (actually, it wouldn't be taken seriously in a social science journal) and is not very convincing, even if to set aside the vagueness of concepts and the formal description of relations between technological and ‘ethical’ development. Imbalances in the development of various components of social systems, as well as between society and the environment, accompany the entire history of mankind and at all levels: individuals, groups, organizations, institutions and societies. In Marx's theory, internal imbalances between the level of development of technology (productive forces) and the system of social relations and institutions were considered the main source of social development. The postulates of early systems theories that a social system should be stable and based on stable institutions were rejected not only by alternative sociological paradigms, such as structuralism or constructivism but also by functional analysis itself (Merton, Reference Merton and Merton1968), as well as the idea that the unintended consequences of human actions and institutions are necessarily dysfunctional (Merton, Reference Merton and Merton1968).

In turn, the growth of complexity does not necessarily create critical vulnerabilities for the social system. The notion that extremely complex systems cannot be managed can only be true as long as ‘management’ refers to traditional hierarchical models based on rigid procedures. However, our current understanding of governance is more complex and allows alternative ways of solving management and administration problems. If we talk about ways of managing the development of the entire human civilization, then the idea of the ‘Global Government’ turned out to be untenable. This, however, does not mean that the alternative is chaos and anarchy, eventually leading to disaster. Since the 1990s, the concept of global governance has been widely discussed in political science, suggesting that the management of highly complex and heterogeneous social systems can be based on a network of related, but relatively independent mechanisms that connect different actors and different levels of the system, mainly based on ‘soft’ and flexible, consensus-based methods (Dingwerth and Pattberg, Reference Dingwerth and Pattberg2006; Weiss, Reference Weiss2013; Zürn, Reference Zürn2018). More importantly, elements of such approaches were put into practice concerning various global problems and various areas of international activity, from climate change to international cooperation in the Arctic. If da Silva's thesis is correct, this means that such management models cannot be effective, but so far there is no clear evidence that their inefficiency is inevitable.

Nevertheless, the idea of a ‘bottleneck’ in the development of civilizations is of interest and value. Even the time estimations given by da Silva (the time required for the transition to a ‘mature’ civilization), which have the order of 10²–10³ years, look plausible, taking into account the pace of technological development of modern human society. However, it may be based on somewhat different mechanisms related to the capacities available to society and the consequences of their use.

The lower limit of the ‘bottleneck’ is determined by the level of development at which technological and, more importantly, social (political, institutional and organizational) capabilities can produce effects that are destructive for the entire civilization. Such conditions arise, for example, after the invention of weapons of mass destruction, not simply when they are invented, but when institutions and decision-making systems ensure their manufacturing and the conditions for using them. On Earth, this point was reached in the early 1960s, rather in the mid-1940s. Another possibility is the development of complex and dangerous technologies (e.g. nuclear power plants, geoengineering projects, self-replicating systems) with personnel training, funding regimes or control mechanisms that do not guarantee their safe operation. Finally, such conditions may arise when there are a large number of independent producers of technologies and products, the total effect of which on the economy, Nature and society can be destructive, but which cannot be foreseen, assessed and/or controlled. As long as society operates on a small scale, unforeseen consequences of their use can lead to local crises, as was the case regularly in the history of mankind (destruction of ecosystems, imbalances in the economies), but not to the destruction of human civilization as such. However, at some level of development, the forces in which humanity operates are capable of destroying civilization on a global scale.

The upper limit of the ‘bottleneck’ can reasonably be associated with the stage when a civilization creates first sustainable and self-sufficient colonies in space (e.g. on other planets of its system). In this case, the risks associated with the inability to manage the consequences of the use of available forces and energy, as in the early stages of civilization, will likely be localized again, and the very distances between the colonies will become a natural barrier to the catastrophe going beyond the boundaries of one colony. At this stage, the loss of the social, cultural and political homogeneity of civilization, its diversification and the growth of heterogeneity become probable, but from the point of view of space exploration, this only increases the stability of civilization.

Within this ‘bottleneck’, the risks are real, even if they result not in the destruction of civilization, but only in its degradation to the lowest levels of development, in terms of the scale of resources used. Managing complexity can indeed be a major barrier to overcoming this bottleneck. However, it may not be related to the complexity of the social system as such. The growing complexity of society is accompanied by the progress in control tools, both in a purely technological sense (from the first cybernetic systems to modern environmental monitoring systems based on the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence systems, etc.), in an intellectual sense (the emergence of scientific management, the development of operations research, modern project and risk management, etc.) and institutional sense (formation of advanced models of political governance, both democratic and authoritarian, regional regimes of international relations, international organizations and concepts of global governance). As Beniger (Reference Beniger1986) argued, the development of modern society was possible thanks to the ‘revolution of control’, that is, the development of ways of rational and formalized processing of information at various levels. Information technologies are only the tip of the iceberg, and the origins of the revolution are at the end of the 19th century and are associated with the processes of development of formal rationality and bureaucratic management systems that are well known to sociologists (Weber, Reference Weber1978).

At the same time, the very development of such control systems creates consequences that may lead to an increase in the complexity of controlled systems at a faster pace than the progress of control systems themselves. The creation of new management systems, for example, in project management, or based on artificial intelligence (AI), makes it possible to develop a fast-growing number of new products and organizational systems, to implement more complex and large-scale projects than was previously possible. Their implementation and use, in turn, create qualitative changes in the social system as a whole. A multitude of independent actors capable of accumulating and managing increasing resources create effects whose cumulative impact is unforeseen and requires the creation of new control mechanisms post factum, as happened, for example, in response to the COVID pandemic or in attempts to create rules for regulating AI after its actual entry into the mass market.

Thus, the threat to ETCs can indeed be associated with development gaps, but rather between control mechanisms and the consequences of their use than between technologies and ethical structures. Such a gap may be universal if we accept the assumption of a civilization's social heterogeneity (diversity of preferences, motives and goals), political heterogeneity (the presence of various actors or social systems capable of accumulating resources and making decisions that have a large-scale impact on society) and bounded rationality (the absence of complete information about the conditions and consequences of actions). At the ‘bottleneck’ stage, such a gap can lead to unforeseen consequences of actions or decisions, which can be destructive to civilization.

At the same time, the assertion that such a possibility is inevitable does not yet have reliable grounds, and the only fact in its favour is the apparent absence of other technologically advanced civilizations. This fact is contradicted by another fact, namely the existence of such a civilization on Earth, the fact of its ongoing development and the beginning of a new stage in space exploration, the fact of a minimal ability to respond to emerging global problems and find solutions to them, even if these solutions are far from perfect. Equally important is that the unforeseen consequences do not necessarily mean that they are harmful to survival and development. One key idea of the functional approach in sociology, mentioned above, is that unintended consequences can be functional for the social system and often lead to sustainable solutions. Social sciences show that the conditions for the maintenance and development of social systems are often the unforeseen consequences of actions, including actions taken by selfish, stupid and aggressive people. Therefore, even the ‘consequences’ approaches doesn't convincingly resolve the Fermi paradox, which remains an exceptional intellectual challenge for the social sciences.