On average, how long do you think an intelligent civilization lasts?

Question

I'm trying to estimate the average lifetime of an alien civilization...in order to figure out how many civilizations there should be in our galaxy. How long do you think they last? How long do you think our human civilization will last? Do you think we are average, above the average, or below the average lifetime?

Answer 1

So far Anatomically modern Homo sapien has existed for approximately 100,000 - 125,000 depending on the source, which represents approximately 0.002% of the Earth's timeline... Human "civilization", moreover, has only been 0.0001% of the earth's timeline (or less depending on what is termed to qualify as "civilization")...  If this 0.002%, or worse 0.0001%, ends up being our "claim to fame" as we cause our own extinction, well then I'd be willing to say that we have not even been able to achieve a below average lifetime rating!  Considering the lifetime of the universe, and the many galaxies in it are calculated to be billions of years old.  Any civilization that is, not just intelligent, but also responsible within its surroundings should last much, much longer then what humans are managing.  You would assume that intelligence and ecological responsibility should go hand in hand, but I guess Homo (upright) sapien (knowing) sapien (wise) are actually just a walking oxymoron!

Answer 2

i think we are about average on how long does the intelligent civilization last.  we are already seeing the end of our civilization. if you take a look at the mayans, the aztecs, the romans, the greeks. they all lasted about 500 years before they started to decline and let the next civilization take over. how much longer do we have before archaeologist start digging up our civilization and wondering about what we were like and trying to fit our puzzles together maybe 100 years from now? what will the next civilization be like? it's anybodies guess. kind of scary if you ask me. i'm glad i won't be here to see it. when civilizations die and new ones are born there is not a line that you can point to and say here's the new civilization and there's the old one it just happens so gradually that no one realizes that it is happening.

Answer 3

About millions of years or so...

Answer 4

In the 19th Century, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "The end of the human race will be, that it will die of too much civilization"...

Answer 5

Technically the term "intelligent civilization" is an oxymoron in my opinion. I have yet to see any civilization do anything remotely intelligent. Most of the neccessary inventions in my opinion were invented by groups that had not fallen into the trap of "civilization." It has always struck me as funny that those people supposed to be civilized never act that way towards anyone except those they consider their "peers." (Usually people with more money than them that they don't want to offend.)

Answer 6

Historically I think the max is about 500 years.

Realistically I doubt ours'll last that long.

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Answer 7

Political anthropology deals with this concept.  They don't look at it in terms of the human population though.  They divide it into civilizations.  For instance, the Mayan Civilization and the Aztec Civilization include ancestors/descendants of the other.  The civilization in Egypt today may be descendants of but are not the same civilization as that of the Pharaohs.

The longest lived civilization is China.  However, American has gone further than any other in terms of the cycles civilizations go through.  There tends to be a pattern that all civilizations go through that is kind of like a book.  It has a beginning, a building, a climax, and a short fall to the end.  They say that American has gone beyond what the climax would have been for any other civilization.  The fact that China's is longer is only because the changes were more gradual