Astrophysicist Adam Frank asks us to consider where we are on the Kardashev Scale for evaluating civilizations in the galaxy — or, at least, evaluating our own progress: Originally proposed in 1964 by Nikolai Kardashev (1932–2019) and later modified in 1973 by Carl Sagan (1934–1996), the scale measures a civilization’s technological advances from 1 to 3 (or maybe 5) by how much energy it can call upon to do things.
Currently, we are not even a Type 1 on that scale and Frank offers some thoughts on that, asking, in particular, whether such advances are universal in the galaxy anyway:
The classification scheme Kardashev used was not based on social systems of ethics because these are things that we can probably never predict about alien civilizations. Instead, it was based on energy, which is something near and dear to the heart of anyone trained in physics. Energy use might provide the basis for universal stages of civilization evolution because you cannot do the work of building a civilization without using energy. So, Kardashev looked at what energy sources were available to civilizations as they progressed technologically and used those to build his scale.
Adam Frank, “Humanity is not even a Type 1 civilization. What would a Type 3 be capable of?” at Big Think (February 17, 2022)
We would be a Type 1 civilization if we could capture all the energy resources of our home planet, a Type 2 if we could similarly use our home star, and Type 3 if we could use the resources of our home galaxy. Greater feats are envisioned at even higher levels — for example, creating new universes.
Frank, however, sticks with the new galaxies in our existing universe: “And once we get to Type 3 civilizations, we are almost thinking about gods with the capacity to engineer entire galaxies.” He finds the prospect exhilarating:
Exhilarating to say the least. To read more, click here.