My thoughts on the Kardashev scale?

As of now, our civilization is a Type 0 or lower on the Kardashev scale, and I am saying lower because we haven't even got a firm grasp on our technological advances.

For reference,

• A Type I civilization also called a planetary civilization—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.
• A Type II civilization also called a stellar civilization—can use and control energy at the scale of its solar system.
• A Type III civilization also called a galactic civilization—can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy.
• A Type IV civilization also called a universal civilization—can harness the energy from the known universe.
• A Type V civilization also called a multi-universal civilization—has knowledge of the multiverse.

We aren’t anywhere close to even the hypothetical Type 0, which is proposed to be a control of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.

So, nothing on the scale is really of any use to me, as I highly doubt that we will make any advances on this scale during my lifetime. So I don’t really concern myself with these, as I feel, useless predictions. Although they are useful for cosmological predictions and so forth, personally I find it not really important.

Yet.

If we do someday manage to advance on this scale, at that point, reaching a level 2 or level 3 society, most likely humans will be either gone or have merged with technology to create techno-organic being. At that point this scale will become of relevance and importance for humanity to set their future goals.

But that day is not today. For now, let us focus on creating larger and thinner phones. Because that, of course, is more important.

Earth would be long gone irrelevant.

At this point, Earth can be many things, if it would exist at all.

It can be this:

It can be this:

It can even be this:

Or it would not exist at all.

Firstly, we need to consider: What is a Type IV civilization?
Type IV civilization is a civilization that can harness the energy of its home universe, meaning, the entire civilization would have control over its home universe and be able to extract energy from it.
Earth, if it exists at all, could be literally anything, we would have no home planet as basically all planets would be our home in a way.

In my opinion though, Type IV civilization is nigh-unachievable, both in theory and in practice.
Mainly due to the reason of potential fragmentation due to the distance between galaxies, resulting in isolation, communication would also break because of the sheer distance and the size of the universe, even when going FTL (faster-than-light), plus, counting the fact that the universe is still expanding, the civilization would then become unsustainable, which would result in the pushback of the civilization into multiple Type III civilizations that are located in their galaxies or groups of galaxies and start acting on their own.

Type 4 is beyond insane.

“Type 4 and 5 Kardashev Rating: The most straightforward extension of the scale to even more hypothetical Type IV beings who can control or use the entire universe or Type V who control collections of universes. The power output of the visible universe is within a few orders of magnitude of 10(to 45)W. Such a civilization approaches or surpasses the limits of speculation based on current scientific understanding, and may not be possible.”

They would build Dyson Spheres just for the hell of it. You’d need to mine at least 100 solar systems to their bones, but why not… They’d rearrange galaxies to make them pretty…

One could argue, that if Type 3 controls their home galaxy, type 4 should control a cluster, or supercluster, but whatever… It is crazy one way or another.

If humanity were to reach Type 4 (or even 3), Earth would be a Universal Preserve full of old, restored cities and technology. So that the humans can see how their primitive ancestors used to live, where they came from.

Our future selves would probably stop the Sun from expanding, and rearanged the continents back to the original configuration in which they were, back when humans used to live on it. Why? Because they can. Also, because “It is our duty to preserve history!”

And Humans and other species alike would come from all around the universe, to see where did the current masters of all creation come from. They would look upon our mighty cities, and our supersonic jets in awe. Not understanding how we managed to survive in such harsh conditions.

For, by the time Type 4 civilisation rolls around, living on planets will be passé. I mean, you could still do it if you wanted to, but why would you? You can still live in a cave, but you won’t.

Our modernest technology. The Gerald Ford Class:

The Gigafactory, building that doubled the global production of batteries:

Our mind-controlled prosthetics:

They would look at the dig sites and restorations, and see what we now see in this:

Or, depending on how fast the evolution will move in the future, perhaps not even that. Something more along the lines of:

And they would think “Oh, those cheeky monkeys. Weren’t they so clever, using *insert any currently modern technology to replace stick for eating ants.*”

Except, they would hardly speak English. Or speak, at all. Hell, if the future-humanity controls the universe, they might not even have physical bodies anymore. Or they do, just for funzies. And when it dies on them, they just get a new one.

So, what would the Earth look like?

Like this

Only with floating holographic border that reads, in a scrolling text:

“…Do not litter... Leave the place in better condition than you found it… Enjoy your stay!…”

Do you want to know more?

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The Kardashev Scale is a scale that measures how much power a hypothetical civilization uses.

It was made by a Russian scientist, who wanted to find extraterrestrial life.

Basically, the scale calculates the amount of energy a civilization uses and what that means for anyone that manipulates that energy.

For example, a Type 1 Civilization uses up a large amount of energy, around 10^16 Watts. To put this into perspective, as of today, Earth uses an energy count of 10^12 Watts, so a Type 1 civilization uses 10,000 times more energy than Earth uses.

For this to work, it would need to be able to convert all the energy that it gets from its parent star into energy that it can use (or do something equal to that, like nuclear fusion).

What would this civilization do? This civilization would be able to control its homeworld easily. It would be able to manipulate its weather and even its geological activity. It would utilize the power of renewable resources, nuclear fission/fusion, and perhaps antimatter. My suspicion is that this civilization would also have colonies in other worlds within its solar system as well, and perhaps even be able to travel at low relativistic velocities, i.e. 10% to 20% the speed of light, with ease.

This is pretty darn hard to imagine, and it’s so powerful that humanity will reach this civilization in 100 to 200 years…so we have a while.

A Type 2 civilization would use an energy count of 10^26 Watts. This means that it wouldn’t just be able to use starlight to power itself, the civilization would also be able to manipulate its star too, and perhaps move planets altogether.

This civilization would have to build a “Dyson Sphere” or a “Dyson Net,” where it builds lots of satellites that surround the solar system to catch the star’s rays, in order to power this civilization.

This civilization would have colonies on every planet in its solar system, in addition to having ships that could go close to the speed of light.

We’ll probably reach this level in 1,000 years or so.

A Type 3 would be even more powerful, using about 10^36 Watts of energy. To put this into perspective, to get this kind of energy, imagine that a civilization would need to use every star in its galaxy to power itself. That’s immense.

This civilization would essentially install Dyson Spheres everywhere. In addition to conquering every solar system, colonies would probably be on most of the planets in the galaxy. It would be immense.

This civilization would be able to travel at warp speeds (i.e., it would be able to exceed the speed of light, using something like “Warp Drive”).

It could weaponize stars and planets and perhaps generate weapons that could blow up solar systems. Quite simply, it would be a god-like civilization.

We’ll likely be here in 100,000 years or so.

A Type 4? Well, Kardashev never went this far, as he thought that it would be too advanced. But some speculate that, in order to be a Type 4, the civilization would need the power output of the entire universe.

What would it do? Probably travel at warp speeds with ease, be able to destroy galaxies on a whim, do god-like things in general.

In short, a Type 4 would be a civilization of gods. The species that becomes a Type 4 would not be the same species as the species of Type 1, 2, or 3, as that civilization would need to adapt to the changing universe.

In short, don’t piss off a Type 4 civilization (or even a Type 1).

The Kardashev Scale - Type I, II, III, IV & V Civilization

Kardashev scale - Wikipedia

Will Humans Achieve a Type 1 Civilization by 2100? - h+ Media

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/this-mind-bending-scale-predicts-the-power-of-advanced-civilizations

It’s very possible if we first make it to K1. First you have to understand that a K2 civilization isn’t necessarily harnessing all the power from our sun. Instead, it’s the ability to use approximately that much power no matter where it comes from. Some futurists believe that the journey from K1 to K2 is fairly short. The reason is because of the seemingly high probability of following Freeman Dyson’s model of future development.

At this point I want to tell you that Freeman Dyson just died on February 28, 2020. This man was a giant of science. Many formulas and methods used in physics bear his name. He was one of the 20th Century’s top physicists and he never had more than a bachelor degree, though I think he may have been given several honorary degrees for all his work.

Dyson believed that people would soon move out into space and live there rather than on planets because it’s so much easier than colonizing other worlds and there are so many benefits. This would cause a population explosion. And as the number of mostly solar-powered space habitats reached the millions, they would begin to form a “swarm” around the sun. Thus the sun would begin to dim to those watching from outside our solar system. The problem of doing this would be “waste heat”. To deal with this, all the habitats would emit energy in the infrared spectrum. The result would be a dimming sun with its overall spectrum heavily shifted to the infrared.

Today, many researchers looking for extraterritorial intelligent life are looking for just such stars that dim and shift to the infrared. That would be a sign of an intelligent alien species reaching K2. And for us here on Earth today, going from our previous civilization to one described by Dyson is only a matter of a few thousand years.

I hope this answers your question. And in doing so, I hope you remember this great man that just died, Freeman Dyson.

The Kardashev Scale isn't all that useful beyond a very general categorization of civilizations. It can be used to describe the general size of a civilization based on power consumption, but beyond that it's of very limited usefulness.

A Type I civilization can consume as much power as their planet receives from the sun. The implication of that is, that the civilization has mastered their home planet and has a growing presence in space. They would have a population of several hundred billion or even a trillion people.

A Type II civilization can consume as much power as their parent star produces. The implication of that is, that the civilization has mastered their solar system, expect them to have constructed a Dyson Swarm dense enough to harness most of the energy of their star, and having established some colonies at nearby stars. They would have a population of hundreds of quadrillions or even a quintillion people. Expect them to have mastered nuclear fusion as a power source, and AI capable of automatic construction and mining.

A Type III civilization can consume as much energy as their home galaxy produces. They would have mastered their galaxy and likely have begun to spread to other galaxies. They would have built a Dyson Swarm around every single star in the galaxy and have the population to match that, essentially about 100 billion times that of a Type II. This is only really possible if FTL travel is possible, otherwise it would merely be a collection of Type II civilizations, not a singular Type III.

All in all, if you want a general sense for how big a civilization is, then the Kardashev Scale is useful, but it really wouldn't tell you much more than a very general idea.

Forget visions of gleaming Dyson spheres and gleaming star-spanning empires—becoming a Type I civilization on the Kardashev scale is less about shiny sci-fi toys and more about a messy, complicated, and frankly unglamorous revolution around energy and how we relate to this planet.

Think less Elon Musk, and more...well, the unglamorous work of thousands of less-famous scientists and engineers.

We need a fundamental shift from our current energy paradigm.

Our addiction to fossil fuels, those dirty little security blankets, has to end.

That means mass deployment of solar, wind, and geothermal energy, yes, but it also means potentially uncomfortable options like large-scale nuclear and, way off in the future, perhaps truly viable fusion power.

But production alone isn't enough—we need to figure out storage on a scale we can't currently fathom.

Entire cities need to be powered by batteries no one has even designed yet.

And alongside energy creation, we have to master planet-wide resource management. A Type I civilization doesn't strip-mine its world bare.

It means closed-loop systems, aggressive recycling on a mass scale, and yes, looking beyond Earth with serious programs in asteroid mining to reduce our reliance on plundering our home.

Geoengineering enters the picture as well.

Imagine not just predicting, but mitigating hurricanes, or nudging the climate away from disaster zones.

It's power on a scale that raises profound ethical questions about who controls the metaphorical levers.

Lastly, all this assumes a kind of global cooperation we seem incapable of right now.

A Type I civilization can't be built with nations squabbling over dwindling resources and pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor energy policies.

It demands a degree of collaboration and unified intent we frankly may lack the maturity for.

I don't think it's that accurate. It's based on too many assumptions.

It was brought up by Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964, and he classified civilizations into three types:

- Type I: A civilization that can use all the energy available on its home planet.

- Type II: A civilization that can use all the energy available from its home star, by building something like a Dyson sphere around it.

- Type III: A civilization that can use all the energy available from its home galaxy.

The kardashev scale is not very accurate. Why?

Because it makes a lot of assumptions and simplifications that may not reflect the reality of different civilizations. For example:

- It assumes that energy consumption is the only indicator of advancement, but what about other factors like culture, science, art, ethics, etc.?

- It assumes that energy consumption is linear and proportional to population, but what if some civilizations are more efficient or wasteful than others?

- It assumes that energy consumption is constant and predictable, but what if some civilizations have fluctuations or surprises in their energy needs or sources?

- It assumes that all civilizations follow the same path of development, but what if some civilizations have different goals or preferences for their energy use?

Some people adamantly believe in the scale.

To some of the staunch believers, we are somewhere between Type 0 and Type I. We can use some of the energy available on our planet, but not all of it.

We can also use some of the energy available from our star, but not directly. We rely mostly on fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable sources like solar and wind.

But here's the interesting part: some researchers have used machine learning to forecast the progression of human civilization on the kardashev scale through 2060.

They used data from various sources like GDP, population, energy consumption, etc., and trained a model to predict how much energy we will be able to use in the future.

Their results suggest that we will reach Type I status by 2050, and Type II status by 2060.

Verdict:

The kardashev scale is a useful tool for thinking about how advanced a civilization is based on how much energy it can use. But it's not very accurate or realistic. It doesn't capture all the aspects and nuances of different civilizations. And it doesn't tell us what we should do or where we should go with our energy use.

I hope this answers your question

There are many.

Imagine being able to rearrange matter by fudging with the subatomic particles, this should give an idea of where this scale suggests we go as we advance as a civilization/species.

John D. Barrow, going by the fact that humans have found it more cost-effective to extend any abilities to manipulate their environment over increasingly smaller dimensions rather than increasingly larger ones, reverses the classification downward from Type I-minus to Type Omega-minus…

Footnotes

I don’t think it is less likely

It can be however less detectable to the less advanced civilization

You see - someone has asked how often you want to interect with ant colony…

Most of people - do not often.

Unless their home is infested…

Then interaction is rather violent from ants’ point of view.

Thankfully it doesn’t seem any advanced civilisation considers us pests… sofar

But you have also people who interact with ants in a non-violent manner, the Myrmecologists

But how much ants understand they are observed by myrmecologists? Subjected to study?

How could they read what people wrote about them?

Ants communicate (probably - we aren’t so sure) through pheromones

From their perspective we… may not be sentient

And I suppose some of ant colonies do not realize they live in something made by men

Lets talk about another arthropode…

Rollie-pollie!

They are totally harmless and most of people living in the same climate as them knows it

Some even (my not-so-humble-self included) consider them sympathetic

Yet even those people can burn pile of wood rollies-pollies consider their home

Not out of any hostile intentions towards rollie-pollies. Myself, if I see a rollie-pllie on a piece of wood that will go to my furance I’ll gently take it, and throw it far away. I really like rollie-pollies.

[…and I’m not alone… I’m pretty sure Miyazaki thought about rollie-pollies designing hism ohmuu]

Yet even I will not think about compensating rollie-pollies for what I have done with wood they lived on. Or to meticulously search every single piece of wood to assure I’ll not accidentally hurt any rollie-pollie… And rollie-pollies are not capable of taking cognizance of the fact that this wood have been cut by humans who intend it to be burnt. The ideas of property, intentionally causing a fire and storing wood in order to subsist it in a foreseeable future, ideas understandable for our preschoolers - are beyond nice arthropode’s comprehension… If it was otherwise I would have been very happy being able to explain them to rollie-pollies Or even etsbalish an asymetric trade with them [1]…

Now lets assume whole our Universe was made by Kardashev VI or VII civilization…

If they do interact with us we may take it for sth. natural, not as an interaction with any civilization but with universe itself

Or sth. Supernatural, godly

8 For My Thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and My Thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55)

Either way we most likely wouldn’t seem such an interaction as an interaction with sentient civilization that was once (probably before millions [2] years or more) similar to us

Myrmecologists seem to be much above ants in terms of intelligence. But I doubt whether they could explain to ants their motives, without altering ants so much that they would be no longer ants but some kind of sentient uplifted species

Anyway explaining to ants our motives is much more difficult to us than studying them with technology that most likely surpasses their comprehension so far as Kardashev 3 or 4 civ (given it exist…), surpasses our ability to comprehend things

[1] That’s an interesting question. If insects or other atrhopodes were sentient (but dumber and less technologically advanced than us,lets say they would have bben as smart as typical 5-years old kid) and we could easily communicate with them… what would we trade with them? A kilogram of sugar I have seems to be a treasure for an ant colony, and relatively cheap item for me… But what would I demand in exchange? IN European fairy-tales there is a popular trope of a protagonist using help of ants to sort some items apart (like to find on gran of barley in a heap of wheat, ro something… But in real life such task is usually pointless… But maybe I could make an ant colony watch for some belongings of mine, like keys? But then I would have had to explain the ants that this piece of metal is special, and that it is shaped like this… Also even in that case I’m usnure whether a sentient ant colony could find my keyes sooner than I’ll do it myself. Individual ants are slower than me and transactional cost of communicating my offer to whole colony would have been rather high…

[2] If we assume that our universe has been created by some Kardashev VII civilization that civilization is then older than our universe… Also in the native universe of that civilization time could possibly flow in different manner… Maybe they are even f***ng timeless! Whatever it may mean because it is f***ng beyond my comprehension. And it blurs a border between quantum physics and theology… BTW if quantum physics was taught at seminaries it might give priests some intellectual upper hand in debate with most of atheists… Sadly Catholic church now is more about feelings than about reasoning… And the legacy of Roger Bacon OFM seems forgotten :( Both God and the rules quantum physics seem to me to be beyond human comprehension… Thus actually teaching physics in seminars seems a nice idea…

Source: https://www.wallpaperflare.com/remember-me-concept-art-science-fiction-futuristic-city-wallpaper-uurld

This answer will be broken up into three sections in order to cover this question in the most concise way possible.

1. What is the Kardashev Scale?
2. What are the different types of civilizations talked about in the Kardashev Scale?
3. Is Earth a Type 1 civilization? If not, when will it become one?

What is the Kardashev Scale?

It’s a method used to measure a civilization’s level of technological prowess by their energy consumption and manipulation. It was created by a Soviet astronomer by the name of Nikolai Kardashev.

It should be noted that this method was expanded upon by other individuals. Carl Sagan proposed a formula one could use to measure a hypothetical civilization’s Kardashev rating.

This is that formula.

What are the different types of civilizations talked about in the Kardashev Scale?

There are technically three types of civilizations listed within the scale.

Type 1: Planetary, where they control all the energy on their own planet.

Type 2: Stellar, where they control all the energy in their own solar system.

Type 3: Galactic, where they control all the energy in their own galaxy.

However, as I said above, the Kardashev Scale has been adopted and changed around a bit. There are extended types of civilizations on the scale.

Source: Kardashev scale for evaluating a civilization - ASRMETA

This will now lead to my final section of my answer.

Is Earth a Type 1 civilization? If not, when will it become one?

The answer to the first part is no.

Based on our energy use, in 1973 astronomer Carl Sagan estimated that Earth represented a Type 0.7 civilization, more current assessments put us at about 0.72.

Source: The Kardashev Scale Type 0: Why Earth is a Level Zero Civilization

So we would fit into the Type 0 category of the extended Kardashev Scale. This makes sense as we don’t have full control over our own planet yet. Stuff like manipulating the weather or changing the geological makeup of our world is stuff a Type 1 civilization should be able to do. We are still in a technological adolescent age.

However, chronologically speaking, we aren’t too far off. We can increase our ratings by increasing our energy supply.

Every time we build a new power plant, we move a bit up the scale. It's a big scale, though: we move up by 0.01, so from 0.72 to 0.73, every time we increase our total energy supply by another 26%, which we do roughly every 5 years or so.

Source: Kardashev Scale: What is it and where is Earth listed?

NASA has also estimated that we’ll hit Type 1 status by 2371. Although that sounds like a far away time, bare in mind, humanity hasn’t been around for that long. So it’s actually pretty impressive if you ask me.

Sorry Humans But You Won’t Even Become A ‘Type 1’ Civilisation Until The Year 2371 Say Scientists

In conclusion, I hope I answered you question throughly. Other than that, I’m out. See ya ✌🏻

It has been estimated that there may be as many as 40 billion planets that could harbor life in the Milky Way, our galaxy. There are also at least 2 trillion galaxies like the Milky Way within the observable Universe.

Given these massive and nearly infinite numbers, it seems impossible that there is no other intelligent life in the Universe. Moreover, our civilization may not have been the first intelligent civilization in the Universe.

Lately, the question has shifted more from "Do aliens exist?" to "How can we find aliens?". Of the countless possible alien civilizations, some could have existed for millions, hundreds of millions, or even billions of years. It would be hard for us to imagine their level of science and technology.

A Russian astronomer named Nikolai Kardashev had thought the same thing. He postulated that there could be extraterrestrial civilizations thousands or even tens of billions of years old, and with that idea he began to rank civilizations by their level of technological advancement.

Kardashev decided that regardless of the type of alien, what it looks like or what it eats, a civilization would need energy above all else to develop.

Of course, energy is necessary to sustain life, but the development of science and technology also requires enormous amounts of energy. A civilization that produces more energy could be classified as a more advanced type of civilization.

Kardashev then quantified the amount of energy consumed by the civilization and used it as an indicator to classify possible extraterrestrial civilizations. On that scale, the type of civilization is determined by the amount of energy produced per second. This method of classification is today called the Kardashev scale.

Kardashev himself defined only three types of civilizations (Type I through Type III), but this has been extended to Type VII by later researchers. Let us consider what each type of civilization might look like.

Type 0

A Type 0 civilization uses the natural resources of its planet for energy. A somewhat more advanced Type 0 civilization would also use resources other than trees, such as coal, oil, or natural gas. One of the characteristics of a type 0 civilization is that it either has not developed propulsion technology, or it generates energy for its propellants by burning chemical fuel. A type 0 civilization could be described as a "baby" civilization in the grand scheme of alien civilizations.

Type I

A type I civilization produces at least ten to the sixteenth watt power of energy per second.

According to astronomer Carl Sagan's method of calculation, our global civilization in 2018 would be at level 0.72 on the Kardashev scale, based on the total amount of energy we consume. It would take a tenfold increase in the amount of energy to advance 0.1 points on this scale. Therefore, we can estimate that it will take our civilization between 100 and 200 years to move from a level of 0.72 to 1.0.

A type I civilization is also called a "planetary civilization". A planetary civilization does not depend on natural resources such as coal or oil. Instead, its main source of energy would be nuclear energy.

Although our current civilization at level 0.72 makes use of nuclear power plants to convert nuclear energy into electricity, these plants obtain energy through nuclear fission. But nuclear fission is not ideal, as it has a low energy conversion rate, generates radioactive waste, and carries a high risk of nuclear accidents. A type I civilization would instead use nuclear fusion.

It is thanks to nuclear fusion that our sun has continued to burn for billions of years. If we could develop the capability to make use of nuclear fusion, we could obtain clean, safe, and almost unlimited nuclear energy. The propellants used in a Type I civilization would be powered primarily by nuclear energy.

Once we become a Type I civilization, we will be able to send manned spacecraft to almost any planet in the solar system. Our advanced science and technology would eliminate cancer and other incurable diseases caused by viruses and infections, and advances in regenerative medicine would allow us to regenerate any organ. This would dramatically increase our average lifespan. We would be able to live in the sea and in the clouds, as well as on land.

It would take an estimated 3,000 years to go from an early Type I civilization to an advanced Type I civilization.

Type II

A Type II civilization is also called a "stellar civilization". The main source of energy for a Type II civilization would be nearby stars.

Once a civilization reaches the final stages of Type I, the energy generated through artificial nuclear fusion on a planetary scale is no longer sufficient for advances in science and technology. The most efficient and realistic means of obtaining energy would be to take it from nearby stars.

Freeman Dyson, a theoretical physicist and contemporary of Albert Einstein, originated the concept of an artificial structure called the "Dyson sphere". He conjectured that, as civilization developed, it would eventually be able to draw energy from nearby stars. One way to do this would be to use a so-called Dyson sphere, a kind of shell built around a star. A Dyson sphere could be used to get most of the energy released by the star it covers.

However, it would be inefficient and unrealistic to completely cover a star with such a sphere, and other more realistic structures have been proposed, such as a Dyson ring installed around a star, or a Dyson swarm made up of multiple Dyson rings.

Once our civilization can reach Type II, we will no longer suffer from energy-related problems in practical life. This will also eliminate poverty forever.

We would be able to travel and return freely to any planet in the solar system, and we would take our first real steps toward space colonization. In the field of life sciences, our regenerative medicine technology would reach the genetic level and we would be able to regenerate any part of the body.

At the current rate, it is said that our civilization will become a Type II civilization within 100,000 to 1,000,000 years.

Type III

A Type III civilization is also called a "galactic civilization." A Type III civilization would obtain energy using methods like those of a Type II civilization. However, they collect energy from stars throughout the galaxy. A Type III civilization would also see the first use of antigravity devices. Antigravity technology would be used not only for vehicles, but on an astronomical scale, even to move planets.

A Type III civilization could also use wormholes to move around the galaxy but would not yet be able to create wormholes.

Type III life forms would have already extended their lifespan to the biological maximum possible for their species, so the field of life sciences would have reached its end point. The next goal of such a civilization would be to surpass its natural lifespan by extracting consciousness from the flesh achieving immortality. However, this would not be possible for a type III civilization.

Although Kardashev believed that this was the pinnacle of civilization, and that further development would not be possible, other scientists have argued that even more advanced civilizations could exist.

Type IV

A Type IV civilization is also called a "universal civilization". Although a Type III civilization can use wormholes to move about the galaxy, it is dependent on wormholes that already exist. To move freely through the galaxy, a civilization would have to be able to create its own wormholes. However, there is not enough energy in the galaxy to maintain the artificial wormholes.

This is when a civilization will take its first steps to become Type IV. The main source of energy for a Type IV civilization would be supernovae. Supernovae are massive explosions caused during the final stage of a massive star's life. A supernova causes a concentrated and intense release of energy near the star. This would serve as an extremely efficient energy source, as it would generate an amount of energy equivalent to the amount of energy stored and released by the star throughout its lifetime.

A supernova occurs approximately once every 40 years in a single galaxy, so a Type IV civilization would travel across multiple galaxies to gather this energy.

Once a civilization reaches this level, it would eventually be able to extract consciousness from flesh and achieve immortality. It would also be possible to create intelligent life, and many type 0 civilizations may have been created by type IV civilizations. Many of the gods and creators that appear in our myths and religions represent type IV life forms. However, a type IV civilization is neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but they have advanced to the point of realizing an important truth: the theory of multiple Universes, the Multiverse, is true. There are other Universes beyond our own.

Type V

A Type V civilization is also called a "multiversal civilization." Once a civilization realizes that the theory of multiple Universes is true and manages to reach other Universes, it will become a multiversal civilization. It would take an unimaginable amount of energy to reach other Universes. That is why a V-type civilization would start looking for energy in white holes.

A white hole is an astronomical body that keeps releasing matter and energy and is the opposite of a black hole. The existence of white holes was predicted using solutions to Einstein's field equations. Although they now exist only theoretically for us, a V-type civilization would have discovered the existence of white holes and would be able to derive energy from them.

It has been calculated that a single white hole would release an amount of energy equivalent to about 14 million times that of the entire galaxy. A Type V civilization would be harvesting energy from the white holes of one Universe, to open the door to other Universes. Certainly, they would believe they had reached the pinnacle of civilization, but they would soon arrive at a new truth. They master three-dimensional existence, but life also exists in higher dimensions.

Type VI

A type VI civilization is also called a "multidimensional civilization". Once a. civilization realizes that life exists in dimensions beyond the third dimension, it will have taken the first steps toward becoming a multidimensional civilization.

Even if we could somehow enter a four or five-dimensional reality, our three-dimensional bodies could be destroyed the instant we enter it. However, this would not be a problem for type VI life forms, who have already discarded their bodies and exist as pure consciousness.

The problem for them would be obtaining enough energy to enter a higher dimension. They could tap into the almost limitless energy collected in the white holes of various Universes to enter higher dimensions.

Entering a single higher dimension would increase by many orders of magnitude what can be accomplished. For example, such a civilization could freely travel backward and forward in time, overcome the law of cause and effect, reverse entropy, and become truly omniscient and omnipotent. But they would soon come to a new understanding. If Type 0 civilizations were created by civilizations like ours, then who created us and our reality?

Type VII

A Type VII civilization is also called a "creator civilization." Unfortunately, a civilization cannot develop beyond a multidimensional Type VI civilization. A Type VI civilization would realize that a creator civilization exists, but it could not become a Type VII civilization no matter how hard it tried.

The creator civilization is not really a civilization, by its very nature it would have to be a single Being or perhaps Existence Itself. The Creator of all matter, energy, natural and unnatural laws, space, time, and dimensions exists at this level. He would not even be a god but the God of gods, the Absolute Ruler of the Omniverse, i.e. of all that was, is or ever will be. And this is very much like the religious idea of the Supreme Being. But with our present level of 0.72, we cannot even remotely conceive what the existence of Type VII would be like.

It works by measuring the energy consumption of a civilization.

A Type 1 civilization (planetary civilization) utilizes all the energy available on a planet, which is effectively the amount of sunlight the planet can absorb from the sun. A modified version of the scale put a number to that, it's on the order of magnitude [math]10^{17}W[/math].

A Type 2 civilization (stellar civilization) utilizes all the energy output of a star. The typical way people think this would be achieved is by building a stellar engine, such as a Dyson Swarm (aka a more realistic Dyson Sphere) or a Matrioshka Brain. Such a civilization would be expected to use on the order of magnitude of [math]10^{26}W[/math].

A Type 3 civilization (galactic civilization) utilizes all the energy produced in an entire galaxy. Effectively they would have built a stellar engine around every star in the galaxy. Such a civilization would be expected to utilize on the order of magnitude of [math]10^{37}W[/math].

That's the end of the original Kardashev Scale. Type 4 (universal civilization), and higher ones have been proposed, but they are progressively more divorced from science, entering deep into the realm of speculative fiction.

The Kardashev Scale is quite simple. It contains only one variable, energy usage.

Everything else is optional and variable.

Originally the scale was descriptive. A K1 used all the energy available on its home planet, a K2, all from its home star, a K3, it’s home galaxy.

Of course this runs into a problem in that different planets, stars, and galaxies have vastly different energy availability, so eventually the K scale was quantified.

Using the total energy in sunlight received by the Earth (1.7 x 10^17 watts) and the total energy output of the sun (3.8 x 10^26 watts) as benchmarks, K1 was set to an energy threshold of 10^16 watts and a K2 to 10^26 watts. A K3 was then set to 10^36 watts, or the equivalent of the total energy of 100 billion sun-like stars, to keep the scaling equivalent.

(Note that on this modified scale humanity would not have to exploit ALL the energy of the Earth to get to K1 or ALL the energy of the Sun to get to K2, as both the Earth and Sun have energy fluxes slightly greater than the actual thresholds)

However, the scale is mute on how a civilization can achieve these thresholds. As a result we can have quite a wide variety of civilizations with very different levels of technological capability occupying the same K scale level.

One can reach K1 by turning your home planet into a full eucomenopolis, but you can also do it by settling 5 planets in your solar system and exploiting each to just 20%. Or you could have an interstellar empire with 100 worlds, each with a population of 5 billion and built up as much as modern day Earth, and you would only just make it to K1.

Likewise a civilization can become a K2 by building a full Dyson Swarm around a single star, or colonizing thousands of stars and exploiting each to just 0.1% of its full output.

In theory you can reach even K3 status with no technology more sophisticated that wood stoves. You just need to grow big enough to have enough of those stoves!

In practice, of course, you can never grow that large without spreading into space, but basically, once you have the threshold technologies needed to colonize off your home planet, you do not need to advance any further to reach all levels of the K scale. You just need to grow and spread until your total energy usage adds up.

Basically this means you need to have automation technology sophisticated enough to build on planetary scales in reasonable time frames, the ability to make mirror/solar collector satellites, and the computing power to coordinate the orbits of swarms of them numbering in the billions. Or equivalent alternative technologies.

But once you have that, the sky’s the limit.

The Kardashev scale is a logarithmic scale (like the Richter scale for earthquakes) of the power a civilization can use. Each step is about a 10 billion (10^10) times more power than the step before.

It has been estimated that humanity is at about 0.7 on the scale (far below control of even all the solar power landing on earth).

Related answers to :

• When do you think humanity will become a Type 1 civilization?
• Is it possible to control the Sun by technology?

In a web search on “scale for human advancement” 9 first page hits come up:

• 7 of them are the Kardashev scale
• 1 is a compendium of various things such as Moore’s Law, Ray Kurzweil’s time until Singularity (robots take over), and a list of “factors” that Michael Soareverix uses to calculate that we are 41.5% of the way toward an ideal civilization (I’d have put it a lot lower).
• The last is a list of “Technological Achievement Tiers” for the Halo video game series. It is worth checking out. It is better than Kardashev. Only trouble is, the two more advanced tiers involve what we suspect to be impossibilities. The Kardashev scale is absurd, but does not explicitly call for faster than light travel. The final tier, which was merely “speculated” by the “Forerunners,” because no one had ever seen one, is “ It is suspected that they can travel across galaxies and accelerate the evolution of intelligent life.” The Forerunners themselves are “World Builders”.

It seems that people concerned with something other than energy do not spend much time thinking about massive human progress. They do spend a lot of time thinking about retarding it, keeping us about where we’re at on one pretext or another.

Consider what one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time had to say about this. Isaac Asimov had not one but two major plots around destruction of an existing world order in stasis in order for humankind to progress:

• First humans invent time travel and become obsessed with tweaking their society to perfection while other species take over the galaxy. Some far future humans, confronting the galactic dilemma, engineer through romantic intrigue an alliance with one of the time technicians to destroy time travel itself, selecting a timeline in which time travel never exists, and the universe is open to human adventure.
• Second most humans have gone into vast underground cities on Earth in a near-utopian society which wants nothing to do with space travel. About 20 spacer worlds are dying. But humans have invented robots and entrusted them with their care-taking. One of the robots realizes that the 2nd law, that he should not through inaction allow humans to come to harm, means he has to take action to undermine the viability of Earth so that all the humans will leave. This sets the stage for the Empire series, in which the location and even existence of Earth is unknown and shrouded in mystery. But humans inherit the stars.

What level civilization is the reach from DC (Kardashev scale)?

The Reach? Oh yeah!

The Reach are a villainous race of cybernetic insectoid aliens in the DC Comics universe. They are unintentionally responsible for the creation of the dynasty of super heroes known as the Blue Beetles.

I’d say they are a Type IV civilization in The DC Universe.

Unless FTL travel turns out to be possible, no I don't. That doesn't mean that it's impossible for humanity's descendents to colonize the entire galaxy and build a Dyson Swarm around every single star. That may well be possible without FTL. But even if we did that, it would be a collection of Type 2 civilizations, not a Type 3.

The problem is, that given the huge distances involved, contact between the individual systems would be very limited, there would be little trade even among close neighbours, the inhabitants of those systems would genetically diverge to the point that they're no longer the same species. And culturally they would diverge even faster. The individual systems simply would form their own civilization, instead of forming one galaxy spanning civilization.

They may have the same origin in the distant past, but the same was true for the ancient Chinese and ancient Greek civilizations, except the differences would be even more pronounced. You can't consider those ancient civilizations as one, and neither could you consider those hypothetical future civilizations to be one civilization.

Here it is explained in a short comic form from Futurism:

It's a thought experiment, to understand and apply a name to the wildest possible scale we in our current position can imagine.

Is it possible?

Type 1 - yes with our current understanding of physics we could potentially capture all of the energy that falls to earth from the sun.

We can't afford it politically or resources. But if the world could come together politically we could build and harvest enough resources to do it

Type 2 capture all the energy of a star?

Yes-ish we don't have currently have the materials science to build a sphere, but we do have the science to understand what it would take. There's no reason to think that in the future we couldn't do this IF we desired, so it's possible that another civilisation has done this.

Type 3 capture all energy output of a Galaxy?

Technically once you hit level 2, level 3 is just a matter of scale and time.

Type 4 capture all energy of a universe?

This is getting a bit more scary. We don't fully understand our universe, it could be that it's one of many, if so it's possible that it could be “popped” collapsed, or combusted to fuel some project for our type4 civilisation…

Personally I suspect that there is likely more Type 0.x like ourselves and maybe some 1.x and 2.x civilisations out there. If there was a Type 3/4 in our universe then we'd probably already been toast.

A 0.9 civilisation could be very advanced and quite possibly be an interstellar travelling race. Most of the races in Startek would fall into this category. Harnessing huge amounts of power but still not the full output of a single star in one place.

Bullshit.

As is often the case, it starts out with a basic assumption, in this case that extraterrestrial life would evolve along the same lines as humans did.

Suppose, for example, that we have an alien life form consisting of plants with a hive mind. Their basic requirements when it comes energy requirements would be radically different.

Having their roots (feet) in the moist soil and their faces (?) in the sun might be enough to fulfill their daily requirements. No industrial base, no houses, no agricultural economy, nothing like earth.

But WITH a hive mind resulting in a massive intellectual capability. Space exploration in this case might consist of a limited industrial base, just enough to send robot probes out.

Similarly, research facilities might be very limited in scope but highly specialized (no countries, no wars, no quarrels).

Such a society would hardly be using any natural resources or energy at all.

I would say no, for two reasons.

First it isn’t inclusive. That is to say, it is about energy capture … it says nothing about the production of ideas, how that energy is used to make things, how comfortable people are, the overall happiness of societies, etc. (and before someone tells you that we can’t or don’t even try to measure these things, that’s not true … we have all sorts of scales for pain, happiness, contentment, etc.)

Second it doesn’t scale particularly well to where we are right now. There isn’t a measure for capturing all the energy for a single continent (however you want to define THAT) let alone the more practical country level. We could use percentages of a K1 civilization but even that isn’t a good metric.

From How much power does the sun give us? … “ about 1.74 x 10^17 watts strikes the earth. (ie: 174,000,000,000,000,000, or 174 quadrillion watts).” … from How much renewable energy does the world use … “in 2013, equivalent to about 18.0 terawatt-hour (TWh)” … from Kilowatt hour - Wikipedia … “10^12 TW⋅h terawatt hour”

After doing the math (which I could have gotten wrong) we use about 1/35,000,000th of the energy that the Sun provides … which is the threshold of a K1 civilization. That’s like trying to use a ruler the size of the moon’s orbit to measure a 100 meter dash.

We are literally orders of magnitude away from where the Kardashev scale would start to be useful.

“Is Kardashev scale most logical scale available to measure human advancement?”

Currently we are a 0.72 level Kardashev level civilization:

Level 1 would require total utilization of all solar energy hitting Earth, control of all weather systems and all fissile and geothermal energy available. We are far from being able to do that.

However, Kardashev was a little to black and white in my opinion. The levels can be nuanced.

There are resources we need that we can't easily obtain on Earth. The solution? We have begun prospecting asteroids with the intent of mining them.

so this almost implies we're beyond level one on our way to level 2, but we're not. We still don't have full control of the Earth. So, how is this classified?

Kardashev level 2. I see some serious problems. Making a dyeing sphere or swarm would require disassembly of all objects in the solar system. Unless our Hypothetical level 2 can convert electromagnetic (light) energy into matter, they're f*cked. They have absolutely no raw materials to draw from. When, not if, that civilization collapses, it will collapse hard and never come back.

So, now we have level 3 which is a civilization that can utilize the entire energy output of a galaxy. Most have pictured this to take the form of a hyper fusion sphere surrounding the galaxy. But I don't think this is how level 3 would go about it. Fusion energy offers 1% maybe 2% conversion of matter into energy. I'm betting this energy density wouldn't be high enough for our level 3. Instead of looking outward, maybe we should look inward.

Virtually all galaxies have massive black holes at their centers. As matter is whipped around the event horizon and torn apart, the mass to energy efficiency is 60%. THAT may be the energy output our level 3 want's. If this is at all plausible, maybe we should start looking there for super advanced civilizations.

On Sagan’s interpolated Kardeshev scale, we’re about a 0.73. This doesn’t mean we utilize 73% of the energy the Sun applies to Earth. The interpolated Kardeshev rating K is given by

K = (log[math](to base 10)(P)-6)/10[/math]

where P is the civilization’s power consumption in watts.

Earth’s current total power consumption is about 18.87 Tera-Watts, or about 18870000000000 Watts. Plugging this number into the above equation returns about 0.73.

Sagan created the Interpolated Kardeshev scale in large part because calling us a Type 0 seemed a poor fit. A genuine Type 0 is any random group of 10 000 humans without any power source beyond their own muscles.

Kardashev stopped at III, managing the power output of a galaxy. Each of his levels is about 10^9 more powerful than the one below it, so a Type IV would manage the entire universe, and a Type V would manage some vast collection of universes. The only occurence of such a being that I can recall is in Olaf Stapledon’s spectacular novel The Star Maker (1937). The being of the title creates an enormous sequence of universes, tinkering with the parameters of each to improve their complexity and end-stage intelligence.

But each level does not preclude levels below it, any more than a human city prevents the existence of ant hills. We could be living in a universe defined by unimaginably ancient and powerful Type IV aliens, like those in Stanislaw Lem’s The New Cosmogony, and neither they or we would notice.

Correction: Car Sagan has nothing to do with that rating.

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to use. It was proposed by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964 (make sense, doesn't it?)

According to that scale:

• A Type I civilisation—also called a planetary civilisation—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.
• A Type II civilisation—also called a stellar civilisation—can harness the total energy of its planet's parent star (the most popular hypothetical concept being the Dyson sphere—a device which would encompass the entire star and transfer its energy to the planet(s)).
• A Type III civilisation—also called a galactic civilisation—can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy.

A "Type 0" civilisation, not defined by Kardashev, would control about 1 MW of power, and humanity's civilisation type as of 1973 was about 0.7279 (apparently using 10 terawatts (TW) as the value for 2017s humanity).

It’s based entirely on energy output using our current understanding on how energy works.

But how can you not consider a civilisation millions of years ahead of us generating enough energy to sustain itself without needing the energy of stars to do so? Perhaps a small device can power an entire city, the same way an invisible object could power an interstellar civilisation?

With the Dark Forest theory predominantly a rational concept in consideration of what could be out there, it wouldn’t surprise me if the longer lasting civilisations succeed in doing so by not being loud about their existence.

And the Kardashev model is pretty loud.

Type 3. Type 3 civilizations have control of multiple stars to their entire galaxy.

Once an alien species is able to control more than its own star (control the full energy output), they would be considered Type 3. Each scale varies greatly. Type 1 can control the energy of their home planet. Type 2 can control the energy output of their home star. And type 3 can control multiple stars.

An artist rendering of stars we may colonize as a Type 3 civilization. Credit: Future Forward.

A species become type 4 when they are able to control stars in multiple other galaxies. But this answer poses a question- why would an advanced alien civilization decide to make the stars of their galaxy explode? Why? What good would that bring to them? If it was done on one star as an experiment for either military purposes or scientific research, then it may make sense (if the species can manipulate a star like how we manipulate your phones). Until then, blowing up stars is not a good idea or feasible.

Fatum Est Nostra In Astra

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