I learned this today. The Kardashev scale describes five different levels of technological civilization, and we, as a species, haven’t even reached level 1.
The Kardashev scale was, unsurprisingly enough, thought up by a Russian astrophysicist called Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. He originally decided on three types of civilization, but this has been extended to five types. He realized that you could measure a civilization’s technological advancement by looking at how much energy it is able to use. He looked at how human energy consumption was increasing, and he based his types of civilization on possible levels of energy consumption.
A type I civilization can use all of the energy on its planet. That means all solar energy, plus all energy generated by the planet itself. Geothermal, etc.
A type II civilization can use all of the energy released by the star it is orbiting. This would presumably be with some kind of device like a Dyson Sphere that would cover the star completely and convert all of the energy released into usable power that would then be sent down to the planet.
A type III civilization can use all of the energy available in its galaxy. That would mean Dyson Spheres around all of the stars that send the energy back to the home planet. This type of civilization would presumably have worked out how to travel faster than light, otherwise it would just take too long to get to the other stars and send the energy back.
Nikolai Kardashev thought that there was no way any civilization would ever be able to evolve enough, technologically and physically, to reach even this type of civilization, so he didn’t think of any more levels. However, some people have stepped up and carried the thought experiment to its logical conclusion.
A type IV civilization can use all of the energy in the universe. How they would do this is unimaginable. And a type V civilization can use all of the energy in all universes.
A type V civilization is so far removed from us that it is impossible to comprehend. Beings like this would be able to alter physics at will, move anywhere through any universe, and probably know and understand anything. I can barely even understand this topic.
On the Kardashev scale, we are about 0.73. We have not quite reached type I. If current advances continue and energy usage continues to increase at about 3% a year, we could become a type I civilization in about 200 years.
However, one problem with a thought experiment like this is that it assumes we will always use energy in the way that we do now. Since Nikolai Kardashev came up with these categories, the way that we create energy has changed. Thousands, millions, even billions of years into the future, there is no way of knowing how or what we will use for energy.
Perhaps we will be able to break the two laws of thermodynamics. The first law says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and the second law says that all things head towards entropy. What if these laws are only laws now because we don’t know how to overcome them? Perhaps future civilizations will be able to create energy from nothing.
So, there are five levels of civilization. The first type can control all of the power on their planet and the fifth type can control all of the power in all universes. We are not even type 1 yet. These categories were invented in 1964, and there is no way of knowing what type of energy future humans will need or be able to use. And this is what I learned today.
Source
https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
https://veronicasicoe.com/2014/04/12/the-kardashev-scale-0-to-6