Kardashev scale
The Kardashev scale ranks civilizations by the power they control: Type I about Earth's own, Type II a star's, Type III a galaxy's. By Kardashev's own threshold, humanity is past Type I.
Kardashev's scale sorts civilizations by the power they control, and so by how easily astronomers might detect them. Type I sat close to Earth's own consumption when he defined it; Type II harnesses a star's entire output, Type III a galaxy's. In 2018 humanity used nearly five times that first threshold. Yet on a sliding version built from Carl Sagan's method, the same use scores only 0.728, and one study puts Type I in 2371.
Sources
- Centauri Dreams, “What Kardashev Really Said” (2014)
- Wright et al., “The Ĝ Infrared Search for Extraterrestrial Civilizations with Large Energy Supplies. II”, ApJ 2014
- Jiang et al., “Avoiding the Great Filter”, Galaxies 2022
- Centauri Dreams, “Toward Kardashev Type I” (2022)
- Ćirković, “Kardashev's Classification at 50+”, Serbian Astronomical Journal 2015
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