centauri-dreams | Whenever we’re audacious enough to categorize far future
civilizations, we turn to the work of Nikolai Kardashev. Nick Nielsen
today looks at the well known Kardashev scale in the light of a curious
fact: While many use Kardashev’s rankings in their own speculations, few
have gone back and dug into his original paper. In Kardashev’s terms,
our planet is close to attaining Type I status, which would surprise
many commentators. And doesn’t the ambiguity over what constitutes the
energy of a star — red dwarf? red giant? — play havoc with cut and dried
‘type’ definitions? How subsequent writers have adapted and modified
the Kardashev scale makes for a cautionary tale about mastering our
sources before using them for further extrapolation. For that matter,
are there better gauges of a civilization than its use of particular
energy resources? Answering the question deepens the debate that
Kardashev so fruitfully began.
