Six Different Types of Civilizations

by Wes Penre

In 1964, the Russian astronomer, Nikolai Kardashev, constructed something he called "The Kardashev Scale"[1]. It puts energy consumption of an entire cosmic civilization in perspective, so that we hopefully, when face-to-face or mind-to-mind with an alien species, relatively quickly can see how advanced they are. The scale is theoretical and can't be 100% reliable, but it works as a pretty good guideline.

His scale consists of three different categories of civilizations; Type I, Type II, and Type III, which are based on how much usable energy a civilization has at its disposal, and their degree of space colonization. In summary, a Type I civilization masters the resources of its own planet, a Type II of its solar system, and a Type III of its galaxy. [Read more] ...