A Humbling Point of View

Recently, I stumbled upon a grading system for civilizations, know as the Kardashev scale. The Kardashev scale is a highly theoretical way of measuring a civilization's advancement, both technologically and expansively, and is useful for putting the recent leaps that humanity has made into a cosmic perspective.

Overall, there are 6 official types of civilizations, and they range from Type 0 to Type 5. Type 0 is
when the civilization in question extracts it's energy and resources from crude organic based sources, and is capable of orbital flight. Natural disasters such as tsunamis and hurricanes, as well as self-created mass genocide are all risks to the Type 0 civilization. At Type 1, the civilization is still planetary, but now gets it's energy from sources such as fusion reactors and other high-density energy sources. But they must also be capable of interstellar flight travel, interstellar communication, planetary engineering, world government, and megascale engineering. Type 1 is still prone to extinction, but it is now mostly limited to supernovas or black holes. Type 2 goes even further, as a multi-system civilization, and is now also capable of terraforming and stellar engineering. Type 2 is now theoretically immune form extinction from natural phenomena, as well as some of the artificial genocides. Type 3 is a galactic empire, and is now also able to travel via wormholes. Type 4 has the ability to colonize numerous galaxies, and is effectively immortal, as well as mastering time warping and theoretical time travel. Type 5 dominate the universe, and are supposedly able to create custom, parallel universes or alternate time branches.

So, yeah. We're still a Type 0 culture, but that is changing. We have met all criteria for a Type 0 civilization, and are beginning to try our hand at becoming a Type 1. I mean, look around! We're sending rovers to Mars and they're sending data back. We've launched equipment to the farthest reaches of the solar system. And yet, we still have a long way to go. We still rely heavily on organic sources of energy such as oil and coal. Not to mention our mindset and our culture. We have yet to see planetary government, although the UN is a step in that direction. And as for interstellar travel, well... we have yet to send a man to Mars, but that future isn't far off. I just hope I live to see it.

But we have to remember, this scale is not an outline of how humanity will progress. We will see things that deviate, or the whole thing could be wrong. We don't know. I mean, if you where to ask the most learned person a thousand years ago to come up with such a scale, I don't doubt that we would scoff at it in distain as we smile smugly in our own superior knowledge of events to come for humanity. People have been erroneous to a point of being ludicrous before, and for all we know, we could be too.