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This is in honor of Nikolai Kardashev, a physicist, astronomer and futurist/futurologist who devised the The Kardashev Scale that just recently died.[1]
Kardashev was born on April 25, 1932. In 1955 he graduated from Moscow University, in 1959 - graduate school at the State Astronomical Institute. P.K.Sternberg, where he then worked from 1959 to 1967. Since 1967 he worked at the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.[2]
The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement. This is something that has greatly influenced the transhumanist, superhumanist, cosmist, futurist movement and the VS debating community.
Something akin to the Russian Carl Sagan, the scientist had formulated a criteria for classifying societies on a cosmic scale - somehow imagine what extraterrestrial civilizations could be. And here Kardashev proposed a three-stage scale, which immortalized him during his lifetime. He suggested that civilizations will qualitatively designated into:
a) have mastered the energy of their planet (we are approaching this level)
b) have mastered the energy of their stars (and, accordingly, have fully incorporated their entire planetary system into economic circulation)
c) have mastered the energy of entire galaxies!
The philosophical and applied aspects of this classification have been discussed for half a century. They find flaws in it, they try to modify it, they offer an alternative... But it remains the basis for discussing the long-term prospects for the development of humanity and post-humanity.
Further Explanation:
Michio Kaku 3 types of Civilizations
Pay respect and condolences to him and his family, colleagues and those under him continuing his work and further development to the field. And hope that we continue to contribute and support it.
Godspeed to him and the cosmos.