Nikolai Kardashev believed we could classify civilisations by the eneregy they harness. The Soviet Astrophysicist proposed three “Types” of civilisation - Type I controls the energy budget of its homeward, Type II controls a star, and Type III controls a Galaxy. By Kardashev’s measure, the human race is at roughly 0.73, crawling toward becoming a Type I civilisation. We’ll get there within the next hundred years or so, all things being equal.
I always had a feeling that H-bombs were 100 times more civilized than mere A-bombs. Now I understand! It’s because they harness 100 times more energy. It makes perfect sense, in a dystopian, center-cannot-hold kind of way.
As a SF reader, I feel like the growth==progress==civilization value system was a hallmark of the post WWII era (50s 60s). I think from the 60s and 70s onwards, there has been a more humanistic theme in most SF. On another website I visit they use the term “Growf” for that. In other words: Growth for growth’s sake will solve all our problems by out-pacing them.
We have a really weird relationship with “growth” here in Australia I think. We claim to love it, but all we really love is the concept of “number go up.” I don’t think we have any handles on what it means to grow as a people, as a culture.
A planet of hunter-gatherers, probably. I’d like to go stay with them — fresh air, exercise, work fifteen hours a week to supply my needs, carry my handful of stuff to a new scenic location after picking the low-hanging fruit, circling back to this one once the fruit has time to regrow ….
But if they’re that smart, they’re probably smart enough to not let me in.
