Kardashev scale, for measuring civilizations isn't bad per se, it better to say it is incomplete. So as it often misunderstood, because of the absence of examples or depiction of how we in near future can have such capacities, so people usually think it an inseparable attribute of highly advanced civilization.
Kardashev scale establishes some theoretical idealistic limits for possible activity, so we just need to introduce some synthetic coefficient, of efficiency of energy used. Synthetic as some average of civilization activities.
it sure isn't a direct measure/comparison of intelligence of civilization or members of civilization, however, it has the potential to give some practical measuring stick, because if we say Mr.X is two times smarter than an average person - what does it even mean, what consequences are, the size or significance of those consequences - we do not know, we can't tell, we have no idea. Saying Mr.X IQ is two times the average, also means nothing. It same stuff with civilizations.
The thing has to be reflected in some substantial reality, which makes some practical sense. which exists at the moment of the description of the civilization, because if we try to introduce the matter of how fast they get from one technological or development stage to another and compare to ourselves, such comparison can have a place, but past achievements are not indications of future performance or current performance. Sometimes things are discovered by accident, sometimes things are done out of necessity in a less sophisticated or efficient way because of necessity, etc.
This technology comparison also may go sidewise, because we may have different technologies not necessarily directly comparable. if we compare information size, then a million or random monkey why try to recreate some meaningful work, and are department of the library of babel, can produce a lot of information they attach a significance but it has no practical application, for the most part.
if we take all drawings of existing equipment, all technological know-how and make some digital representation of it, compress and compare then it may be, or may no, one of the ways to do that, but what if they have one technology which capable to be a universal tool, like nanomachines son - they can have greatly simplified technological cycles, trashing all old/outdated equipment because they do not need it anymore.
- this way what makes sense to compare is what is being done, what evaluate is activity at the moment of evaluation.
So efficiency coefficient maybe not such a bad idea, as we can compare what they(or we) do with the way it can be done with 100% efficiency. it more like an idea, as it not necessarily that easy to tell in each case what is the most efficient way to do something, technology-wise. (let's stay more on the technology side of things).
But in enough cases it possible, an example theoretical energy of desalination of typical seawater is around 0.84kwh, but we spend 5-10 times of that, capital investments not accounted, but should be in a general sense - so not very efficient. Any technology which does it better is qualified to be called more advanced.
it also allows to compare existing technologies with their better theoretical self, so if there are no matching technologies, or if there are no aliens, such measuring is still applicable. We apply that to technologies available and average it and get an index of efficiency.
- such indexes aren't unheard of, as an example, Big Mac Index is one of such synthetic indexes, as in the production of those are involved half or more of our technological capacities, which share production power with other activities as well, but starting from car manufacturing to home appliances are indirectly involved in making possible to recreate big mac in different countries. There are other indexes of similar nature, they are used to compare countries economies and such, based on money, based on energy(money earned per kWh spent to make some production) etc
So we can pick some areas of interest, which involve a significant portion of technological capacities, and present in both states and then compare those energy-wise.
- let's modify the scale a little bit, those 1,2,3 yeah sounds cool, but let's go with a simple log(P). So a single human then is a civilization K2, a billion of humans K11
And let's compare stone age time(idk some random number of million people), with modern-day, and common denominator meat production.
Stone age then K8, Today K13.24
- today probably should be more like K15.34 as 5 billion hectares are under agricultural land, food production - it free energy kindly provided by the sun, which we use.
idk, how much energy was spent on meat catching back in the days, but let's say a day of hunting on average(someday there is a catch someday there is no) yields 10kg, and is mostly energy produced by the human body (few hundred wats up to 0.5kw top), soo let's take 1kWh/kg. Modern-day is more like 100kWh/kg. Yep, we are a backward civilization, what can I say, but we have more energy at our disposal, soooo maybe we should divide something by something, hm not sure. But we indeed are less efficient at meat production, because of a set of reasons, including providing resources to nonfood producing activities, which we do need for our technologies to work ad develop further, so not a big surprise here.
- theoretical minimum for beef, is about 5000 kCal or about 5-6kWh/kg
We have technologies the stone age didn't have, like rockets as an example, so probably there is not one index but many indexes required as we do with countries comparisons. industrial index, purchase power, payload to orbit delivery, payload to another star system delivery.
I had more examples in mind, but waiting for q being open, forgot them. But the general direction of thinking seems to be present, even if I feel like the answer lacks some sparks, but oh well, so be it.
