But when will real life humanity reach the points on this scale? (assuming we don't destroy ourselves before then) These forecasts seem to be backed up with real world data, concepts and events in its extrapolation. You can follow the earlier dates for more relevant stuff to our time, context and course of events that lead up to here.
2250
Humanity is a Type 1 civilisation on the Kardashev scale
By this date, virtually all of the Earth's natural energy is being captured and harnessed in some way. Vast swathes of land, sea and atmosphere have been transformed into a series of enormous power grids using wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal technologies. These are supplemented by fusion and antimatter, along with wholly new forms of energy production that were unknown to scientists in previous centuries.
In Earth orbit, a comprehensive network of stations is now in place. This cluster is organised in such a way that it harvests every ounce of incoming solar radiation being reflected back into space. In terms of raw electrical power, the total converted energy is equivalent to 52 petawatts (PW). Each vessel acts as a node within a gigantic web, completely encircling the planet. The nodes produce attractive forces between each other, forming an invisible "shield" absorbing solar radiation from literally the entire globe.
This technology has the added benefit of stabilising the Earth's climate, since the network can be adjusted at certain points to control the amount of heat getting through. These variations allow rain to fall whenever and wherever necessary, while hurricanes and other such phenomena are easily controlled.
The vast amount of energy now available to humanity is creating enormous wealth and prosperity. Earth's physical infrastructure is revolutionised - with teleporters available for civilian use, gargantuan skyscrapers reaching miles into the sky, and material needs practically eliminated.
However, even greater breakthroughs have been occurring in cyberspace, which has supplanted physical reality completely, for many people. Virtual worlds are now of such grandeur and ingenuity that they far surpass anything in the real world. These digital environments run at speeds considerably greater than real time - further accelerating the pace of innovation.
From this point onwards, the only way for civilisation to gain more energy is to expand outward into space. Massive colonisation efforts are now underway. Asteroid mining dominates the economy of the inner Solar System, while hydrogen and helium are being siphoned from the gas giants. Meanwhile, terraforming of Mars has passed a critical stage, with bacteria and lichen beginning to appear on the surface.
Interstellar travel increases greatly during this time. The settlements on Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star and Wolf 359 are inhabited by thousands of humans and machines by now, while the most distant exploratory craft have reached over 50 light years from Earth. Faster-than-light travel is proving to be more difficult to achieve than previously thought, however, with maximum velocity still limited to 0.99c.
3100 AD
Humanity is becoming a Type 2 civilisation on the Kardashev scale
The exponential growth of AI has allowed the manipulation of matter on scales barely dreamed of before. The largest structure now being built in space is a "Dyson Sphere". This hollow shell is of such gargantuan proportions that its radius stretches from the Sun to beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
Under the direction of a Godlike superintelligence, vast swarms of automated, self-replicating ships are building it, using material from the asteroid field, Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud.
The sphere's primary purpose is to harvest literally all of the energy output from the Sun: some 386 yottajoules (YJ) per second. However, it also serves the function of shielding our inner solar system from gamma rays and other incoming hazards. Even the potential possibility of alien invasion has been taken into consideration during the sphere's design.
The interior walls have a gravitational field of 1G and are made from wholly new states of matter that were unknown to science in previous centuries. These can withstand the colossal tensile forces required to maintain structural integrity. This curved, impossibly large surface ― equivalent to billions of planet Earths ― is becoming a habitat for many sentient lifeforms, with portions being terraformed and given stable atmospheres, oceans and landmass. A sizeable percentage of citizens are now migrating to these strange artificial worlds. This includes a diverse mix of biological humans, as well as transhumans, synthetics, clones, androids, sentient animals and other communities. A series of additional Dyson Spheres are being constructed around neighbouring star systems ― some even larger.
Having begun its journey to the stars in the 22nd century, humanity is reaching a landmark in its exploration of space. A region nearly 1,000 light years in radius has now been settled (or about 2 percent of the total length of our galaxy).
What does this all mean to us? Probably in about a couple hundred to a thousand years we may need to make a CRT to give some major upgrades to Composite Human and
The Human Race (The Real World), and there will be a huge boost to the
real life verse.
