I'm thinking about starting to write an article this weekend about different measurement scales for civilizations. "Everyone" knows about the Kardashev Scale, but there are others – Arthur C. Clark's in Fountains of Paradise for instance.

Suggestions appreciated!

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So I'm going to do a summary and comparison of several, and hopefully at the end decide on which is the best measure. Or perhaps take bits and pieces of different scales to suggest a hybrid.

I'd appreciate any suggestions, any favorite scale anyone has?

I'll be looking mostly in sci-fi of course, but also more academic sources (the Kardashev scale after all was proposed by an astronomer).

Scales I might use: Robert Zubrin's scale which is more about capability of utilizing resources.

Perhaps I'll look at Star Trek. Seems like the big one there is warp vs non-warp (or pre-warp) civilizations. But they also bring other aspects into it, like a unified planetary government, and the end of money.

Maybe the Culture series, though the descriptions he gives of civs below an 8 (Culture level) is a bit vague.

So any thoughts and suggestions welcome! Also, I'm trying to think where to submit it once I finish. I like @Quillette, don't know if they'd be interested. Maybe @space?

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