Categorizing Civilizations on Distance Travelled

When we are born we find ourselves in baby cribs as infants. As toddlers and kids, we begin to explore the room and spaces in our house. As we grow older we begin to explore our neighborhood. As young adults we start exploring our state, our country, and we later progress to visit other countries, and subsequently other continents.

The progress of our civilization on Earth could also be generally measured the same way. From early humans who settled on farms, to traders who travelled from country to country to trade, and to explorers who sailed across oceans to new continents, our civilization has progressed as such. With the industrial age, and the advent of cars, liners, and planes, we have seen a renewed wave of progress whereby we are able to travel around our neighborhood, across our nation, and to other countries, with much more ease and frequency.

However on an interstellar perspective, the vast majority of us have still never left the our crib – the Earth. Only a few have been in orbit around the Earth which is equivalent to exploring around our house, and only 12 people have walked the moon which is like the compound of our house. So far no humans have been to the closest planet which is equivalent to the next house. It will take a much longer time to have visited our entire solar system - our neighborhood. And even longer to reach the nearest star Alpha Centauri which is about 4.35 light-years away. Only when we are able to visit the furthest stars in our galaxy, can we consider ourselves having visited our entire country/continent. And then there are voyagers to other galaxies/continents waiting for our space-fearing species to overcome.

By then, perhaps we are advanced enough where we can contemplate about travelling to other universes, where in the perspective of multiverses, we once again find our civilization starting back at our proverbial crib.