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ReptileManyesterday at 10:34 AM4 repliesview on HN

And if we extrapolate 5% economic growth per year we will consume all the energy in our light cone in 1000 years.


Replies

K0baltyesterday at 11:45 AM

Huh. Your statement was probably hyperbole? But just back of the napkin:

If we use about 20 TW today, in a thousand years of 5% growth we’d be at about 3x10^34. I think the sun is around 3.8x10^26 watts? That gives us about 8x10^7 suns worth of energy consumption in 1000 years.

If we figure 0.004 stars per cubic light-year, we end up in that ballpark in a thousand years of uniform spherical expansion at C.

But that assumes millions ( billions?) of probes traveling outward starting soon, and no acceleration or deceleration or development time… so I think your claim is likely true, in any practical sense of the idea.

Time to short the market lol.

elzbardicoyesterday at 1:38 PM

If we extrapolated the rise in the standards of living of a Detroit Black blue-collar factory worker in Detroit from the early 60s to our current days, most of them should own 64ft yachts by now.

baqyesterday at 12:51 PM

of course, but no need to look that far into the future - 400 years at 2.3% pa is enough to boil oceans.

AI capabilities are growing exponentially thanks to exponential compute/energy consumption, but also thanks to algorithmic improvements. we've got a proof that human-level intelligence can run at 20W of power, so we've got plenty of room to offset the currently-missing compute.

nchmyyesterday at 11:31 AM

Economic growth is not directly proportional to energy consumption. A major feature of any useful tool is that it (often dramatically) reduces energy consumption.

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