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Or maybe "productivity growth" will have to stop at some point; even at 1% year over year, that makes 1000x growth in 700 years. Barring space travel, it's har

by powera 10y ago

Or maybe "productivity growth" will have to stop at some point; even at 1% year over year, that makes 1000x growth in 700 years. Barring space travel, it's hard to even imagine 1000x growth over the next 700 years in any real sense (as opposed to just adding zeros to currency), and completely absurd to imagine 1 million times growth over the next 1400 years.

pdonis 10y ago
> Barring space travel, it's hard to even imagine 1000x growth over the next 700 years in any real sense Why not? 700 years ago most of the things that people produce today weren't even conceivable, and any sort of comparison of functionality is going to end up involving large factors of improvement. For example, how much more functional is a smartphone with the ability to dial anywhere in the world and connect to the Internet, compared to writing a letter that would travel by horseback or sailing ship, which was the best known communication technology 700 years ago? I have no problem at all saying that the smartphone is at least 1000 times more functional, which means that productivity needs to have gone up by a similarly large factor for smartphones now to be about as ubiquitous as letters were then.
ido 10y ago
Asteroid mining by autonomous robots, completely or almost completely automatic robotic manufacturing/construction, fusion power & genetically engineered crops (including artificial meat) might consivebly make for 1000x gain in less than 700 years.
marvin 10y ago
Massive improvements in standard of living are certainly conceivable. I can't speak for how the maths work out, but if you e.g. consider potential improvements that have no physical law preventing them: - Eliminating the requirement to work for a living - Eradicating disease (including mental health and first-world diseases as obesity, RSI and diabetes) - Reducing health problems related to aging, increasing the number of healthy years of the population, increasing life span - Eliminating aging altogether, enabling replacement of organs and body parts with improved artificial versions - Achieving sustainable energy production and transport - Eliminating the need to perform unwanted boring tasks - Fully-immersive virtual reality - Automating production of goods and services to such a degree that everyone in the world has access to the same standard of living that the richest have today The sky is the limit, so to speak. One obviously has to think outside the box of what the world looks like today, but the limits of economic growth are in physical terms far, far beyond where we are today. This is even without considering the very distant possibility of compelling space habitats that could support greater populations than Earth.
- patrickk 10y ago
  Not to mention the potential impact of the usual breakthroughs that are always just 20 years away like working nuclear fusion reactors, quantum computers and AGI. Having AGI could mean productivity growth so stratospheric than humans are essentially obsolete.

by powera 10y ago

pdonis 10y ago

> Barring space travel, it's hard to even imagine 1000x growth over the next 700 years in any real sense Why not? 700 years ago most of the things that people produce today weren't even conceivable, and any sort of comparison of functionality is going to end up involving large factors of improvement. For example, how much more functional is a smartphone with the ability to dial anywhere in the world and connect to the Internet, compared to writing a letter that would travel by horseback or sailing ship, which was the best known communication technology 700 years ago? I have no problem at all saying that the smartphone is at least 1000 times more functional, which means that productivity needs to have gone up by a similarly large factor for smartphones now to be about as ubiquitous as letters were then.

ido 10y ago

Asteroid mining by autonomous robots, completely or almost completely automatic robotic manufacturing/construction, fusion power & genetically engineered crops (including artificial meat) might consivebly make for 1000x gain in less than 700 years.

marvin 10y ago

Massive improvements in standard of living are certainly conceivable. I can't speak for how the maths work out, but if you e.g. consider potential improvements that have no physical law preventing them: - Eliminating the requirement to work for a living - Eradicating disease (including mental health and first-world diseases as obesity, RSI and diabetes) - Reducing health problems related to aging, increasing the number of healthy years of the population, increasing life span - Eliminating aging altogether, enabling replacement of organs and body parts with improved artificial versions - Achieving sustainable energy production and transport - Eliminating the need to perform unwanted boring tasks - Fully-immersive virtual reality - Automating production of goods and services to such a degree that everyone in the world has access to the same standard of living that the richest have today The sky is the limit, so to speak. One obviously has to think outside the box of what the world looks like today, but the limits of economic growth are in physical terms far, far beyond where we are today. This is even without considering the very distant possibility of compelling space habitats that could support greater populations than Earth.

patrickk 10y ago
Not to mention the potential impact of the usual breakthroughs that are always just 20 years away like working nuclear fusion reactors, quantum computers and AGI. Having AGI could mean productivity growth so stratospheric than humans are essentially obsolete.