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The relationship between value produced and resources consumed may not be linear, but that does not mean that it is possible to have infinite production, or to

The relationship between value produced and resources consumed may not be linear, but that does not mean that it is possible to have infinite production, or to produce a change in value from zero resources. If production is not limited, then we can instantly transform our solar system into a Dyson sphere, right now. What am I not understanding, of this theory?

drxzcl 9y ago
You'd be right, if all value production was in utilitarian, physical stuff. Increasingly however we're spending a smaller percentage of our income on stuff, and more on services and immaterial goods. To produce a two ton truck, you need to use more than two tons of resource, that much is obvious. But how many resources go into the production of my copy of GTAV? Or my blue-ray of The Lord of the Rings? Or my viewing of a show on Netflix? The marginal resource usage is pretty much nil, just some electricity, paper of plastic. The resources expended in producing the work itself can be significant, but they are amortized among the many millions of copies. Now obviously there are limits. Humans need physical stuff to survive, that's not going to change any time soon. There's a limit on the amount of actual stuff we can make. But there's no clear limit on the value of that stuff. We keep finding new ways to make little pieces of plastic or bunches of electrons in wires valuable all the time.
- devrandomguy 9y ago
  Even information based value has limits. I feel those limits as heat when I push my hardware to its limits. There is also the space limit of how much information I can store, and the time limit of how much information I can experience or learn through my senses. Those limits are constantly being pushed outwards, but they are not disappearing. Eventually, we might have cities and data centers covering the entire Earth, à la Coruscant. At that point, we will still be constrained by our ability to cool the system, by our ability to efficiently power it all with minimal waste heat, and by the speed of communications through congested networks.

drxzcl 9y ago

You'd be right, if all value production was in utilitarian, physical stuff. Increasingly however we're spending a smaller percentage of our income on stuff, and more on services and immaterial goods. To produce a two ton truck, you need to use more than two tons of resource, that much is obvious. But how many resources go into the production of my copy of GTAV? Or my blue-ray of The Lord of the Rings? Or my viewing of a show on Netflix? The marginal resource usage is pretty much nil, just some electricity, paper of plastic. The resources expended in producing the work itself can be significant, but they are amortized among the many millions of copies. Now obviously there are limits. Humans need physical stuff to survive, that's not going to change any time soon. There's a limit on the amount of actual stuff we can make. But there's no clear limit on the value of that stuff. We keep finding new ways to make little pieces of plastic or bunches of electrons in wires valuable all the time.

devrandomguy 9y ago
Even information based value has limits. I feel those limits as heat when I push my hardware to its limits. There is also the space limit of how much information I can store, and the time limit of how much information I can experience or learn through my senses. Those limits are constantly being pushed outwards, but they are not disappearing. Eventually, we might have cities and data centers covering the entire Earth, à la Coruscant. At that point, we will still be constrained by our ability to cool the system, by our ability to efficiently power it all with minimal waste heat, and by the speed of communications through congested networks.