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Suppose we redefine wealth to be the number of electrons you own. Further suppose you own one electron. At 5% growth a year in that means that the number of el
by econobasics 3y ago
Suppose we redefine wealth to be the number of electrons you own.
Further suppose you own one electron. At 5% growth a year in that means that the number of electrons you own will double every 14 years or so.
The total number of electrons in the universe is on the order of 10^80, lg(10^80) = 266.
So in about 4,000 you will own every electron in the universe and need to find another universe to keep this rate of growth going for another 14 years.
- wizofaus 3y agoSupposed we redefine wealth to be the degree to which you're able to achieve all your desires...
- ben_w 3y agoCongratulations, now everyone's high on a mix of cocaine, LSD, weed, … Or maxing out their levels in a realistic video game… Whatever you do, it's not "this" going on. But even if it was, there's some maximum level of information that can cram into a human brain (regardless of if it's natural or an uploaded consciousness), and if the data rate giving you fulfilling experiences goes up 2% per year, then we go from "half-full" to "overloaded" in 35 years.
- wizofaus 3y agoI'm not so sure after another 1000 years of technological development they'll be anything much left of human brains the way we currently recognise them. Maybe we'll all have merged into one mega-consciousness...it's fun to speculate but not particularly helpful. I'm far more concerned about how we'll navigate the next 100 years, which won't be constrained by the amount of matter/energy in the universe.
- ben_w 3y agoYou and I agree on all that. The point of the article is that at some point the growth has to stop — it's not saying we'll definitely make it all the way to controlling everything in the universe, just that low growth gets there very quickly and there isn't anywhere to go after that.