3 ms·
> you can have exponential growth in human energy consumption without exponentially heating the Earth by having the growth take place off-planet No. It doesn'
by carapace 2y ago
> you can have exponential growth in human energy consumption without exponentially heating the Earth by having the growth take place off-planet
No. It doesn't matter, unless you postulate that the people left behind have zero population growth and constant energy dissipation, which seems unrealistic?
In any event exponential growth in human energy consumption is physically unrealizable. Eventually the whole solar system resembles a red giant star, and sooner than you might think.
- - - -
The point is that anyone who good enough at physics to invent a free energy generator also understands why it must be kept secret. Some secrets keep themselves. That's why you can't buy one even though there are videos on the YT showing how to make them. Like the Philosophers' Stone the point of the technology is the internal transformation it engenders when you actually confront the thing itself.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago> It doesn't matter, unless you postulate that the people left behind have zero population growth and constant energy dissipation, which seems unrealistic? Why does it seem unrealistic? More than that, you only need one of those things. You could have population growth with declining energy consumption if energy use is moved off-planet (even if the population benefits from the off-planet use), or increasing local energy use per-capita if local population is declining, e.g. because the number of people leaving to explore other planets is higher than the population growth rate. > Eventually the whole solar system resembles a red giant star, and sooner than you might think. The universe is a lot bigger than the solar system. > That's why you can't buy one even though there are videos on the YT showing how to make them. Uh, nope. That's not why you can't buy one.
- carapace 2y agoAt this point we're just trading sci-fi story ideas. If we can learn to manage our population growth and/or energy consumption growth, then that's awesome! Watch the Bartlett lecture.
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoThe original claim was essentially that energy use can't increase past a certain point because it would result in too much energy density. The obvious flaw in the claim is that it assumes no ability to increase the volume of space in which the energy use takes place, which is an invalid premise. Space is really big.
- carapace 2y agoNo, dude, even if you postulate FTL spaceships, the size of the Universe doesn't matter, you always eventually become an explosion. All exponential growth curves are S-shaped. At this point I'm just repeating basic physics and math at you. I think we both have better things to do with our time. Have a good day.
- hcurtiss 2y agoYeah, Ehrlich will be right any day now. Just you watch . . .
- AnthonyMouse 2y agoWe don't even know for sure that the universe is finite. You're going to run out of hydrogen before you run out of somewhere to put the heat.