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> Serious question though, and I would like people to ignore some sort of moral or religious argument for it; but what is the long term implication if all kinds

by habith 12y ago

> Serious question though, and I would like people to ignore some sort of moral or religious argument for it; but what is the long term implication if all kinds of health advances save people but humans still reproduce and impact the planet in already unsustainable rates. > I get it, some people have a bleeding heart and want to save everyone, everywhere, at all times; but what happens when the planet is the equivalent of a cat hoarder's house because we could never say no and we could never implement policy to limit population growth because the wealthy inherently gain from unregulated population growth? Some of the minds saved can one day solve these and other problems, pushing the envelope of human knowledge.

dredmorbius 12y ago
The power of imagination only gets you so far. There are diminishing returns to technology and innovation in most areas. Moore's law is a notable exception, but if you extend it to what Moore's law buys you -- what you can do with all that additional computing firepower that you couldn't do before, it's pretty minimal. As an example: any heat engine is limited in its efficiency by Carnot's Law. You can apply all the electronic smarts to it you want, but the best you'll get in efficiency improvements is a closer approximation of the theoretical maximum. You can phase-shift and use different technologies -- hybrid vehicle drives allow for greater engine efficiencies (constant power) and energy recover (regenerative braking), but that's fairly minimal -- the complexity of a Prius and a comparably efficient high-efficiency diesel is great. There are other issues in expanding systems beyond certain scales -- even if you've got genius minds out there untapped, how do you 1) train and educate them, 2) find them, and 3) incorporate and utilize their advances -- in all the other noise. I don't see a huge win here.

by habith 12y ago

dredmorbius 12y ago

The power of imagination only gets you so far. There are diminishing returns to technology and innovation in most areas. Moore's law is a notable exception, but if you extend it to what Moore's law buys you -- what you can do with all that additional computing firepower that you couldn't do before, it's pretty minimal. As an example: any heat engine is limited in its efficiency by Carnot's Law. You can apply all the electronic smarts to it you want, but the best you'll get in efficiency improvements is a closer approximation of the theoretical maximum. You can phase-shift and use different technologies -- hybrid vehicle drives allow for greater engine efficiencies (constant power) and energy recover (regenerative braking), but that's fairly minimal -- the complexity of a Prius and a comparably efficient high-efficiency diesel is great. There are other issues in expanding systems beyond certain scales -- even if you've got genius minds out there untapped, how do you 1) train and educate them, 2) find them, and 3) incorporate and utilize their advances -- in all the other noise. I don't see a huge win here.