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They are being pretty conservative here, praising Silicon Valley for quick growth and predicting an eventual slowdown. It would be more interesting to speculate
by ewzimm 11y ago
They are being pretty conservative here, praising Silicon Valley for quick growth and predicting an eventual slowdown. It would be more interesting to speculate on what might happen if growth didn't slow. What if the tech boom came close to the dream of unlimited growth? What would get in its way, and how would the industry be unable to respond?
Software isn't constrained like other things, but it can run into cultural opposition or government regulation. We'll need more raw materials than we have on the planet soon. But assuming we can reach out past the atmosphere for resources, we don't know the limits of automation and specialized, productive programs.
We might run into resource issues before we hit the productivity plateau, but whether it comes from Silicon Valley or somewhere else, we might be moving toward a lot more growth than we see today.
- bostik 11y ago> What if the tech boom came close to the dream of unlimited growth? No danger of that happening. In a finite world with finite resources and non-zero energy costs, there is a guaranteed upper bound for expansion. That is an unavoidable fact. The best known quote on the subject puts it really well: "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." - Kennet Boulding (1966) [0] 0: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Economics https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Economics (Search for "growth".)
- UK-AL 11y agoThat's because economists know how growth is measured, and know you can have growth and reduce resource use and energy usage at the same time. Yes they are currently correlated, but not strictly. Growth is measured by what people spend, if people spend extra money on entertainment, and less on cars but overall more. You would see less physical resources being used. There's no strict rule linking the two.
- philbarr 11y agoIf people spent extra money on entertainment, wouldn't that drive down the cost of entertainment? Since the costs associated with entertainment are less and each company can afford to cut prices in order to compete?
- michaelt 11y agoGiven that the total cost of entertainment equals the amount of money people spend on entertainment, surely if people spend more on entertainment the total cost of entertainment must be higher?
- ewzimm 11y agoI appreciate your dedication to the obvious, but the question I asked was: if software continues to grow in influence over the world, reaching the limits, what specifically will block it? The article makes the boring analysis that something growing quickly will eventually slow down. A more interesting analysis would be: what will slow it? How will software begin to wane in influence? Will something replace it, or are there limits to automation and AI that we should be considering as we move forward? It's difficult for me to see that horizon, but I am interested in what's there.
- richmarr 11y agoSoftware isn't constrained like other things... cough cou-SOFTWAREPATENTS-gh Sorry, just had something in my throat there.
- thomasrossi 11y agoThere are also impossible things to do, load of impossibility theorems out there.