In Holden Karnofsky’s just-published Cold Takes blog post This Can’t Go On, he cites how at 2% annual economic growth the economy would grow by a factor of 3*10^70 in just 8,200 years. Since there are likely fewer than that many atoms in our galaxy, this would mean that “we’d need to be sustaining multiple economies as big as today’s entire world economy per atom.” Holden says:
Is it imaginable that we could develop the technology to support multiple equivalents of today’s entire civilization, per atom available? Sure—but this would require a radical degree of transformation of our lives and societies, far beyond how much change we’ve seen over the course of human history to date. And I wouldn’t exactly bet that this is how things are going to go over the next several thousand years.
It seems much more likely that we will “run out” of new scientific insights, technological innovations, and resources, and the regime of “getting richer by a few percent a year” will come to an end. After all, this regime is only a couple hundred years old.
(Edited 8⁄3 to include the written post quote now that it’s published, rather than my transcription of the audio)
It is published now (here, but wasn’t at the time of my above comment. The audio was published before the written post (by about a day-ish). I sent Holden the feedback to let him know.
In Holden Karnofsky’s just-published Cold Takes blog post This Can’t Go On, he cites how at 2% annual economic growth the economy would grow by a factor of 3*10^70 in just 8,200 years. Since there are likely fewer than that many atoms in our galaxy, this would mean that “we’d need to be sustaining multiple economies as big as today’s entire world economy per atom.” Holden says:
(Edited 8⁄3 to include the written post quote now that it’s published, rather than my transcription of the audio)
Is… this post published yet? I can’t find it anywhere.
It is published now (here, but wasn’t at the time of my above comment. The audio was published before the written post (by about a day-ish). I sent Holden the feedback to let him know.