As a first pass the rate of improvement should asymptote towards zero so long as there’s a theoretical optimum and declining returns to further research before the heat death of the universe, which seems like pretty mild assumptions.
As an analogy, there’s an impossibly wide range of configurations of matter you could in theory use to create a glass from which we can drink water. But we’ve already gotten most of the way towards the best glass for humans, I would contend. I don’t think we could keep improving glasses in any meaningful way using a galaxy’s resources for a trillion years.
Keep in mind eventually the light cone of each star shrinks so far it can’t benefit from research conducted elsewhere.
As a first pass the rate of improvement should asymptote towards zero so long as there’s a theoretical optimum and declining returns to further research before the heat death of the universe, which seems like pretty mild assumptions.
I think it would be really useful if this idea was explained in more details somewhere, preferably on the 80k website. Do you think there is a chance that this happens at some point? (hopefully not too far in the future ;-) )
Yes it needs to go in an explanation of how we score scale/importance in the problem framework! It’s on the list. :)
Alternatively I’ve been wondering if we need a standalone article explaining how we can influence the long term, and what are signs that something might be highly leveraged for doing that.
As a first pass the rate of improvement should asymptote towards zero so long as there’s a theoretical optimum and declining returns to further research before the heat death of the universe, which seems like pretty mild assumptions.
As an analogy, there’s an impossibly wide range of configurations of matter you could in theory use to create a glass from which we can drink water. But we’ve already gotten most of the way towards the best glass for humans, I would contend. I don’t think we could keep improving glasses in any meaningful way using a galaxy’s resources for a trillion years.
Keep in mind eventually the light cone of each star shrinks so far it can’t benefit from research conducted elsewhere.
I think it would be really useful if this idea was explained in more details somewhere, preferably on the 80k website. Do you think there is a chance that this happens at some point? (hopefully not too far in the future ;-) )
Yes it needs to go in an explanation of how we score scale/importance in the problem framework! It’s on the list. :)
Alternatively I’ve been wondering if we need a standalone article explaining how we can influence the long term, and what are signs that something might be highly leveraged for doing that.