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0 pointsyojo5y ago0 comments

It is unclear if the Earth’s carrying capacity reaches a trillion, that’s certainly in the high side of forecasts. It does not look like we’re on a trajectory to hit anywhere near that.

I also question the value of genius at driving GDP growth indefinitely. Eventually you run into natural laws that are insurmountable; you can’t genius your way out of entropy.

That said, the GDP wall could well be millennia away and we still have tons of room for growth. Maybe we finally bring cheap fusion online, solve asteroid mining, and terraform anything remotely habitable around us. Or maybe we don’t, investment as a vehicle for income fails, and no one gets to retire in 50 years.

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PopeDotNinja5y ago

I wonder if there’s even remotely enough phosphorus for that many people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus

pm905y ago

It’s been pretty clear for some time now that inability to inhabit anything besides earth is a huge failure mode for the species. It might possibly be the unifying goal for the species to put aside its petty differences and come together on a grand project.

I gotta say though, the chances seem extremely slim and it’s more likely that climate change would trigger a reduction in the production capacity of humanity triggering political changes that may make it impossible to solve these problems.

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