Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#141

Post by xiphias2 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 12:19 PM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #129

sadness2 wrote: post #125

> thermodynamic limits impose a cap to energy growth lest we cook ourselves .. I’m talking about radiating the spent energy into space Huh? This seems to be a critical premise for establishing a crisis, yet it's incoherent and essentially imaginary. Ok, some ways we use energy have poor thermal efficiency. Light bulbs are the classic example, but look at the improvement from incandescent bulbs to LED's. Most uses of…

No, it's basic thermodynamics : https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-developed-a-sol...

This is really cool, so there's a way to radiate heat to the space much more efficiently than the sun does, which destroys the argument of the physicist.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#142

Post by mac01021 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #14

Tom Murphy's website occasionally comes up in futurist circles. His general point that unbounded exponential growth is impossible is obviously correct, but I find his condescending attitude tiresome and he often exaggerates the apparent validity of his pessimism through questionable arguments. For example, he first insists that the conversation about energy consumption be confined to Earth and ignore space exploratio…

> is it possible for the global economy to grow until nobody has to live in mud-huts without air conditioning?

I think generally people agree with you that the answer is almost certainly yes. Given that lack of controversy, why would you choose this as "the real question"?

Perhaps more contentious would be something like "how many years into the future will the so-called 4% safe withdrawal rate remain safe?"

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#143

Post by paraschopra » Thu, May 30, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

baking wrote: post #126

paraschopra wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't whether we can do that or not, but should we do it or not. In all these visions of techno-utopia, poor suffer the most while the rich exploit the resources, and then expand that exploitation to more areas in hopes of making a profit. Why do you feel we will not do the same to Mars what has happened to the Earth? It's possible that once we go to Mars we will exploit _both_ Earth and Mars.

Kardashev looked at the physics in 1964 and said that civilizations that don't grow fast enough (energy use requiring expansion to other planets) risk planetary catastrophes and would not be expected to survive many thousands of years. Sure Earth could get lucky, but betting on that seems irrational.

In the limit, all arguments of doom-and-gloom come true.

The same argument of destruction of solar system, milky way and our galactic super-cluster can be made for different time scales. Even universe is expected to fizzle out.

Though I agree there are no easy answers. Risk will always be there, but we should realize that hedging one type of risk exposes us to other types of risks.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#144

Post by benj111 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

philipkglass wrote: post #19

I generally liked the Do The Math posts but I thought this was one of the weakest. Physicist: "Right, if you plot the U.S. energy consumption in all forms from 1650 until now, you see a phenomenally faithful exponential at about 3% per year over that whole span." It's not phenomenally faithful. There's an inflection point visible even in his large graph going back all the way to 1650. US primary energy consumption in…

"It's not phenomenally faithful. There's an inflection point"

I think its legitimate to draw a trend line ignoring the kink in the last 10% of the graph. I mean yes we could now be on a different trajectory, but that's just 'this time it's different' thinking, that's not to say it isn't a legitimate discussion, just that its a separate discussion.

No energy growth was anyway covered in a later 'course'.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#145

Post by kgwgk » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

dosy wrote: post #118

kgwgk wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still have a hard time imagining a growth that doesn't use more energy (except the one defined in that article as "development", which seems to be a more sophisticated/involved use of existing resources, rather than extracting/creating more new (primary) resources.) Can’t you imagine efficiency gains leading to an increase in output (GDP) for constant inputs (resources)? That’s growth. (Note that the article talk…

Right, I think the article was saying development is GDP stagnation but increasing quality nonetheless, does that about match your understanding of it? I still can't really imagine the other scenario because when I see efficiency gains I think they will lead to growth and more energy usage. Examples like "increasing CPU power should have led to faster software, but instead it lead to slower languages and larger softw…

> I think the article was saying development is GDP stagnation but increasing quality nonetheless

I don't know what the article is trying to say, really. It talks about "improving the quality of life" but I'm not sure if that includes factors that are already considered in GDP calculations (https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/papers/P2006-6_0.pdf) or it's about immaterial quality of life improvements (more hapiness or whatever).

> But growth as defined there, with static energy, I can't imagine right now.

Say you have a factory producing 1000 widgets per day and you improve the efficiency of the process and now you produce 1100 widgets per day using the same quantities of labour, raw materials and energy. Don't you agree that this is growth?

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#146

Post by fallingfrog » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

PaulAJ wrote: post #112

The basic fallacy here is the proposition that all economic activity involves physical work, and hence energy == economic activity. However this is not the case. My economic activity consists of staring at a screen and pressing buttons. It is therefore perfectly possible that energy consumption can level off while economic growth continues. One can imagine a similar conversation between a geographer and an economist…

Pressing buttons is physical work, unless you're doing it via astral projection.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#147

Post by drdeca » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:40 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #123

drdeca wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are physical limits on how fast you can do that. Bremermann's limit, (or some extension of it?), says that the minimum amount of time needed for a system with average energy E to change to an orthogonal state, is inversely proportional to E (specifically, pi * h_bar, all divided by 2E ). So, assuming that “I have the money” and “you have the money” are orthogonal (collections of) states, then there is a maximum…

Of course, we've seen a similar type of fiction already in the history of economics. "This piece of paper represents a chunk of gold!" "No, it doesn't."

“Represents” is a tricky word.

Though, whether one can exchange a particular paper for a particular amount of gold is not a matter of pure imagination.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#148

Post by fallingfrog » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

I just want to draw attention to something which we are glossing over, which is that saying economic growth has a very high limit and saying that it has no limit are very, very different claims. If the claim you're making is that it has no limit, then the counterargument is trivial: the universe is finite, it contains a finite capacity for information storage, therefore no matter how you define "economy" the answer you get will be a finite number.

But, I still see a lot of people who won't even concede the point in the case of unlimited growth. That, to me, suggests that we are looking at a deeper phenomenon than can be resolved via logical arguments.

Think about the responses that believers have when confronted with the argument that there is no god. That is not an argument they can confront objectively. They respond with anger, disgust, etc. You're not making a truth claim to them; you're attacking their happiness in the afterlife. You're suggesting that their grandparents have vanished into nothingness instead of being in heaven. No matter what the facts are, they can never accept such an argument.

I get the exact same feeling from all of you arguing for infinite exponential growth. You're not reacting as if this is a truth claim; you're reacting like I'm trying to take away your happy future, in which everyone is fabulously wealthy and everything continuously improves, forever.

Think about how it makes you feel to consider that economic and scientific growth may have a limit. Can you be certain that you are really objective on this topic?

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#149

Post by Retra » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:12 PM UTC

pmalynin wrote: post #10

I think the dismissal of space colonization over a period of 400 years is...unreasonable. We could move all production to Mars for example and only consume the shipped resources. Sure that’s one doubling right there, but we could continue this process.

You can't "move all production to Mars." Mars doesn't have oil, plants, etc, which are critical to modern production processes. We're not limited by available space, which is about the only thing moving to Mars would solve. If we could build an entirely mineral-based economy, we could do it right here on Earth.

Re: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist (2012)

#150

Post by Kalium » Thu, May 30, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #114

Kalium wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it’s production or goods, there’s obviously an upper limit. Is there? I have a difficult time imagining any meaningful inherent upper limit to the value of creative works. Perhaps you intend a narrower point?

Creative works are ultimately embedded in physical world. If our exploitable physical world is limited, there is indeed an upper limit to the value of creative works. Just like we're facing the prospect of peak oil, is it really hard to imagine that we could face the prospect of physical limitations imposing themselves upon creation and distribution of creative works?

You're absolutely right. The limits of the physical world certainly impose limits on the physical creation and distribution of creative works.

With that said, is it perhaps possible that creation and distribution might not quite be the same as value in every scenario? A given mass of aluminum can be formed - and recycled - into a functionally infinite series of unique artistic works. I can see no reason why the hard limits of the physical world you so wisely point to would inherently force an upper limit on the value of the artwork.

Have I misinterpreted you? Or perhaps I fail to understand your points correctly. Can you help me? I seem to have suffered a failure of imagination.