We may not run out of ideas but we may run out of exploitable physics. For instance what is most needed at the moment is a clean, cheap and large scale energy source that can replace gas, oil, and coal, without which much of the technological and economic development of the last hundred and fifty years or so would have been impossible. Perhaps fusion can be that thing. Perhaps we can paper over the Sahara with photovoltaics. Perhaps we can design fail-safe fission reactors more acceptable to the general population. Let’s assume we will solve the various technical and geopolitical problems necessary to get at least one of these technologies to where we need it to be. My point is this, what if physics either didn’t allow, or made it technologically too difficult; for any of these three possibilities to come to fruition ? We’d be at roughly the same place in terms of development, but without the potential safety net these technologies could give us. What likelihood of continued progress then? And so on. A greater population (of humans at least) in the future will certainly provide a greater fund of technological ideas, but to keep the world in a healthy enough state to support that population may require physics that is either unavailable to us, or just too difficult to exploit.
In regard to the amazing possibilities available to us by manipulating macromolecules, I am completely with you. We have only just scratched the surface of what is achievable using the physics we have readily to hand, IMO.
We may not run out of ideas but we may run out of exploitable physics. For instance what is most needed at the moment is a clean, cheap and large scale energy source that can replace gas, oil, and coal, without which much of the technological and economic development of the last hundred and fifty years or so would have been impossible. Perhaps fusion can be that thing. Perhaps we can paper over the Sahara with photovoltaics. Perhaps we can design fail-safe fission reactors more acceptable to the general population. Let’s assume we will solve the various technical and geopolitical problems necessary to get at least one of these technologies to where we need it to be. My point is this, what if physics either didn’t allow, or made it technologically too difficult; for any of these three possibilities to come to fruition ? We’d be at roughly the same place in terms of development, but without the potential safety net these technologies could give us. What likelihood of continued progress then? And so on. A greater population (of humans at least) in the future will certainly provide a greater fund of technological ideas, but to keep the world in a healthy enough state to support that population may require physics that is either unavailable to us, or just too difficult to exploit.
In regard to the amazing possibilities available to us by manipulating macromolecules, I am completely with you. We have only just scratched the surface of what is achievable using the physics we have readily to hand, IMO.