Let me paraphrase your argument, to see if I’ve understood it correctly:
Physical constraints on things such as energy consumption and dissipation imply that current rates of economic growth on Earth are unsustainable in the relatively short term (<1000 years), even taking into account decoupling, etc.
There is a strong probability that expanding through space will not be feasible
Therefore, we can reasonably expect growth to end some time in the next centuries
First of all, if economic progress keeps being exponential then I think it’s quite possible that technological progress will mostly continue at previous rates.
So in 100-200 years, it seems certainly possible that space expansion will become much easier, if for example genetic engineering allows humans to better tolerate space environments.
But that’s pretty much a “boring world” scenario where things keep going mostly as they are now. I expect the actual state of humanity in 200 years will be extremal: either extinction or something very weird.
Material needs, entertainment, leisure… are basically all covered for most people in rich countries. If you think about what could provide a substantial increase in utility to a very rich person nowadays, I think it’s down to better physical health (up to biological immortality), mental health, protection from risks… and after all of that you pretty much have to start providing enlightenment, eudaimomia or whatever if you want to improve their lives at all.
So when you have a stable population of immortal enlightened billionaires… Well, perhaps you’ve reached the peak of what’s possible and growth is not necessary anymore. Or perhaps you’ve discovered a way to hack physics and energy and entropy are not important anymore.
So, even if 200 years is a short amount of time by historic standards, the next 200 years will probably produce changes big enough that physical constraints that we would reach in 300 years at current trends stop being relevant.
While progress for any certain technology can certainly be exponential, the benefit or impact of it may not be exponential if we assume that the lowest hanging fruits (in terms of cost/benefit tradeoff) gets plucked first, and then it becomes harder and harder to derive economically relevant benefit even with tech progress.
What unbounded benefit relies on whether we can keep on discovering new types of general-purpose technologies, and not just an improvement in current technologies.
E.g. faster air travel depends on some new uncertain technology to be invented. We can only squeeze incremental benefits from further improving the current air travel technologies.
Also see Eroom’s law which suggests declining R&D productivity for drug discovery.
Whether we can keep on discovering such general-purpose technologies is pure speculation, so there’s some probability that we may actually not be in a weird cross-roads within the next 200 years.
Let me paraphrase your argument, to see if I’ve understood it correctly:
Physical constraints on things such as energy consumption and dissipation imply that current rates of economic growth on Earth are unsustainable in the relatively short term (<1000 years), even taking into account decoupling, etc.
There is a strong probability that expanding through space will not be feasible
Therefore, we can reasonably expect growth to end some time in the next centuries
First of all, if economic progress keeps being exponential then I think it’s quite possible that technological progress will mostly continue at previous rates.
So in 100-200 years, it seems certainly possible that space expansion will become much easier, if for example genetic engineering allows humans to better tolerate space environments.
But that’s pretty much a “boring world” scenario where things keep going mostly as they are now. I expect the actual state of humanity in 200 years will be extremal: either extinction or something very weird.
Material needs, entertainment, leisure… are basically all covered for most people in rich countries. If you think about what could provide a substantial increase in utility to a very rich person nowadays, I think it’s down to better physical health (up to biological immortality), mental health, protection from risks… and after all of that you pretty much have to start providing enlightenment, eudaimomia or whatever if you want to improve their lives at all.
So when you have a stable population of immortal enlightened billionaires… Well, perhaps you’ve reached the peak of what’s possible and growth is not necessary anymore. Or perhaps you’ve discovered a way to hack physics and energy and entropy are not important anymore.
So, even if 200 years is a short amount of time by historic standards, the next 200 years will probably produce changes big enough that physical constraints that we would reach in 300 years at current trends stop being relevant.
Yes, you’ve paraphrased the argument well.
While progress for any certain technology can certainly be exponential, the benefit or impact of it may not be exponential if we assume that the lowest hanging fruits (in terms of cost/benefit tradeoff) gets plucked first, and then it becomes harder and harder to derive economically relevant benefit even with tech progress.
What unbounded benefit relies on whether we can keep on discovering new types of general-purpose technologies, and not just an improvement in current technologies.
E.g. faster air travel depends on some new uncertain technology to be invented. We can only squeeze incremental benefits from further improving the current air travel technologies.
Also see Eroom’s law which suggests declining R&D productivity for drug discovery.
Whether we can keep on discovering such general-purpose technologies is pure speculation, so there’s some probability that we may actually not be in a weird cross-roads within the next 200 years.