Well, for one thing, most people on the planet don’t have very much in the way of savings—and for another, sustained annual returns of 1,000% are a fantasy—for some actual figures, see here.
Sustained substantial growth rates seem highly unlikely. Resources—at best—go according to t cubed—so growth is likely to relatively quickly flatten out to close to 0% - a la Malthus.
I won’t estimate peak growth rates here—but the higher they are, the shorter their duration will be.
Assuming any kind of physical resource limits on real value (and this would include physics imposed computational limits so simulation is no get out) it can’t go on for very long.
“why couldn’t economic growth of 1% (or 10%) continue forever in simulations? In the real world, we can’t all be emperor of an infinite universe. But I don’t see why every one of us couldn’t preside over our own simulated utopias?”
“The universe is made of atoms—and other particles. Virtual reality—and all the things economists study—is made of that stuff. You can’t have simulations or value without things being ultimately made out of matter.”
However, that doesn’t prevent simulated high-utility worlds. It seems like the wirehead problem. Yes: we could go into a virtual world and award ourselves a centillion utility points—but then we and our simulated utopias would most likely be obliterated by the very first aliens that come across us—if a meteorite didn’t dispatch us long before that.
Right—but there are practically bound to be aliens out there somewhere who just want to conquer the universe—and couldn’t care less about ecstacy or utopias. Those folk seem likely to eat utopias for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Unless we are a lot more confident that those folk are nowhere nearby, we should probably behave conservatively.
but then we and our simulated utopias would most likely be obliterated by the very first aliens that come across us
I doubt you’d have to wait for aliens—humans, trans-humans or AIs who stayed outside the simulation would likely do the job first. One reason I’d have no desire to enter a simulation.
Well, for one thing, most people on the planet don’t have very much in the way of savings—and for another, sustained annual returns of 1,000% are a fantasy—for some actual figures, see here.
Why do you think that 1000% annual returns are implausible in a fully automated world?
Sustained substantial growth rates seem highly unlikely. Resources—at best—go according to t cubed—so growth is likely to relatively quickly flatten out to close to 0% - a la Malthus.
I won’t estimate peak growth rates here—but the higher they are, the shorter their duration will be.
Assuming any kind of physical resource limits on real value (and this would include physics imposed computational limits so simulation is no get out) it can’t go on for very long.
Bryan says:
“why couldn’t economic growth of 1% (or 10%) continue forever in simulations? In the real world, we can’t all be emperor of an infinite universe. But I don’t see why every one of us couldn’t preside over our own simulated utopias?”
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/09/virtual_cornuco.html
My comment there was:
“The universe is made of atoms—and other particles. Virtual reality—and all the things economists study—is made of that stuff. You can’t have simulations or value without things being ultimately made out of matter.”
However, that doesn’t prevent simulated high-utility worlds. It seems like the wirehead problem. Yes: we could go into a virtual world and award ourselves a centillion utility points—but then we and our simulated utopias would most likely be obliterated by the very first aliens that come across us—if a meteorite didn’t dispatch us long before that.
It’s not an either/or thing. You could spend, say, 1% of your resources on setting up a colonization wavefront.
Right—but there are practically bound to be aliens out there somewhere who just want to conquer the universe—and couldn’t care less about ecstacy or utopias. Those folk seem likely to eat utopias for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Unless we are a lot more confident that those folk are nowhere nearby, we should probably behave conservatively.
I doubt you’d have to wait for aliens—humans, trans-humans or AIs who stayed outside the simulation would likely do the job first. One reason I’d have no desire to enter a simulation.
Natural selection deals with most wireheads. However, there are scenarios where the entire civilisation does this sort of thing.
If there are no competitors in the short term then natural selection’s action could be delayed—until some turn up.