MonteQuest wrote:Oh, not forever, but until we hit the wall we will not change. And even then, only because we have no other choice.
We are dealing with cultural direction and asset inertia.
Monte,
This seems like a new word you've dropped, and I'm interested in what you mean by it. I worked for a financial institution this summer with even some wonks from Wharton, and I never heard it.
Traders there worked with hundreds of millions, and could get in and out of trades in a matter of less than two or three minutes. By the way, there are thousands of traders like these guys out there. I know you're going to drop some number on the order of tens or hundreds of trillions, but keep in mind that we're measuring what they can do in a matter of minutes, not weeks or months. I'll agree with you that some things like factories, refineries, malls, and other buildings are fixed assets, but if you're talking about asset inertia in the context that fixed assets are like displacement, velocity doesn't necessarily have to be continuous like it does in Physics, IMHO. You get days like the ones in 1929 or 1987 that show the market can change direction quickly.
I actually think society would take off if that happened.
If this free energy can actually be extracted at a (virtually) limitless rate as well, then degradation of the planet seems to be a non-issue. We'll be able to manufacture whatever we want: clean water, clean ecosystems, machines that pull carbon and sulfur out of the sky, etc.
The technology isn't there now, but I'm assuming it exists in theory if you have the energy for it. And unlimited energy would give us the unlimited growth necessary to achieve that technology.
When the planet starts to run out of space, we use our unlimited energy to propel spacecrafts at 95% of lightspeed to other earth like planets we have found with our new high powered telescopes. The inhabitants are fozen during the trip and don't realize thousands of years have passed. When they arrive, they use all the free energy and manufacturing machines that were sent along to make a new society.
Or we could just make Mars habitable. Manufacture some oxygen, tune the CO2 content just right for its additional distance from the sun and smaller size..etc. Heck, no reason we couldn't do that for the moon, or Mercury and Venus too! (Dunno about the gas giants. I don't see how to make them solid and keep their size. And you don't exactly want to fall through the surface.)
Or, I could be completely wrong and free energy means we kill ourselves more quickly. Who knows.
My thinking is that if we can make energy for free, and space is truly infinite, there really are no physical side-effects to human activities, no matter how big. However, there may be social consequences.
That's what frightens me about this. Whatever technology could give us unlimited energy could be totally devastating in a war.