John Robb's Weblog

Exponential economic growth with rapidly decreasing resource needs...

Here's an interesting way to view the future...  I've never seen this argument before, stated in this way.  

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Have you ever heard about Koomey's law?  It makes a strong claim that computations per joule in computing has doubled every 1.57 years since the 40's.

I find it more useful than Moore's law. Why is it a source of deep optimism?

Here's a simple tautology. The only true measure of "advancement" as a species is our growth in computational complexity. So far, that's mostly been achieved through a growth in people via social/cultural advancement. In the last couple of hundred years, we've been doing it through a very rapid increase in our usage of energy. In the last couple of decades, we've begun to use computation to do it.

How does energy increase our computational complexity. Roughly. Typically by eliminating the need for people power to do things in the physical world. Here's a great quote from Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear Navy:

"With high energy consumption goes a high standard of living. Thus the enormous fossil energy which we in this country control feeds machines which make each of us master of an army of mechanical slaves. Man's muscle power is rated at 35 watts continuously, or one-twentieth horsepower. Machines therefore furnish every American industrial worker with energy equivalent to that of 244 men, while at least 2,000 men push his automobile along the road, and his family is supplied with 33 faithful household helpers. Each locomotive engineer controls energy equivalent to that of 100,000 men; each jet pilot of 700,000 men. Truly, the humblest American enjoys the services of more slaves than were once owned by the richest nobles, and lives better than most ancient kings. In retrospect, and despite wars, revolutions, and disasters, the hundred years just gone by may well seem like a Golden Age."

Computation replaces both energy and people, in a similar way. We're just starting to use it effectively. The closer we align our economy to take advantage of computation efficiency improvements, the fast we progress.

The ongoing growth in computational efficiency unmoors us from a reliance on energy growth. It does so in much the same way energy growth has disconnected us from population. In fact, given the amazingly fast rate of improvement in computational efficiency we are seeing, we could see substantial reductions in both population and energy production in the future w/o seeing any slowing in the growth of the computational complexity of our species.

Of course, that's not possible in the current substrate. We're going to need to see a break with the past as profound as we saw with our break agrarianism. Eventually, we'll see a system that aligns with the potential for improvement that is possible and just as we saw in the contest between industrial nations and undeveloped nations in the last three centuries, it won't be a fair fight. The only lingering question is how rocky the transition is and what the new vehicle looks like.

One way to accomplish this quickly (before the old system completely fails) is to decentralize production with networked resilient communities.  At that point, the global economy would be 98% information and all basic needs would be provided for locally.  Information only economies built on a base of self-sufficiency can be as different from capitalism as capitalism is from feudalism.

John Robb

Thwarted Car Bomb

Here's a correction to a statement by David Ignatius:   It was a makeshift plot by a new generation of terrorists that was thwarted by a combination of high-tech surveillance and vigilant citizens.

Warren Buffett as the Bankster

For decades, Warren Buffett has carefully crafted the image of a homespun everyman, that happens to be a billionaire++. 

Wow, that PR effort is shriveling up under the harsh glare of financial pressure. His big lobbying effort to get special treatment for his derivative positions (at the expense of financial reform) and his staunch dismissal of the malfeasance of Goldman Sachs is finally giving us a sense of his true nature.

An Idiot

Was doing some research for my book.  

Here's a guy called Justin Credible that rips off a Nigerian trying to rent a room from him on Craigslist (from 2005).  He incorrectly assumes the person sending him a check is a scammer (hint: scammers don't send you money).  Worse, he thinks he is smart.  The guy is a crook. Frankly, if he didn't like the sound of transaction (it seemed risky given the potential that he was laundering money from an expense account), he should have ignored it.

Demographic Dystopia

Back in 1996, I worked on the implications of matching just-in-time advertising with highly accurate personal data with the senior leadership of Firefly.  My conclusion was that once that connection could be made, we create the opportunity for a demographic dystopia.  In short, because you have great data (money, spending habits, public/network influence, etc.) you will get lots of free stuff.  For example, you walk into a movie theater, ping the kiosk with you phone, and it says, "John Robb, it's so great to have you here. Please let us offer you a free ticket."  The next guy in line pings it with his phone, "$17.95 please."

In short, a demographic dystopia, where having more gets you more, built into the fabric of our lives.  Dave has a different take on this.  He calls it, "The mother of all business models."