[ExI] Predictions for 2008 from 1968

[John Winters]

On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 7:33 PM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

Interesting bit about domes covering cities in that article.

People tend to overestimate how wealthy we'll be in the future.  Yes,
climate-controlled domes that cover cities are technically possible
today, but they are financially infeasible.  I wonder what they
expected the per capita GDP to be 40 years into the future.  Or maybe
they assumed fabrication technology would be absurdly cheap.  That's a
thermodynamic/energy problem.  Either way, neither has happened.

But this illustrates the two main trajectories that get overestimated:
 finances and thermodynamics.

For this reason I'm not too worried about a grey goo accident, and I
wonder about the large scale feasibility of nanotechnology in general.
 You need raw material, namely reduced hydrocarbons.  Those stores are
quickly running out.  The cost of ethane/ethene will follow that of
benzene.  Maybe we can convert CO2, but that will be costly as well.
Oxidation of hydrocarbons is thermodynamically probable -- just look
how much energy we extract during combustion.  The reverse reaction
will consume energy.

I think in the end finding a sufficient raw supply will prove to be a
bigger challenge than designing the machinery to do it.

J