[ExI] imaginable wealth

[Jason Resch]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2026, 3:14 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> We are told that AI will either kill us all or create unimaginable wealth.
>
>
>
> I have long thought there are other possibilities, such as creating
> imaginable wealth, as previous leaps in technology have done, while neither
> killing us nor generating unimaginable wealth.
>

I think once there is sophisticated fully immersive VR, driven by either
implanted chips or mind uploading, then unlimited wealth becomes
unavoidable, because then any experience (no matter how much it would cost
to have in the real world) could be had for free by anyone as many times as
they like.

People could experience a dream vacation that would costs millions to have
in real life, a party on the top of my Everest, or a moon of Saturn, a
Picasso on every wall, eat every dish from every top restaurant in the
world, etc. In fact, people could own whole planets and universes of their
own (procedurally generated as to seem to go on forever).

The interim period (of imaginable wealth) will thus be limited to before
before immersive VR/mind uploading, and will consist of whatever GDP
improvements in the physical world can be attained using robots and AI with
the finite energy and material resources at hand.

But note that energy constraints don't meaningfully limit human experience.
Since the human brain runs on 20 watts, it follows that any experience that
is possible for the human brain to have can be had for just a few dollars
of electricity per month.

Jason


>
> The photo below is a selfie I took of my arm (would that be called an
> army?)  I am six ft and my arm is nearly vertical, so about 8 ft from the
> floor.
>
>
>
> Notice the door is considerably higher, about another 3 ft above my
> reach.  So that doorway to the restroom is about 11 ft.
>
>
>
> This photo was taken on a medical building which was erected on the site
> of an impoverished metal shop I used to frequent in my cheerfully
> squandered youth, about 35 years ago.  The site is now a modern office
> facility which likes to show off a bit.  It has everywhere in it
> indications of how imaginable wealth is utilized: in showy extravagances,
> such as buildings on a 12 foot scale rather than the usual 8 ft.  It costs
> more to do that of course, but it feels so cool, makes everything feel
> modern and forward looking.
>
>
>
>
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> It somehow reminded me of when I was visiting the grandiose cathedrals of
> Europe, which filled me with awe and wonder.
>
>
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> In the cathedrals, I thought: AWE man!  WONDER if they would let us have
> autonomous rubber-band powered airplane contests in here?
>
>
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> It’s a very special kind of awe and wonder.  We could set it up to where
> the contestants would lose points if they crash into those people praying
> over there, for instance.  See if we could rig up miniaturized control
> systems so that they could get points by flying around up top, near the
> expensive paintings without hitting them, or fly patterns around the
> statues, providing the less devout worshippers free entertainment,
> something to do to break the boredom, that sorta thing.  The mind boggles.
>
>
>
> spike
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