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This is just a special case of this general phenomenon:

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...

We can't have unlimited economic growth for ever without boiling the oceans, or without figuring out a way to have economic growth without increasing energy usage. It's not about global warming, it's about just waste heat and entropy, even assuming maximally efficient engines and 100% renewable energy.

And really, all of that blog post is a special case of the observation that life is a way to more rapidly increase entropy on earth by finding and exploiting energy sources. Eventually earth will reach a life-induced thermal equilibrium which will be incompatible with the continued existence of life on earth.



Reversible computation doesn’t need to result in waste heat so that’s one path towards unlimited economic growth.




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