von Neumann probes, Dyson spheres, exploratory engineering and the Fermi paradox

2100 is way too far out to predict anything . The cost of gene synthesis is roughly 20 years behind gene sequencing [0]. Extrapolated, by 2040, arbitrarily modifying your offspring will represent a trivial fraction (~0.5%) of the total cost of starting a family. Follow Moore’s law (considering lower costs rather than boosted performance) and assuming the Kurzweil estimate for full brain emulation, then by 2047, uploaded minds would be cheaper than the food eaten by subsistence farmers. [1] The first thing most people suggest when they hear about 3D printers is printing another 3D printer. It is definitely possible because that’s what every living cell does; while nobody knows how to do this now , if we can make it happen with the rocks of Mercury, it only takes four decades to build a Dyson swarm. [2] The questions are, what happens first, and how does humanity collectively react to that? [0] [link] [1] [link] [2] [this video]

> I'm not sure which definition of 'growth' you're referring to here. One in which brain uploads are relevant, because you mentioned it. Literally any kind of efficiency has a maximum, an economy of pure minds was just the most extreme case which I took specifically to avoid any possible debate: there is (according to currently known laws of reality) definitely an absolute maximum in this universe, no matter what we do. Limit the population to current number or lower, and any other kind of efficiency also has a limit — lights can’t convert less than 0% into heat, resistance can’t be less than in a superconductor, reversible computers can’t beat the Landauer limit. You might fully automate manufacturing and give everyone alive today their own personal galaxy cluster [0] and it’s still finite. Big, still finite. > If it's GDP (which the article linked earlier did), well, in many developed countries, population has been decreasing despite increasing GDP. So this issue does not prevent growth. Indeed it is decreasing. Yet you may have to enforce that, because subgroups that grow faster rapidly dominate. This is unavoidable unless you take active measures to prevent it, because that’s what evolution does. (You can because evolution is dumb, but you have to). (I’d argue that in such a case, the license to reproduce would constitute a currency and in that currency humanity today world seem unimaginably wealthy; however this is not something I am prepared to make a keystone argument)