Exponential growth under the limited resource Always finish by collapse. Some resources are always limited in nature. Smith’s joke from the “Matrix” (about modeling humans as a virus) is only partially a joke. Whenever somebody talks about “exponent” – be alarmed – it would end in a very bad way.
The biggest one in the history of mankind was around 1200 b.c. Tin for Bronze has been finished, Bronze was the basement of the civilization. It is the famous “Bronze Age collapse” that cut the population 100x, and civilization lost writing capability for a few hundreds of years. Recovered by mastering Iron instead of Bronze. Iron is many thousands of times more available on Earth (in every swamp). Tens of smaller collapses are traceable in human history. Well, Roma's empire collapse was probably not so small, but smaller than the “Bronze Age collapse”. The oldest is probably from humans in Australia, they have eaten all big animals and destroyed all forests, then depopulate and lose the basic tools (like arrows). A very similar story that did happen for Easter Island, just on the island all become dead. We are at the inflection point of the current exponent. Natural resource energy production already declining for a couple of years (small decline yet) – carbon-hydrogen-based natural resources are limited. If a replacement for the current energy source would not be found Then the anticipated civilization collapse would become the biggest in history: 1000x depopulations. Nile river is capable to feed 1M of people using only muscles, not 120M. And so on everywhere in the world. The transition period in collapse would bypass possible optimal under the new conditions (cut more people). “Dark ages” are possible and happened in history many times. Don’t be too optimistic. People could start eating each other instead of “Lunch on the Moon”. It is possible. Fortunately, not mandatory. PS: Canned energy from China (solar panels, wind turbines) is produced from coal. It is not a solution when coal would finish. Moreover, energy return from such types of “green energy” is worse than direct electricity generation from coal. It is popular just because dust is left in China. Others have “green”. A closed nuclear fuel cycle is the only available solution (gives the next exponent that could last 5k years if Thorium is involved). The ordinary nuclear reaction could prolong humans' agony only for 60 years (Uranium 235 is limited). Nuclear fusion looks like fiction yet: the best story for money wastage, already 3 generations of scientists have made their careers. Ed/ From: NANOG [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Etienne-Victor Depasquale via NANOG Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2022 9:19 PM To: Chris Wright <[email protected]> Cc: NANOG <[email protected]> Subject: Re: IoT - The end of the internet because our lizard brains have a hard time comprehending exponential growth Don't forget how we pontificate on how well we understand infinity. Cheers, Etienne On Wed, Aug 10, 2022 at 6:09 PM Chris Wright <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: That’s just humans in general, and it certainly isn’t limited to our outlook on the future of the internet. Big advancements will always take us by surprise because our lizard brains have a hard time comprehending exponential growth. Someone please stop me here before I get on my Battery-EV soapbox. :D Chris From: NANOG <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Tom Beecher Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2022 9:25 AM To: Christopher Wolff <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: NANOG <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: IoT - The end of the internet It always amazes me how an industry that has , since its inception, been constantly solving new problems to make things work, always finds a way to assume the next problem will be unsolvable. On Tue, Aug 9, 2022 at 10:23 PM Christopher Wolff <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi folks, Has anyone proposed that the adoption of billions of IoT devices will ultimately ‘break’ the Internet? It’s not a rhetorical question I promise, just looking for a journal or other scholarly article that implies that the Internet is doomed. -- Ing. Etienne-Victor Depasquale Assistant Lecturer Department of Communications & Computer Engineering Faculty of Information & Communication Technology University of Malta Web. https://www.um.edu.mt/profile/etiennedepasquale
