Reply #8

I didn't take the article as truth-seeking. Its seeking the renovation of the consumer candy store.

If we had 'unlimited' energy, we could theoretically have unlimited life, unlimited pollution, or some combination depending on how our peculiar psyches react to the situation. What aspects of the cycles of life and consumption will be blown out of proportion? Won't the topic of population get pushed back into the shadows?

And would a renewed surge in population keep consumer abundance at bay? Any way I look at it, the biosphere is more likely than not to get trashed... unless we first learn to treasure life in a multi-dimensional way (interdependence, biodiversity, etc.).

Eventually Mr. Fusion means pushing out to space in relatively short order or else the laws of thermodynamics would put a crimp on everything. Otherwise and ironically, we overheat both with unlimited energy and without it.

But its harder than it sounds... how do you raise children in 1/3g on Mars without horribly deforming them? Make every dwelling into a centrifuge, that increases heat buildup and decreases population density? Our very first space colonies may make human genetic modification absolutely necessary (and it would take a long time with a lot of trial and error to make even a miserable existence possible).

Star Trek brings the economic aspect up here and there, but as many have said its optimistic (that unlimited energy makes people blase about consumption and exploitation) but the FTL travel on which that society is predicated is highly unlikely anyway.