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Comment by yawpitch | Hacker News Reader

If fusion powers the grid in my lifetime I shall, with relish (literally, or at least a chutney or other pickle) eat my hat.

And I’ll enjoy it. Especially as I watch both capitalism and the world order implode right alongside.

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Watching the world order implode is almost certain not to be an enjoyable experience if you have to live there.

Didn’t imply I’d get to enjoy it for very long.

Cheap unlimited power will topple capitalism? Through what mechanism exactly

Plenty

Capitalism is underpinned by precisely two things; the scarcity of time and the scarcity of energy… give the world essentially unlimited energy and you free almost every worker from the pursuit of energy, and now there’s a massive supply of underutilized time. Follow the capitalist impulse to keep the unlimited energy under the control of a cartel and the capitalist(s) discovers right quick what a massive number of people with underutilized time can do with their artificially limited supply of energy (and rough implements) to anyone whose corruption by the profit motive has led them to religiously hate but never really understand Marx.

I wouldn’t want to be a sudden trillionaire (or their armed security) in the face of billions of the suddenly unemployed.

Combine them with the immediate and total collapse of all the world’s petrostates who suddenly have a horde of what is no longer energy but just lubricant and plastic precursor and there goes your world order.

>give the world essentially unlimited energy and you free almost every worker from the pursuit of energy

Only a small portion of the workforce is currently engaged in the pursuit of energy, so that wouldn't amount to much.

or a slight twist, if fusion doesn't bring free energy due to capitalism harvesting a profit maybe THAT is the instigator of its downfall

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