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Comment by Mistletoe | Hacker News Reader

I can read all these technical extrapolations of physics but I don’t think humans can run much faster than Usain or they would currently do so. Without more performance enhancing drugs and I’m assuming we don’t want that. We are going to live in a weird world in the future when we realize things can’t just continue forever up and to the right on all charts. We may just live at the plateau for eons. I believe we are all very lucky to have lived at a very special time in human history.

https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/

And I think it is smart to prepare yourself for when the world realizes that stuffing money into stocks can’t give 10% every year forever. And all hell will break loose because that is what our whole world is currently built upon. I don’t know when that will happen, but mathematically we can prove that it must happen eventually.

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I was reading this carefully looking for the reason of "why this can't go on", and seemingly this is the reason

> if the economy were 3*1070 times as big as today's, and could only make use of 1070 (or fewer) atoms, we'd need to be sustaining multiple economies as big as today's entire world economy per atom

What kind of argument is that? Sounds like someone had an idea and went looking for evidence to support it.

> mathematically we can prove that it must happen eventually

Please explain, and not using a reasoning comparing dollars to atoms

The math for increasing 10% per year over any long length of time gets so crazy that you have to use how many atoms exist as an absurd placeholder. Dollars don't work anymore.

The rule of 72 says at 10% per year (historical returns in the stock market for the past 100 years) means you are doubling the value of the stock market every 7.2 years. Things like economies can't grow like that and if you are questioning why it's because you and I grew up in this era where they could for a brief blinking in time. Human reproduction is slowing, we've harvested all the low hanging fruit, "free" land is all taken. I feel like we are probably at the part of the 100m dash curve talked about here.

https://condellpark.com/kd/sprintlogistic.htm

At our current rate, the record of 9.48s will be reached in 500 years if you plot it. But I don't think people are going to maintain interest for 500 years to get there from 9.58 seconds.

> Things like economies can't grow like that

says who?

if i were born and living in the 1500s, how could i predict the economy would soon grow 10%/year for over a century?

you're just stating things like facts which have never been predictable. nothing about our current growth was inevitable, neither is a gigantic slowdown.

i think these kinds of predictions are:

1. far more difficult than we realise

2. so difficult that there is almost no value in making them.

The Church of Infinite Growth has been riled.

\_(ツ)_/¯

the writer of the article could have just as easily predicted an epic slowdown as infinite growth. that's how much evidence and reasoning they provided. it's the monkey throwing darts

> Without more performance enhancing drugs and I’m assuming we don’t want that.

Depends on the "we":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Games

I do not think it is very responsible to increase the incentives even more for exploiting your own body. Also, a mindset like that might easily spill over into "normal" jobs.

> Without more performance enhancing drugs and I’m assuming we don’t want that.

I mean, what are the arguments against PEDs? I guess that they carry risks for the athletes and unfair advantages. It's conceivable that future tech will enable us to legalise and regulate drugs in much the same way as we do equipment now. If that leads to records being smashed, I think the general public will probably come round to it.

For myself, I don't like them because I know they come with health risks and that makes me watching the events like a roman citizen watching gladiators die for their entertainment. And I try to stay away from that as much as possible.

Sure. But it's conceivable that future tech will produce drugs and doping regimes that minimise the health risks.

And if a frog had wings it wouldn’t bump its ass when it hops. You asked for the argument against PEDs, and right now the argument is that they have adverse effects on health. If the health effects ever change in the future, then we can revisit.

I guess my point is that Mistletoe is perhaps overly dismissive of humans competing with PEDs in future; it could well change depending on the tech.

Fair enough. I think ketones might be a parallel to what you're thinking. Seems to be safe so far, seems like it could be beneficial, still legal. But at $5/day, I'm hoping that shit doesn't work because I don't want to have to spend $5/day to remain competitive.

Even in events you don’t watch, like the Bumphuck Senior Games 40+ Steeplechase, people are doping. And as a competitor in endurance sports, I don’t want to have to take PEDs and risk my health just to stay competitive in bullshit, no-one-cares-but-your-Mom local amateur events.

"There is evidence that the pattern of banned substance use in elite athletes is high, yet morbidity and mortality of elite athletes is not greater than the general population, and former elite athletes live longer and healthier lives than age-matched controls. There is evidence that misuse of PEDs, often obtained from the black market, without medical guidance or intervention contributes to morbidity and mortality in recreational athletes, but this pattern is not evident in elite athletes."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22112...

> they come with health risks

Professional sports inherently come with health risks. They are unhealthy almost by definition.

If someone wants to risk their well-being for achievement, fame, big money and/or anything else (which is crazy, but people do crazy stuff) - it is more beneficial for the society if it's all transparent and goes into scientific papers and not some anti-doping agency or court papers.

If that leads to records being smashed, I think the general public will probably come round to it.

I'm not so sure this is a given. See: Barry Bonds.

I had to look that up. It sounds like what he did was deceptive and against the rules. What I'm talking about is changing the rules.

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