Kurzweil's formula is based on recursive intelligence: getting smarter lets you improve the rate at which you get smarter, ad infinitum. Though this can sometimes improve energy technology, intelligence ultimately depends on energy, of which there is a finite usable amount. Though I'm optimistic about new nuclear technologies, I'm forced to agree that absent an unforeseen break-though in fusion, "zero-point", etc., Kurzweil's model is agnostic when it comes to extracting useful energy, and therefore could have an expiration date.
It's worth noting, however, that we'll never completely run out of energy, so long as Sol keeps burning. Can we sustain anything remotely resembling civilization based only on solar energy and its indirect organic by-products? Well, that's obviously debatable.
> Even if the energy problem is technically solvable, it seems to me that our political systems may be set up to do the absolute worst possible thing
Never doubt the self-interest of the powerful. Some may be short-sighted enough to eat their seed and burn resources in resource wars, but I think we're more likely to devolve into feudalism, where the masses eke out their existence serving the needs of those who control the remaining resources. On the other hand, if any kind of information infrastructure remains when the oil runs out, we also have the possibility of new emergent, de-centralized social structures constructed out of necessity. (Imagine, for instance, a mesh network of hand-crank-powered cell phones which virally alert clusters of villages to band together to defend against marauders.)
Either way, I can't help but feel that our lifetimes are the perfect fulfillment of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
It's worth noting, however, that we'll never completely run out of energy, so long as Sol keeps burning. Can we sustain anything remotely resembling civilization based only on solar energy and its indirect organic by-products? Well, that's obviously debatable.
> Even if the energy problem is technically solvable, it seems to me that our political systems may be set up to do the absolute worst possible thing
Never doubt the self-interest of the powerful. Some may be short-sighted enough to eat their seed and burn resources in resource wars, but I think we're more likely to devolve into feudalism, where the masses eke out their existence serving the needs of those who control the remaining resources. On the other hand, if any kind of information infrastructure remains when the oil runs out, we also have the possibility of new emergent, de-centralized social structures constructed out of necessity. (Imagine, for instance, a mesh network of hand-crank-powered cell phones which virally alert clusters of villages to band together to defend against marauders.)
Either way, I can't help but feel that our lifetimes are the perfect fulfillment of the old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."