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Remember Scott's post about how 2100 "isn't a real year"? You're making that mistake, times a thousand. The question of "based on physics, how many consciousnesses can our civilization support" has almost nothing to do with our current existence; any answer, and any pressing need to answer, is way beyond the future event horizon where the world will be unrecognizable to us.
What you're doing now is the equivalent of ancient tribes sitting by their campfire, taking a break from their stories about how the Moon Goddess hides from the Sun God, to talk about how the Fed should optimally set interest rates to avoid a recession. It's beyond pointless.
To be fair, this is approximately the same criticism I have of the AI panickers -- as though MIRI or its ilk ever had a prayer of solving Friendly AI, and as though delaying "AI capabilities" research would do anything other than give us more time to hang ourselves on some unrelated catastrophe while the hardware overhang grows.
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