Physicist Al Bartlett's well-known lecture on the arithmetic of exponential growth, applied to population, energy consumption and resource depletion. He argues that steady percentage growth cannot be sustained on a finite planet and that most public discussion ignores this.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters cite it as a mind-changing introduction to exponential growth, though some note his peak oil predictions did not pan out.
“have totally changed the way I look at all political discourse”HN comment, 2020
“the "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" lecture by Al Bartlett is absolutely amazing. You will never see the news in the same way again after watching it”
Lecture on exponential growth that changes how you see the news.
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For me, several books by Greg Egan fall into this category. Permutation City, Diaspora, Quarantine, and Schild's Ladder have all... changed me. I was a different person before and after I had read those books, and now I categorise all works of fiction into those that forever alter my way of thinking and those that do not. link Which reminds me, I should finish: link The Culture series by Iain Banks, especially Inversions also satisfy this requirement, as does The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear: link -- which is a difficult to consume masterpiece that nonetheless left me permanently horrified in the way that H. P. Lovecraft tried but failed. For the non-fiction category the CGP Grey video "The Rules for Rulers": link and Part 2: link have totally changed the way I look at all political discourse, and this is coming from someone who has already absorbed The Prince. It's based on the Dictator's Handbook, which I should read also, but the CGP video was an effective summary already! link Last, but not least, if I'm allowed to include lecture videos, then the "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" lecture by Al Bartlett is absolutely amazing. You will never see the news in the same way again after watching it: this video
Strongly recommendssimonblackMar 2020
“it's the most valuable use of an hour of your lifetime to watch Prof. Bartlett's talk on exponential growth”
Explains dangers of exponential growth.
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"Two minutes past twelve." The problem with stuff like this is that most people have no knowledge about the dangers of exponential growth. It only takes an hour, but it's the most valuable use of an hour of your lifetime to watch Prof. Bartlett's talk on exponential growth in 'Arithmetic, Population and Energy': this video
Strongly recommendsmaerF0x0May 2020
“Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up by x% per year, forever.”
Life-changing idea about compounding and unsustainable growth.
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Compounding, growth etc this video Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up by x% per year, forever. Taught me that getting better today (however small) can give resources to getting better(er?) tomorrow. Taught me that many "experts" just say whatever to get voted in or to get a budget without regards to the absurdity of their own statements, and that many people eat up this kind of absurdity without fact checking / validating it.
RecommendsqpwoeirutyzzzzJul 2016
“also relevant”
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For starters have fewer or no kids, and stop traveling frivolously by air. Aircraft emissions, because they are made at high altitude, have a climate impact that is leveraged by a factor commonly estimated to be 2.7 higher than the same emissions if made at ground-level.[1] 1. link edit: also relevant this video
RecommendsknorkerJun 2022
“we can not prevent the end of exponential population growth. We can only choose how it ends.”
Population growth must end; only the way it ends is a choice.
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The population pyramid is not sustainable. The exponential function just will not allow for the combination of age pyramid and our increasingly effective health care keeping us alive to all become parents. Watch this talk: this video Tl;DW: we can not prevent the end of exponential population growth. We can only choose how it ends. By starvation, war, disease, or fewer births. Pension systems have relied on growth for a long time, but it's just not mathematically possible is the long run.
RecommendsRetroTechieJul 2023
“most people don't understand exponential growth.”
Shows experts and the public ignoring exponential and physical constraints.
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Great read! Reminds me of this lecture: this video Al Bartlett - Arithmetic, Population and Energy Amazing how again & again, even so-called 'experts' can't do math, or ignore fundamental physics constraints. Never mind news outlets or the general public. And... most people don't understand exponential growth. Which brings me to b) math + physics is much much much much more reliable than people. So if you understand the physics involved, do the math, conclude that it can't possibly work, but someone (expert or otherwise) says it will work: go with your calculator. :-)
Cites itacqqFeb 2017
“the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function”
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It's fascinating how you ignore all the measurements that don't match your, as you say, "political" view, if you followed the links, that is. Because you can't say then you didn't understand how much are of them disproving your claims, and what they mean, and still claim you earned a Ph.D. Do you really think it's the whole world conspiracy? Because the "political" claim has no sense unless you believe that world consists only of the US of A, it's most of the scientists all around the world. If you simply say that the short-term politics is more important for you than the future of the world, I can at least understand. Anyway, "the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function": this video
Cites itgamblerOct 2018
“There is an old lecture that draws this exact parallel”
Old lecture drawing the same parallel.
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There is an old lecture that draws this exact parallel: "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" this video
Cites itbjourneSep 2019
“Still a good talk, but it seems he was wrong about peak oil”
Still a good talk on exponential growth.
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Peak oil featured prominently in Al Bartlett's talk about exponential growth. this video Still a good talk, but it seems he was wrong about peak oil, just like Malthus was wrong about population growth.
Cites itz8rHZM8Svhu8hE2Jan 2022
“the old lecture on the exponential function of energy consumption comes to mind”
Old lecture on exponential growth of energy consumption.
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In this context, the old lecture on the exponential function of energy consumption comes to mind. Arithmetic, Population and Energy - a talk by Al Bartlett: this video
CriticalabetuskMay 2020
“Al Bartlett builds a straw man argument”
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For me, this type of thinking does the exact opposite in that it has a chilling effect on finding solutions and correctly assessing reality. While some of what Al Bartlett says is true, that unfettered exponential growth can't go on forever, other statements are misleading or outright false. He has a soapbox about limiting population growth now (in the US) [0], tied in to concepts of peak oil and other "dark green" talking points. This type of thinking misses the larger picture. The irony is that exponential growth happens all across the board, not just in population growth and energy usage but in innovation for more efficient energy usage and in finding alternative energy sources. Al Bartlett builds a straw man argument, saying "technological optimists assure use that technology will always solve all of our problems ..." [1] but this isn't true. The argument against Bartlett's statement is that we haven't hit the ceiling on energy that's available to us. This is one of the first issues I have with this thinking: if we were to take his argument at face value, limit population growth, turn down our energy usage and try to live with what we have, then we're setting ourselves up for failure as every other country on the planet shifts to solar because it provides cheaper energy (yes, even to coal) and will only get exponentially cheaper for a good period of time [2] [3]. Here's some simple arithmetic [4]: The average US household consumes 30kWh of energy a day. The available ener
