It’s interesting that you (and OP) think that growing electricity use per capita is good. I think it’s a reasonable proxy for other kinds of growth in many situations, but what we care about is those other kinds of growth—and given that there are negative externalities associated with electricity (pollution and climate change) and so there’s been a concerted effort to be more efficient, using it as a proxy for growth is a lot more suspect over the past couple of decades.
I would probably want to measure something we care about directly rather than electricity use per capita, at least until something like fusion comes along.
To be clear, I care about clean energy. However, if energy production can be done without net-costly negative externalities, then it seems quite great.
I found Matthew Yglesias’s take, and Jason’s writings, interesting.
All that said, if energy on the net leads to AGI doom, that could be enough to offset any gain, but my guess is that clean energy growth is still a net positive.
I think it’s still a pretty good proxy. Quantitatively, correlation between energy usage and GDP is pretty high, even at higher income levels. Qualitatively, many things that would greatly improve quality of life would also use lots more energy: supersonic air travel, nanotech, flying cars, etc.
It’s interesting that you (and OP) think that growing electricity use per capita is good. I think it’s a reasonable proxy for other kinds of growth in many situations, but what we care about is those other kinds of growth—and given that there are negative externalities associated with electricity (pollution and climate change) and so there’s been a concerted effort to be more efficient, using it as a proxy for growth is a lot more suspect over the past couple of decades.
I would probably want to measure something we care about directly rather than electricity use per capita, at least until something like fusion comes along.
To be clear, I care about clean energy. However, if energy production can be done without net-costly negative externalities, then it seems quite great.
I found Matthew Yglesias’s take, and Jason’s writings, interesting.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/energy-abundance
All that said, if energy on the net leads to AGI doom, that could be enough to offset any gain, but my guess is that clean energy growth is still a net positive.
I think it’s still a pretty good proxy. Quantitatively, correlation between energy usage and GDP is pretty high, even at higher income levels. Qualitatively, many things that would greatly improve quality of life would also use lots more energy: supersonic air travel, nanotech, flying cars, etc.