I would have thought that all the activities involved in making a Dyson sphere themselves would imply an economic expansion far beyond 5x.
Can we make an economic model of “Earth + Dyson sphere construction”? In other words, suppose that the economy on Earth grows in some banal way that’s already been modelled, and also suppose that all human activities in space revolve around the construction of a Dyson sphere ASAP. What kind of solar system economy does that imply?
This requires adopting some model of Dyson sphere construction. I think for some time the cognoscenti of megascale engineering have favored the construction of “Dyson shells” or “Dyson swarms” in which the sun’s radiation is harvested by a large number of separately orbiting platforms that collectively surround the sun, rather than the construction of a single rigid body.
Charles Stross’s novel Accelerando contains a vivid scenario, in which the first layer of a Dyson shell in this solar system, is created by mining robots that dismantle the planet Mercury. So I think I’d make that the heart of such an economic model.
I would have thought that all the activities involved in making a Dyson sphere themselves would imply an economic expansion far beyond 5x.
Can we make an economic model of “Earth + Dyson sphere construction”? In other words, suppose that the economy on Earth grows in some banal way that’s already been modelled, and also suppose that all human activities in space revolve around the construction of a Dyson sphere ASAP. What kind of solar system economy does that imply?
This requires adopting some model of Dyson sphere construction. I think for some time the cognoscenti of megascale engineering have favored the construction of “Dyson shells” or “Dyson swarms” in which the sun’s radiation is harvested by a large number of separately orbiting platforms that collectively surround the sun, rather than the construction of a single rigid body.
Charles Stross’s novel Accelerando contains a vivid scenario, in which the first layer of a Dyson shell in this solar system, is created by mining robots that dismantle the planet Mercury. So I think I’d make that the heart of such an economic model.