"Even when we started Google, we thought, "Oh, we might fail," and we almost didn't do it. The reason we started is that Stanford said, "You guys can come back and finish your Ph.D.s if you don't succeed.""
So true. Society has formed a horrible notion of stressing the importance of earning your degree(s) right after high school and in consecutive order.
I like the fact that he stays optimistic and talks about the opportunities we have to make a difference, rather than complain about all the problems we have.
I went to google's san francisco's open house a few months back where Vincent G. Serf (http://www.google.com/corporate/execs.html#vint) gave a talk and at one point he mentioned a list of engineering "grand challenges" put together by the National Academy of Engineering. It's an interesting list and may provide some good food for thought for anyone with a bit of free time on their hands:
i notice that all those challenges are related to one challenge that isn't mentioned. the exponential function as it relates to human population is the basis of most problems.
at some point engineering doesn't matter, there simply won't be enough resources to keep everyone alive, much less with a decent standard of living.
how do we reconcile our innate capacity to continuously expand with a finite world?
Population growth has been slowing in the last couple decades. An odd effect of economic success (as a nation) seems to be vastly lower birthrates. It could be ready access to contraceptives, or more women working, or whatever, but it's an obvious trend. Nations like Japan and Italy have negative replacement rates at the moment.
Aside from that, population pressures do build, but they can't just build forever. Eventually something happens (war, famine, technological breakthrough) that solves the problem in the short term. If we suddenly run out of some critical resource, that will suck for individuals, and the ensuing resource wars may take a terrible toll, but the race as a whole will survive and grow again.
But 'sustainable' population isn't necessarily zero population growth. On a macro scale, even the population explosion of the last 40 years has so far been sustainable due to huge advances in agriculture, health care, and energy. As long as our ability to provide those things grows at the same or better rate as our population, it is sustainable.
(I'll note I am using the literal definition of 'sustainable' here... able to be sustained. As an nerd, I'd really like our future ability to provide those things to be environmentally and socially sound, but that wasn't what I was talking about.)
Exponential population growth becomes a problem when we give up innovating.
Of course, but shouldn't we desire that every human has a decent standard of living? we're currently NOT producing/distributing enough for the world's 6 billion humans. people are dying for lack of food and water.
the point is that if we continue to expand at the same rate MORE people will be born into terrible conditions.
It's not so easy to take the stance that technology and free market forces will solve the population problem when you see the horrible results of demand outpacing supply for basic resources in real life. In real life, demand dropping means people died. this isn't an economics class.
Jared Diamond has an interesting piece in the NY Times where he discusses consumption factors - the point of it is is that if every single person on Earth consumed at the level of an American, it would be as if the population of the world would be around 70 billion americans. Just something to ponder.
thank you everyone for upmodding glib responses. that's exactly the kind of comment that fosters discussion and not hostility. ;)
you might make the point that my original post was glib, since this topic has been retreaded countless times. But it seems to have fostered some interesting thoughts, so i consider it worthwhile. A post noting that this thought isn't original doesn't really contribute much. Most thoughts aren't original.
"how do we reconcile our innate capacity to continuously expand with a finite world?"
Condoms.
Seriously, in keeping with the spirit of the OP, many people in the developing world can't even imagine a concept like "family planning" so they don't bother to do it. They just assume you keep having babies until you can't.
Maybe we should be less concerned with "One Laptop Per Child" and focus more on "Condoms for Couples". Then the laptop problem would solve itself.
The thing that struck me was the point about Moore's Law not being applicable to cars - which seems to go against his point of not believing in limits.
If we all expected cars to double their efficiency every 2 years maybe people would be working on that just like they are working hard to double the number of transistors every 2 years.
It's a reflection of the physical limits of transportation. Even if you have a weightless car, you still have to move the weight of the passenger, who's a lot heavier than the electrons getting moved around in computers. Really, nothing in history has improved as fast as computer hardware, so it's reasonable to assume that most things won't.
That doesn't mean that huge advances are not possible - read Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken to learn how 250mpg cars are possible with current tech.
So true. Society has formed a horrible notion of stressing the importance of earning your degree(s) right after high school and in consecutive order.