Super-linear scaling and collapse

[phantom power]

3. Fewer humans with less disposable time results in less creativity.

At least to the extent that creativity is a function of meme cross-pollination, which works better the more people there are, and the more time they have to exchange ideas and do things with them. People can also be creative all by themselves too.

I suspect we violently agree.

There's an "old" saying from the Roaring Internet 1990s - "whoever can waste bandwidth/computation the fastest wins" I contrast that with one of the interesting developments from Russia, where computation *was* a lot more limited: for a while, the soviet numerical analysis guys were the go-to guys for algorithms. They couldn't throw cheap computation at problems like we Americans did, and they got correspondingly better with their math and algorithms.

One of the things about creativity -- it flows in the directions where it's most rewarded. In a resource constrained environment, creative solutions to resource constraints prosper. In an environment where resources are cheap and plentiful, creativity that finds ways to use them up in new and interesting ways are rewarded instead.

I admit, I don't really know where I think I'm going with this.