I feel quite out of my depth here, so there is a real possibility that much of what follows in ill-informed...
Regarding "Digital content requires physical space too, just relatively small amounts. E.g., physical resources/atoms are needed to make the calculations associated with digital interactions." — I wonder if we could look at historical amounts of physical resources/atoms dedicated to making calculations associated with economic interactions to see to what extent the amount has scaled with the increase in the size of the world economy. My intuition is that they are not really tethered; it seems like in a digital world there are possibly infinite ways to consolidate transactions and representations of value so that they require fewer resources/atoms.
I think that I am also hung up on what constitutes value and whether it is value that really increases or simply the numbers we use to represent value (perhaps this ventures into monetary value theory?). I'm under the impression that the numbers we used to represent value will necessarily increase because our economic system is inflationary.
Another small note: In the article you linked in your comment, you state that "the world economy that year included that second of your life, plus the rest of your year and many other people’s years." I thought that the world economy would contain only strictly economic activities, and that there could be "single best moments of life" that are not included in the world economy (e.g., looking at the night sky and seeing a shooting star). Maybe this isn't relevant to your point in the article.
Thank you for the response, Holden!
I feel quite out of my depth here, so there is a real possibility that much of what follows in ill-informed...
Regarding "Digital content requires physical space too, just relatively small amounts. E.g., physical resources/atoms are needed to make the calculations associated with digital interactions." — I wonder if we could look at historical amounts of physical resources/atoms dedicated to making calculations associated with economic interactions to see to what extent the amount has scaled with the increase in the size of the world economy. My intuition is that they are not really tethered; it seems like in a digital world there are possibly infinite ways to consolidate transactions and representations of value so that they require fewer resources/atoms.
I think that I am also hung up on what constitutes value and whether it is value that really increases or simply the numbers we use to represent value (perhaps this ventures into monetary value theory?). I'm under the impression that the numbers we used to represent value will necessarily increase because our economic system is inflationary.
Another small note: In the article you linked in your comment, you state that "the world economy that year included that second of your life, plus the rest of your year and many other people’s years."
I thought that the world economy would contain only strictly economic activities, and that there could be "single best moments of life" that are not included in the world economy (e.g., looking at the night sky and seeing a shooting star). Maybe this isn't relevant to your point in the article.
I'd appreciate any thoughts in response!
I'm struggling to see why the world's economy would be limited by the number of atoms in our galaxy when much of the economy seems to exist digitally.
Perhaps someone could clarify to what degree the "size of the economy" requires physical space.