TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANS
Hyper Technotopia: A Dystopian Solution for a Utopian Planet
Virtual reality might be a grim, yet feasible solution to combat ecological destruction and climate change, all while offering an illusion of a utopian existence
Introduction
We have entered the Anthropocene and all extreme events continue to become the new normal. Yet, fossil fuel consumption, including oil, is still rising along with carbon emissions. Our efforts, like adopting renewable energy sources and purchasing electric vehicles, are grossly insufficient. While there have been improvements in social and economic welfare, without a stable ecosystem, all advancements seem transient. One main solution to reducing consumption is degrowth, which could mitigate environmental degradation while providing decent standards of living for everyone. However, it never got traction in the past and is unlikely to get any political and popular support anytime soon. So, I am pretty confident that as a society we are doomed.
Still, I always think about how we can fix it and I have been wanting to share some of my extreme views for a long time. Sci-fi, time travel, and dystopia, including zombie apocalypse, are my favorite movie and TV show genres. Some of my favorites are Matrix, Wall-E, Surrogates, and Black Mirror. All of these touch upon various distinct themes, yet mostly revolving often exploring the implications of advanced technology on human behavior and society as well as touching on environmental degradation, consumerism, and the consequences of human dependence on technology.
So, my question is - is the answer to all of our ecological problems and to some extent societal issues a full-fledged virtual existence? Can technotopian dystopia help us achieve a utopian planet? I believe it might be our last and only resort.
Is the answer to all of our ecological problems and to some extent societal issues a full-fledged virtual existence? Can technotopian dystopia help us achieve a utopian planet? I believe it might be our last and only resort.
Technotopian dystopia for planetary utopia
By technotopian dystopia, I specifically refer to a virtual world, somewhat similar to Meta, but a more extreme version of it. It is quite similar to what is depicted in the Matrix movie. In such a technotopian world, each human lives in a tub (may just (almost) permanently sit on a chair) and receives intravenously all essential nutrients to support physical survival while interacting with all humans digitally. Imagine the virtuality of Matrix or Metaverse becoming our reality — no pun intended.
In such a technotopian world, each human lives in a tub or may just (almost) permanently sit on a chair and receives all essential nutrients to support physical survival while interacting with all humans digitally. Imagine Matrix or Metaverse becoming a reality — no pun intended.
One may argue philosophically and spiritually that physical touch and an experience of reality with things and people is what makes us humans. Without it, life is not worth living. It is a fair point. However, we are far from achieving any such spiritual and moral awakening to protect what we already have. In fact, we are smart enough to go full power towards destroying it. So, for our survival, let’s just say we need a Matrix.
Nevertheless, we first need to check if such an idea delivers what it promises. My main argument here is such a world would be ecologically sustainable. Let’s do some calculations to see how much energy will be needed to run such a virtual world.
Remember that there are lots of flaws in the calculation. Unless we have smart robots in sufficient quantity, we might need people to run everything, including monitoring people and fixing technical issues. So not everyone would be connected with it. I don’t know but let’s say 1 percent of the population would be working to support the whole system. However, for the sake of calculations, let us assume a perfect ideal system that will never break down and needs fixing.
Rough calculations of power consumption
Now, I did some cheating here out of laziness and asked ChatGPT to do this for me, just like I asked it to fix lots of grammatical and writing errors. Let me assure you that I didn’t ask ChatGPT to write the whole blog for me other than fixing some writing errors that I wrote :).
I asked ChatGPT to give me energy consumption values for such a world of nine billion people and here is a summary of the output. It initially made some assumptions and I had to verify and revise them since ChatGPT never provided the exact reference for where it got its data.
- A VR headset itself is quite energy efficient, consuming just 3–5 Watts per hour. However, the complete VR setup, which includes other peripherals and Wi-Fi, is naturally more energy-intensive. For the sake of this analysis, I’ve assumed the total consumption of each personal VR system at 100 W, akin to the power draw of an old-style incandescent light bulb.
- People need to be fed essential nutrients via some life support system which must also remove all waste. ChatGPT assumed 100 W of power for such a system. I Googled and found a research article that measured the power consumption of different components of an ICU unit. The approximate value ranges between 85 W and 160 W for the essential unit without monitors, which we might not need. So, I assumed 120 W for simplicity though ChatGPT was not too far off.
- Servers are the backbone of this whole operation, and their power consumption is notoriously variable. While I couldn’t pinpoint a universally accepted value, ChatGPT proposed an average of 15 W per person when considering the cumulative power consumption of millions of servers. An equivalent amount was designated for the maintenance of auxiliary infrastructure like climate and humidity control within the server facilities, totaling 30 W per person.
- To factor in the myriad of other variables — like occasional lighting, air conditioning for people, and the energy costs related to the production of necessary nutrients and equipment — I’ve allowed for an overhead. While ChatGPT proposed 5%, I’ve taken a more conservative route and factored in an additional 20% to ensure all possible contingencies are covered.
- Breaking down the power consumption for our virtual existence:
- Personal VR System: 100 W
- Life Support System: 120 W
- Servers and Infrastructure: 30 W
- Overhead: 50 W (20% of everything)
- Total = 300 W per person
If you are relying on ChatGPT for math calculations, be ready to double-check all calculations. ChatGPT sometimes ignores your mistakes the first time and then apologizes later for the oversight when you catch the error yourself.
If you are relying on ChatGPT, be ready to double-check all calculations. ChatGPT sometimes ignores your mistakes the first time and then apologizes later for the oversight when you catch the error yourself.
Anyway, for nine billion people, the total power consumption would be 2700 GW. This much power would be consumed every second 365 days a year. The global electricity consumption is about 25000 TWh, which is equivalent to 2800 GW. So, our VR system will consume as much power as we are consuming today, about 2700 GW.
Our VR system will consume as much power as we are consuming today, about 2700 GW.
This number is somewhat disappointing at first. In our VR world, we will still be consuming lots of electricity, yet it is somewhat promising. Today’s electricity sector accounts for 30–35% of global emissions, so going all Matrix will fix 60–70% of the problem by eliminating emissions from everywhere else — transport, agriculture, deforestation, etc. If we went all renewables, we would practically eliminate all emissions.
This would bring immense other ecological benefits. Also, remember that today we are 8 billion people with huge disparities in how much electricity each person consumes. In this VR world, everyone is ontologically equal — consuming the same power — even if we f**k up in designing the virtual world too and create all vices we have in the present real world.
Final words
While none of these ideas or calculations are novel, I rarely see them discussed in public discourse. I also agree that it is not a perfect solution and may even have several technical challenges to overcome such as providing significant energy to run servers and still providing all nutrients. Those are perfectly reasonable concerns. Further, we might still need some industries to provide all materials and equipment to support everything else. There are lots of moral and philosophical concerns too.
Yet I feel it is the only solution that can really deliver on the scale and speed we need to mitigate and stop ecological destruction, including climate change. In such a world, we will likely consume far lower resources and everyone could live a life they always wanted, albeit virtually.
Let me know what you think.
