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Arithmetic, Population and Energy - a talk by Al Bartlett

lXlSalemlXl · 200.8K views · 2013-10-27 · 1:14:46

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Overview

Physicist Al Bartlett's well-known lecture on the arithmetic of exponential growth, applied to population, energy consumption and resource depletion. He argues that steady percentage growth cannot be sustained on a finite planet and that most public discussion ignores this.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it as a mind-changing introduction to exponential growth, though some note his peak oil predictions did not pan out.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2016–2023

Topics

Environment, agriculture & food systemsEarth & energy (other)Pure mathematics
Search by tags
exponential growthpopulationenergypeak oilsustainability

What people said

maerF0x0 · 2020-05 · Strong recommendation

Compounding, growth etc [VIDEO] Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up by x% per year, forever. Taught me that getting better today (however small) can give resources to getting better(er?) tomorrow. Taught me that many "experts" just say whatever to get voted in or to get a budget without regards to the absurdity of their own statements, and that many people eat up this kind of absurdity without fact checking / validating it.

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jiggawatts · 2020-03 · Strong recommendation

For me, several books by Greg Egan fall into this category. Permutation City, Diaspora, Quarantine, and Schild's Ladder have all... changed me. I was a different person before and after I had read those books, and now I categorise all works of fiction into those that forever alter my way of thinking and those that do not. [LINK] Which reminds me, I should finish: [LINK] The Culture series by Iain Banks, especially Inversions also satisfy this requirement, as does The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear: [LINK] -- which is a difficult to consume masterpiece that nonetheless left me permanently horrified in the way that H. P. Lovecraft tried but failed. For the non-fiction category the CGP Grey video "The Rules for Rulers": [LINK] and Part 2: [LINK] have totally changed the way I look at all political discourse, and this is coming from someone who has already absorbed The Prince. It's based on the Dictator's Handbook, which I should read also, but the CGP video was an effective summary already! [LINK] Last, but not least, if I'm allowed to include lecture videos, then the "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" lecture by Al Bartlett is absolutely amazing. You will never see the news in the same way again after watching it: [VIDEO]

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simonblack · 2020-03 · Strong recommendation

"Two minutes past twelve." The problem with stuff like this is that most people have no knowledge about the dangers of exponential growth. It only takes an hour, but it's the most valuable use of an hour of your lifetime to watch Prof. Bartlett's talk on exponential growth in 'Arithmetic, Population and Energy': [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by lXlSalemlXl, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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