How does this resolve if all biological life is gone (due to AI), but human simulations still exist and can resolve Manifold markets?

There’s a good chance that substellar scale fusion power is impossible and the earth doesn’t contain enough uranium and thorium to fuel its own deconstruction. The AI’s best bet is probably tiling the earth with solar panels and using that energy to send mass into space.

@JonathanRay Whoops I just redid th calculation. Escape velocity is 6.3E10 J/ton. 4ppm Uranium (all isotopes) + 8 ppm Thorium is 9E11 J/Ton. So it might just barely be possible to deconstruct the earth without an external power source.

@JonathanRay I calculate 3E18 joules to escape velocity for a 1m^2 x (4/3) earth radius slice of earth, vs 3e2 watts from mj solar, so it would take 1e16 seconds =317 million years to get the necessary energy that would way

@JonathanRay Interesting that the total solar irradiance yet to be received by earth is within the same order of magnitude as it’s total energy stored in fertile/fissile isotopes

@JonathanRay what's the argument that sub-stellar sustainable fusion is impossible? I thought we were getting closer to break-even.

@MartinRandall Not really close. Q=1 on ICF last year was calculated with a denominator 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the wall plug power consumption of those burst lasers because they’re very inefficient

@JonathanRay Whoops I used the concentrations of Uranium and Thorium in the crust, but the concentrations in the mantle and core should be much lower than that due to reasons explained here: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/4798/what-percent-of-the-earths-core-is-uranium

would be tricky to hunt down every lithotroph in the mantle

@JonathanRay Hang on, it does say "on earth". No need to sterilize the mantle.

@MartinRandall This market is meant to be inclusive of anything inside the earth’s outer surface too (however interpreted) or else fish and bats wouldn’t count

If you're still alive but no longer biological how does this resolve?

@MartinRandall Well, let's say, that if I somehow find myself on an Earth where no biological life still exists, but I still exist somehow, and I happen to have the following properties (the characteristics of life according to some 8th grade life science textbook):

• Order

• Sensitivity or response to Stimuli

• Reproduction

• Growth and Development

• Regulation

• Homeostasis

• Energy Processing

BUT, I'm no longer made of biological cells, and nothing else on Earth is either, this market will resolve YES.