Whereas today’s supermarkets and commodity exchanges sell tens of thousands of items we might call “resources,” future life that’s reached the technological limit needs mainly one fundamental resource: so-called baryonic matter, meaning anything made up of atoms or their constituents (quarks and electrons). Whatever form this matter is in, advanced technology can rearrange it into any desired substances or objects, including power plants, computers and advanced life forms. Let’s therefore begin by examining the limits on the energy that powers advanced life and the information processing that
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