Article URL: https://caolan.uk/notes/2026-07-02_a_speed_limit_for_computers.cm Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48885525 Points: 12 # Comments: 9

The home and personal computing revolutions of the 70's, 80's, and 90's put the power of computing in the hands of the masses. For those of us that grew up with these machines, it can be hard to reconcile the computer culture of our youth with the industry we find ourselves in today. But at some point, a threshold was crossed and increasing computing power no longer translated to increased autonomy. Quite the opposite. In 1973, before the first commercially successful home computer, and with the Western world in the beginnings of an energy crisis, Ivan Illich wrote an essay titled 'Energy and Equity'. In it, he argued that - above a certain threshold - energy had marginal disutility. And that applying more of it would yield negative returns. What is generally overlooked is that energy and equity can grow concurrently only to a point. Below a threshold of per capita wattage, motors improve the conditions for social progress. Above this threshold, energy grows at the expense of equity. Further energy affluence then means decreased distribution of control over that energy. Beyond a certain velocity, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them only for a few. And he singles out speed, not the form of conveyance, as the factor driving transport inequality. Accelerating speed inevitably concentrates horsepower under the seats of a few and compounds the increasing time-lack of most commuters with the further sense that they are lagging behind. Eventually, in 1974, the UK - feeling the pinch of the oil crisis - did introduce restrictions on vehicle speed to more equitably ration fuel. Slowly and reluctantly, we have continued to constrict vehicle speed ever since.