My live conversation with Tony Seba and James Arbib about their book Stellar has provoked a lot of questions from the audience on the various platforms, and since the platforms cannot be trusted, I chose to collect both the questions and my answers and reorganized them thematically in order to preserve them.
I reorganized the questions thematically, and also applied a slight editing in order to improve the readability of the questions where appropriate. The original links, as long as they are available to the various platforms, are as follows: YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook live stream, Facebook post, X.
The Stellar Concept and Exo-Metabolism
Q: The emerging organism begins to exo-metabolize. Far more energy is needed to maintain the paradigm and means of maintaining order (biomass burning, near extinction of whales for oil, etc). How does this relate to the Stellar concept?
A: The book directly addresses this process as part of extraction’s self-reinforcing cycle. The authors write: “With a growing population, communities needed to support more people… The growing population and technological advances meant an ever-greater volume and variety of inputs were required to extract more resources and to grow more food to support more people.” This is precisely the exo-metabolic process you describe – extraction becomes increasingly energy-intensive and destructive over time, creating what the authors call “the extraction endgame.” They note that “extraction has penetrated every corner of the earth and reached its endgame” – exactly the pattern you observe with whale oil and biomass.
Governance and Decentralization
Q: Does the Stellar Core then become the architecture for enabling DAOs that are in the phigital world?
A: While not specifically addressing DAOs, the book outlines a vision aligned with decentralized governance: “The distributed nature of the Stellar production system means centralized decision-making makes no sense. Instead, decision-making powers should be given to the smallest possible governance unit.” The authors describe a world of “thousands of separate, independent, interconnected communities” that would likely utilize something like DAOs in the phygital space, though they emphasize that “AI can be used initially to assist decision-making… and, over time, take on an increasing role.”
Q: How do we move past neo-techno-feudalism where few tech companies are hoarding resources and control that makes people wary of losing personal agency, critical thinking and being nudged by algorithms over multiple interaction points daily?
A: This concern is central to the book’s warnings about “chimeras” – Stellar technologies trapped in extractive ownership models. The authors write: “Whoever owns such AL would control the world’s intelligence and labor, a truly terrifying prospect creating the possibility of the most unequal society that has ever existed.” Their solution involves fundamentally changing ownership models: “Individual consumers must have the rights to all outputs, to use or share as they wish. The Stellar core must be developed and built for the public good, with everyone granted equal access to its outputs.”
Q: How do we enable distributed, decentralized energy and jolting technology progress without creating a new concentration of energy (in private interests’ hands) and just end up seeing energy weapons?
A: The book emphasizes that access to Stellar outputs must be universal: “Instead, societies must grant rights to the output of the new system to citizens… A form of ‘un-ownership’ if you like. These output rights will be to the Stellar World what work and income are to the world of extraction.” This distributed rights model is their solution to preventing weaponization through concentrated control.
Energy Systems
Q: I like the big-picture vision, but had a few concerns I’d love your take on (an economist has entered the chat):
- SWB ≠ Post-Extractive Solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries require massive front-loaded extraction (rare earths, lithium, cobalt), plus ongoing maintenance and eventual replacement. That’s not post-extraction — it’s deferred and displaced extraction. AI won’t change the laws of thermodynamics or material degradation — it can optimize, but it can’t make mining go away.
- “Free Energy” Is Misleading Yes, photons are free — but building and maintaining the infrastructure isn’t. LCOE must account for system costs, storage, grid, labor, and recycling. We’re not channeling Tesla’s zero-point dream yet. Or – are we?
A: Thank you for these thoughtful questions! They address important concerns about the Stellar vision. I would recommend reading the book Stellar, but here’s in the meantime how the book addresses each:
- SWB ≠ Post-Extractive The book explicitly distinguishes between “X-flow” (constant extractive flow) and “seed flow” (initial materials needed to build a self-sustaining system). You’re right that SWB technologies require upfront extraction, but the authors argue this fundamentally differs from our current system because: “Once you build the SWB system, the seed flow, just like the X-flow, stops.” The authors acknowledge this initial extraction, but assert three critical differences:
- It’s time-limited rather than perpetual
- Materials become increasingly recyclable (citing Redwood Materials’ 98% recycled battery production)
- Efficiency improvements mean “each molecule embodied in the system will be capable of producing more output” The Stellar vision isn’t “no extraction ever,” but rather “extraction that ends” once the system reaches ignition point.
- “Free Energy” Is Misleading The book doesn’t claim total system cost is zero, but that marginal cost approaches zero: “Once built, the marginal cost of generation is close to zero. This means the cost of solar or wind generation can never go up.” The authors acknowledge the significant upfront investment: “The U.S. could build a 100% SWB energy system over the next decade for less than $2 trillion, which is 1% of the country’s annual economic output each year over 10 years.” Their argument is about system economics post-construction, not claiming free infrastructure.
Q: What is your opinion on the discussions about SMRs? Is it just distraction?
A: From the Stellar perspective, SMRs would be considered a distraction. The book categorizes nuclear power along with CCS, ammonia, and gas bridges as “hallucinations” that don’t address the root problem. The authors write: “an SWB system is by far the cheapest we could build today… orders of magnitude cheaper than one based on nuclear power.” SMRs still represent extractive technology requiring ongoing fuel inputs and creating waste outputs, rather than the self-sustaining Stellar technologies that harness boundless solar energy.
Q: Are we near the emergence of a privatized nuclear energy market with tech companies prepurchasing nuclear energy across international reactors? What’s the role of proliferation when most nuclear energy plants go to private data companies?
A: The book is quite dismissive of nuclear power: “an SWB system is by far the cheapest we could build today, far cheaper than any fossil fuel system based on coal, oil, and gas, and orders of magnitude cheaper than one based on nuclear power.” The authors treat nuclear as an expensive extractive technology and actively discourage its development: “all the ‘solutions’ currently being discussed to reduce emissions from the power sector become completely redundant in the Stellar World. CCS, nuclear power, ammonia, gas bridges, biofuels, and liquefied natural gas are nothing more than hallucinations.”
Q: From my perspective, Wind requires regular maintenance in the way the turbines are built. It therefore extracts from land, people etc. continually. What am I missing here?
A: The book addresses this through the convergence of Stellar technologies: “The convergence of SWB and AL will create an energy system that not only produces enough output to meet demand but has enough superpower, intelligence, and labor to build itself, grow, and improve.” Once the system reaches “ignition point,” it becomes “self-building, self-managing, self-repairing, and self-improving” through artificial labor. Today’s maintenance requirements are transitional, not permanent features.
Q: So you are predicting perpetual motion machines?
A: The book doesn’t predict perpetual motion machines that violate physics laws. It describes a system powered by the sun that becomes self-maintaining: “The only external input required by the Stellar system is energy from the sun, which is boundless, non-excludable, and non-depletive.” This isn’t perpetual motion – it’s a system with sufficient embodied capabilities to maintain itself using ongoing solar energy.
Q: Every exponential growth function in a limited world is a hidden sigmoid function. I still hope solar will reach at least installation speed of 2TW/year.
A: Moore’s law is a good example of multiple sigmoid curves interconnecting to design the exponential we talk about when we look at the growth in the power of computing. There have been many inventions that exhausted their capacity to improve electronics performance, and have been superseded by new ones.
Swanson’s law is the equivalent for solar photovoltaic technologies. Not just one, but many contributing to the growth of the entire sector. The learning curve as well, which improves the efficiency of production and the entire supply chain.
I’m sure that if you ask the IEA, they will still tell you that we have reached the peak of solar installations per year and it will never grow further, as they have been saying for the past 20 years, always correcting their mistaken predictions, but never correcting the erroneous methodology on which they are based.
We will see the reality. I am pretty sure that China alone will install the 2TW/y pretty soon, and the rest of the world will add to it many more.
Q: If just China deploys 2TW/y it will be just fantastic. ~15 years ago, I hoped that deployment speed could have once reached 100GW/y but I was not very hopeful at that time it would go beyond that. Sometimes I think if it just matters continuing to go to work now if things (including robots and AI) are going to improve in the next 10 years so rapidly. And some of my friends think similarly.
A: You’ve touched on something the book addresses directly – the pattern of technology adoption and deployment. While the Stellar authors are tremendously optimistic about solar deployment rates, they acknowledge the S-curve reality you mention, writing: “These dynamics lead to the S-curve of technology adoption – the non-linear shape of change that we see repeated time and time again as adoption of new products and services accelerates exponentially until saturation approaches.”
Your observation about hoping for 100GW/year and seeing that exceeded aligns perfectly with the authors’ perspective that mainstream analysts consistently underestimate the pace of change. They note: “Many analysts may disagree, but the weight of history is against them – plenty of dead businesses across many industries stand as painful testament to doubting or ignoring these cost curves.”
Regarding your existential question about continuing to work given the rapid changes ahead – this is precisely the personal transformation the book discusses. The authors acknowledge: “With time freed up from the need to work, people will be free to spend their time on whatever pursuits they choose… Many people today find meaning, purpose, and community through their work. Replacing this will be a painful adjustment for many. But it’s not one that should be feared, rather an opportunity to be embraced.” However, they also emphasize that during the transition period, we still need to “feed the caterpillar” for metamorphosis to occur. Your work today may be helping build the foundation for that transformation. The book suggests finding purpose in contributing to this transition is valuable, writing: “Each of us has everything we need to take this journey… Just the courage to take the first step.”
Environmental and Planetary Healing
Q: After we move to a STELLAR technology period, how is planetary healing considered? When do we hit peak extraction? What’s the other side of the bell curve towards climate stabilization?
A: This is addressed through the concept of “radiance”: “The Stellar World is restorative, one where boundless super production and labor, together with land freed from extractive farming, mean we’ll have the opportunity to heal much of the damage wrought by extraction. No longer will we deplete our world, but restore it.” The book suggests we could hit peak extraction relatively soon: “In the U.S. alone, TaaS could see more than 200 million vehicles taken off the road” and “The Stellar food system will free 2.7 billion hectares of land (the size of the U.S., China, and Australia combined) from industrial agriculture.”
Q: How does a STELLAR mindset account for the planetary debt of over-extraction and climate destabilization? I get the vision, but the current system needs healing and abundance won’t be realized similarly without equity principles.
A: The book proposes that “radiance” provides an answer: “The system can be restorative and healing. For example, superpower could be used to suck CO2 out of the air to slow and ultimately reverse climate change. It could be used to clean today’s industrially polluted waters or to desalinate seawater, giving everyone access to clean drinking water.” This capacity to actively repair damage is central to the Stellar concept.
Q: Decentralized Use ≠ Decentralized Production Most SWB tech is still produced through centralized, globalized supply chains — often controlled by a few countries. That creates new dependencies, not post-scarcity.
A: You’ve identified a key transition challenge the book addresses. The authors argue that current centralized production is transitional: “The convergence of SWB* and AL** will create an energy system that not only produces enough output to meet demand but has enough superpower, intelligence, and labor to build itself, grow, and improve.” This is their “ignition point” – when the system becomes “self-building, self-managing, self-repairing, and self-improving.” *SWB=Solar Wind Batteries, **AL=Artificial Labor=AI+Robots
Q: System Fragility Overlooked Self-sustaining “stellar systems” assume no political disruption, no material shortages, no component decay. Real systems decay, break, and get hacked.
A: The book directly argues that Stellar systems are inherently more resilient than current ones: “A distributed, modular system is also far more resilient as there’s no single point of failure… For example an EV powered by residential solar PV could store several days of domestic energy demand in the case of an outage.” In their view, it’s the current extractive system that’s fragile, with its constant dependence on vulnerable global supply chains.
Q: Circular Economy Isn’t Ready Batteries and solar panels are barely recycled at scale. Until there’s a real closed-loop ecosystem, Stellar tech remains materially intensive.
A: The book acknowledges this as an ongoing development, not a current reality: “Solar panels built today can last over 60 years and the vast majority of the materials embodied within them can be recycled at the end of their lives to provide the next generation of energy technologies.” The authors see this circular capability developing in parallel with the system itself, driven by both technological improvements and economic necessity.
Transition Challenges
Q: Where’s the transition friction? Utopian end states aside, the transition will be messy. Incumbents don’t go quietly, and regulatory + social inertia is real. The “caterpillar to butterfly” metaphor skips the metamorphosis pain.
A: Part 3 of the book (“The Journey”) focuses extensively on transition challenges. The authors identify numerous frictions including:
- Incumbent resistance and the “extraction mindset”
- Regulatory structures designed for centralized systems
- Job displacement and economic disruption
- Deflationary pressures in a debt-based economy
- Ownership model transitions
- Political and social resistance They acknowledge: “The journey will feel deeply chaotic. The accelerating pace of change and the transformation of every part of society, of humanity itself, will feel like being trapped under a tsunami…” The butterfly metaphor isn’t meant to skip the metamorphosis, but to emphasize its completeness – they actually discuss the need to “feed the caterpillar” for metamorphosis to occur. The Stellar vision is optimistic about the destination, but quite clear-eyed about the challenging journey to get there.
Q: So if the growth of green energy is unstoppable, what will the impact be in the US now that the growth of these technologies are being restricted? I am concerned that the US will be locked out of this transition.
A: The book describes this dynamic as inevitable: “Regions that resist, where incumbency is strong, will get left behind until they have no choice but to reverse course and adapt.” The authors believe the economic advantages of Stellar technologies are so overwhelming that resistive policies ultimately fail: “It just takes someone, somewhere to plant the seed that will trigger a cascade of change… Just one city, one region and the Stellar system will spread.” US restrictions would simply delay the inevitable while handing competitive advantage to regions that lead.
Q: Thank you for recognizing ancestral trauma that we all hold and your inquiry to mitigate future suffering. Traditionally change and transformation research and work does not integrate the emotional element from transitions that are part of change: endings – no time for this; transitions – no time for this; beginnings – no time for this … ready set and go.
Big Change is hard and Inevitable. I agree. It is actually harder than we think as we do not consider time to recognize and gather loss from each person impacted … which equates in grief and Post COVID-19, for many, multiple losses that come forward in a non-linear way.
A: The book devotes considerable attention to the psychological challenges of transformation. The authors acknowledge: “The journey will feel deeply chaotic. The accelerating pace of change and the transformation of every part of society, of humanity itself, will feel like being trapped under a tsunami until, if successful, humanity emerges breathless and disoriented.” They emphasize that “letting go” of extractive mindsets is essential but difficult.
Q: Do you think one of the reasons for these last wars is because an old-fashioned extractive world doesn’t want to leave the way to a new democratic world?
A: The book would support this view. It states: “The need to control scarce resources pits individuals, communities, cities, and nation states against one another in a Darwinian game of life and death.” As Stellar technologies threaten to make extractive resources obsolete, the authors would likely see conflict as partially driven by desperate attempts to maintain extractive power structures.
Q: If we can get the benefits (safe place) of a feature (house), that should be ok, right?
A: The Stellar vision requires reaching “ignition point” for full benefits. Partial implementations create what the book calls “chimeras” – compromised systems that “not only fail to solve the problems of extraction but create further problems by cramming Stellar technologies into an extractive system.” The authors argue we must build complete Stellar systems to realize their true potential.
Economics and Capitalism
Q: So why did capitalism win out?
A: The book explains this directly: “Capitalism and free markets have ruthlessly outcompeted all the other -isms that humanity has experimented with. This economic model is the ultimate expression of extraction – a system that ruthlessly allocates resources in the most efficient way possible.” Capitalism won within extraction because it was most effective at maximizing growth, which is the central imperative of extraction.
Q: The authors clearly lack understanding of basic economic laws. Only property rights and a free market society can enable capital and growth with deflationary effects. UBI, public ownership, resource abundance, wealth and purchasing power redistributions can logically not work because of wrong incentives and demand signals of human needs. I think they lack the understanding of money and how a scarce money supply leads to production, savings, division of labor, innovation and wealth for everyone.
A: The authors Tony and Jamie actually directly address this economic critique in the book. They don’t reject traditional economics within the extractive paradigm – in fact, they explicitly acknowledge: “Capitalism and free markets have ruthlessly outcompeted all the other -isms that humanity has experimented with.” Their argument isn’t that traditional economics is wrong, but that it applies specifically to systems built around scarcity and the X-flow. The book differentiates between:
- Economics during transition: “Extraction is needed to build the Stellar World, so the rules and dynamics of extraction, of flow-based economics, apply until ignition point.”
- Economics after ignition point: “With no need for human intelligence or labor and with access to vastly superior technology… a system that needs no external inputs of anything. Ever.”
Their central thesis is that once a production system requires no ongoing extractive inputs, economic laws fundamentally change. They write: “The role of extraction economics is to allocate scarce resources whereas the role of Stellar economics is to find uses for super production.” The book acknowledges the importance of property rights and market incentives during the transition: “Yes, ownership is needed to build the Stellar system – to drive investment and provide the rewards and incentives needed to build out the Stellar infrastructure.” But they argue that after ignition point, continuing private ownership of boundless production simply creates artificial scarcity: “Stellar technologies only need a ‘seed’ of materials to become self-sustaining and self-improving.”
Whether this vision is achievable remains an open question, but their argument isn’t based on misunderstanding economics – it’s proposing that we’re approaching a fundamentally different economic paradigm where traditional scarcity-based rules no longer apply.
Social Transformation and Work
Q: If an extractive system created an 8-hour day shift and made it so people were ruled by a clock, do STELLAR approaches reimagine that clock? Do we need a new unit of time? Is it time or a new variable?
A: The book points to a fundamental reimagining of human existence in the Stellar World: “With our material needs met and security assured for life, we’ll have everything we need. We’ll no longer be forced to trade labor for the capital needed to survive and no longer conditioned to revere hard work and sacrifice no matter the consequences.” This suggests a complete reimagining of time, where “true freedom becomes possible, where there’ll be the opportunity to do whatever we want.” Traditional work structures would dissolve, and with them likely our current rigid time structures.
Book Availability
Q: Will there be a translation to German? We need it desperately in German. Got my copy yesterday.
A: I hope that there will be a German translation soon! The RethinkX reports have indeed been translated into German.
This would also reflect the book’s argument that “Someone, somewhere will crack it, and their product or service will spread because it outcompetes economically.” Spreading these ideas globally would be consistent with the authors’ vision of “a race-to-the-stars” where successful models spread through imitation.