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[LordBucket]

Imagine that tomorrow, somebody invents an overunity device. Imagine that it's simple and cheap to build. For $200 in parts available from any electronic hobby supply store, anyone with the ability to read schematics, watch a youtube video and solder parts can build one in a weekend.

This device takes 100 watts of input power and in turn produces 105 watts of output.

The first guy who pipes the output to the input does it on a livestream. Immediately after he does, there's an explosion of liquid and gaseous plastic and metal and he dies from inhaling it.

It works.

What are the consequences for the human race?

[Baffler]

I don't know about that. It seems like it's far too useful to just leave it alone because a guy who built one didn't activate it properly or something. Plus tons of people already know how to build one, so the cat's pretty well out of the bag. Once people actually believe that the thing is real, making energy post-scarcity will simply be too big a boost to pass up.

I think what would happen is that hundreds of thousands of these things would be built. Maybe scaled up to operate on megawatt scales and used to generate power. Maybe power plants would be a thing of the past, and most people would just have one or two moderately sized ones in their basement or some random closet, and we'd have a more distributed network. That probably wouldn't happen right away, but the components required to build them would only get cheaper. Energy is a big factor in manufacturing costs, and once the initial investment has been made the manufacturer will save a lot of money. Maybe larger things would even stop having batteries and just cram a couple of these things inside of them, depending on how big or small they are. Desktop computers, vehicles, and maybe industrial machinery would almost certainly have at least minimal onboard power.

The ultimate consequence in either case though is that people won't care nearly as much about energy efficiency. Sure smaller things like smartphones, children's toys, and possibly laptops will still use batteries, but their charger won't. Energy efficiency will only be a selling point for gadgets rather than an imperative for long term survival when the only limiting factor is space.

[Egan_BW]

Within moments, the earth is converted into plasma that gradually gets hotter and hotter. eventually, the light coming from earth converts the solar system as well, then the milky way, then the whole universe that's not expanding away from earth faster than light.

[LordBucket]

the earth is converted into plasma

Presumably the circuit would stop generating power when it vaporizes from the feedback loop.

[Aklyon]

Well, we just watched some guy get snuffed, if it gets that far. Public shock, pushes for regulation (probably by oil barons and energy companies), thing's made illegal or demonized, never reaches full and public use or any of that other good stuff. Maybe the idea's poisoned, the distribution banned, the directions changed to result in failure, etc etc.

We can't just have a straight-up good thing, y'know?

Nah, it'd be a fight between the oil barons and a whole lot of other people. The latter would find some electrical experts to describe how the device is entirely safe as long as you have correct safety equipment, and how it will solve utility bills/unemployment/climate change/etc.
Basically, beat the moral panickeers to the punch and do not mention the incident unless directly asked. Even then, point out similar events in history as why it was not a tragedy, but it was sad.

[Egan_BW]

the earth is converted into plasma

Presumably the circuit would stop generating power when it vaporizes from the feedback loop.

That's a rather optimistic view of breaking conservation of energy.

[Sergarr]

who are those mysterious oil barons that would prevent this thing from getting into open market yet would allow coal/gas/hydro/thermal/nuclear/solar power stations to exist?

i don't think those exist outside of conspiracy theories

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

who are those mysterious oil barons that would prevent this thing from getting into open market yet would allow coal/gas/hydro/thermal/nuclear/solar power stations to exist?

Simple.  Those don't make gasoline-based cars obsolete by making electric-based models so much more viable/cheaper/etc.

[iceball3]

I can imagine an extremely long term significant effect of this is that, assuming we remain confined to our solar system, there's gonna be not only global warming but a systemic overheating issue, namely because to carry up the increasing demand we'll get an increasing spontaneous energy output, and losing that energy from our environment gets tough after a while as we begin to run out of things to sink heat into.
A way to divert this:
Regulate the amount of these things running based on the long term projection of heat re-radiating out into space as a result of black-body radiation.
Or, maybe in the cataclysmically nearsighted scenario, maybe someone could do something with laser cooling to vent high-heat into interstellar medium. Maybe.

Looking in the much shorter term, logistics for belligerent elements suddenly got a lot more viable.
One possible circumstance I can imagine is... Uh...
Well I was trying to find out lists of underground facilities specific to their atmospheric volume and getting nothing. What I was trying to postulate that someone running a self-powered hydrogen producing electrolysis system in a particularly voluminous but relatively airtight underground facility for a long duration of time could lead to at least locally catastrophic effects if it is both vented and ignited...
But I can't even make ballpark estimations on the total exothermic energy release of the burning of hydrogen at those conditions, so the point is mostly conjecture at this point. Either way, the point is that things requiring power may not always have very viable paper trail-blazing behind it, in the worrying case that someone innovatively comes up with a way to utilize it for a large scale means.
Also, before everyone starts bringing up the statements of outright suppressing it, it may be a little more complicated than that. Why? Because the US military industrial complex. Specifically stating, having self-powered machinery would be an unbelievable and immense innovation that the military could not skip out on, mainly because, predictably, other nations will adopt it as well.
I foresee an integration in world military and economy, and a vaaaaast increase in international tension before anything could be expected to be even semi-permanently positive coming out of it.
On top of things, the food market in countries which have yet have fully integrated machinery in their agriculture will crash, as transporting food and even harvesting it will be relatively trivial compared to how it is IRL, with transport and harvesting no longer needing fuel. But on top of that, foreign aid groups and charities will be similarly empowered by this development which is simply un-suppressible beyond flimsy regulations at this point, so the overall change of living conditions in such countries are unpredictable, but likely positive in at least the short term.

Regarding the "Oil Barons" themselves, their lasting power depends on public reaction. If the sensation balloons up rapidly enough, the possibility of their stocks crashing is definitely worth considering, but they will still have some existing purpose, particularly in the manufacturing of polymers from oil until the sheer availability of power allows us to manufacture polymers "from scratch".

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I foresee an integration in world military and economy, and a vaaaaast increase in international tension before anything could be expected to be even semi-permanently positive coming out of it.

If something positive comes out of it.  We all know that some asshole will make a bomb out of the machine and ruin it for the rest of us.

[iceball3]

I foresee an integration in world military and economy, and a vaaaaast increase in international tension before anything could be expected to be even semi-permanently positive coming out of it.

If something positive comes out of it.  We all know that some asshole will make a bomb out of the machine and ruin it for the rest of us.

But of course.
The only way I can foresee this going forward without a huge possibility of self extinction is a fascist utopia with some kind of governing body prioritizing survival of the human race.
Or maybe some kind of post-apocalyptic-singularity community which manages to develop biological immortality and attempts to build civilization from the ground up, assuming they still have a literal ground to stand on at that point.
Either of these will lead to a depressing future where information cannot possibly be free and the general population, if there are enough people left to be called that (or a need to even have anyone besides a small quantity of those that control the world at that point...), cannot be trusted with engineering without risking a breach of some anomalous quirk of physics with vast unforeseen consequences (SCP foundation for instance? There was actually an SCP article vaguely similar to this thread's topic).

[Sergarr]

what the hell are you even talking about

where did you get mass extinction

this device by itself is at best a medium-grade explosive

existence of dynamite hasn't led to our extinction

[iceball3]

what the hell are you even talking about

where did you get mass extinction

this device by itself is at best a medium-grade explosive

existence of dynamite hasn't led to our extinction

Certainly, but the issue of the matter is that a relatively infinite source of power that is conjured within the device itself will mean that the power balance within the world will vastly be altered as it being exploited will not escape the focus of industry and military application. I'm saying that the ecopolotical effects will be absolutely vast, both due to the amount of power that will easily be at the disposal of both military powers and specific factions (anywhere from individual criminals to belligerent factions like ISIS)
Predictably, with spontaneously created power, mining and industrial operations can be done extremely discretely, which in effect, also means that a faction or so with a handful of engineers onboard could, for instance, contribute the development of said WMDs.
Of course, even ignoring this possibility, giving everyone at once a sudden cure for a logistics nightmare will likely posit a significant source of increased tension due to the fact that all superpowers in the world can field significantly more troops, vessels, etc. The fact that belligerent groups all the way down to standard citizens could be building these things would not help overall with political stability due to the economic perturbations of this development which will most assuredly lead to varying attempts of suppressing the design with little effect.

Even if we want to pass these all as hyperbolic assumptions, it is still worth noting that we've still been relatively teetering on the brink of relatively spontaneous mass destruction of humankind for the past half century, what with the development of WMDs in the first place...
Technically speaking, IRL in regards to that final point.

EDIT: Though, looking at the phrasing, either there was some rather critical flaws in my statements, or you just maybe TL;DR'd a bit. If it's the former, I'm welcome to you addressing those points, yes? I like to hear what others think on the matter.

[Graknorke]

It outputs 5% more energy than it gets in, which is hard set at a maximum. And given it would apparently be pretty big, I don't see it being used as an explosive any time soon. More likely there'd be arrays of them built for specific purposes, like charging electric cars and other stuff that isn't particularly time-critical.

[mainiac]

What are the consequences for the human race?

Consumption patterns shift, higher standard of living and prices go up on other things like real estate and skilled labor (particularly in healthcare).  Consider for instance the cost of getting your plumbing fixed.  Free energy helps things a little.  The replacement parts are a little cheaper, the plumber's van now costs less to buy and operate.  But you still need a skilled laborer in your house for the same amount of time fixing the pipes.

The effects would probably be surprisingly small to most people because the energy intensive industries use manufactured goods as their inputs and manufacturing employment is already pretty small.  These sectors use less labor, some but not all of that labor is shifted into the service sector and society as a whole is richer.  It would be like jumping about 15 years into the future in terms of standard of living, you are better off because technology is improved but it's not like everything is different.