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My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

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Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#101

Post by wcoenen »

pfdietz wrote: post #44

I remember someone took one of those global models and noticed all the equations were time reversible. So they asked "what does the model 'predict' the past looked like?" And it turned out the model predicted the world population was infinite sometime in the 1800s. :) I have very little faith in any of these models.

If many different initial conditions can evolve to almost the same state, then reversing time must necessarily blow up small errors/perturbations. It's the same reason why driving with a trailer backwards is more difficult than forward, even though Newtonian mechanics are time reversible.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#102

Post by Isamu »

Each of these predict food production will decline starting soon, although the optimistic ones forecast a recovery in production. Any idea why the imminent decline in food production in all cases?

It’s as though they are expecting global food producers to be caught off guard, as if they haven’t been planning against disaster since… forever.

[edit] Food production seems to be a function that is negatively affected by “pollution” but seems to be positively affected by industrial output. The dip in food production is mostly dependent on the shape of the pollution curve.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#103

Post by XorNot »

yosito wrote: post #87
justbored123 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “peak oil” ... It’s an illusion. The world goes ‘round. Are you suggesting that oil is not finite??? Or that we have an easy replacement at hand contrary to the people that says otherwise such as in the "Planet of The humans" documentary?

I think what they are suggesting is that humans will adapt to the changing environment as we have done over tens of thousands of years of evolution.

"Adapt" doesn't mean things will be better. Or even "okay".

Climate change won't make humanity extinct and the planet will not notice it happening. But you will definitely notice your life being dominated by trying to get the government to pay out on your house (aka life savings) which was destroyed in a wildfire after the insurance company went bankrupt from a "black swan" event.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#104

Post by iammisc »

thewarrior wrote: post #3

I’ve become a follower of the Collapse subreddit. I initially dismissed it as a bunch of alarmist doomers but the more I looked into the more I realized that even if they end up being wrong modern civilization is a lot more fragile than most people think. Climate change, resource depletion and environmental damage all have the potential to severely destabilize the entire system we have built. I really wish we had a l…

The part that I don't get about this is it rests on the narrative that such drastic societal collapse has happened on a grand scale. While small civilizations here and there have collapsed and political orders have gone away and been replaced by others at no point do we see humans descend into mass anarchy only to have to rebuild civilization.

Many doomsayers point to the fall of Rome as a supposed example of a major power falling and descending people into some kind of 'dark age'. There are two problems with this.

Firstly, the Romans didn't feel like they had actually fallen. As far as the people of the empire were concerned they were Roman even after the old roman imperial system went away. Instead of one exact 'date' of the fall of the empire, the empire slowly faded, and didn't really completely end until 1354 AD. By some people's imaginings, it still hasn't ended (namely the Hapsburgs who still claim to be the Holy Roman Emperor).

Secondly, the dark ages as we imagine it didn't exist. The dark ages were not a time of sudden societal collapse. Rather they were a time of major growth. Lots of things happened during the 'dark ages'. Lots of discoveries made. Lots of voyages undertaken. Lots of empires arose and fell (but the people didn't really notice much).

The idea that suddenly everything we know is going to go away and we're all going to have to huddle inside is, in my opinion, not founded in reality. It's sure fun to LARP though.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#105

Post by schoen »

username90 wrote: post #86
iaw wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having dabbled with chaotic heavily dynamic systems in college I actually disagree. It may be that our system was in a relatively stable highly linear regime and we just knocked it out into a non-linear chaotic region that we can't escape even if we cut emissions entirely. Chaotic systems do some scary unpredictable things, I wish I shared your confidence.

This is just the Mayan calendar phenomena. Just because something is old and accurate up until today doesn't meant that it actually predicts the end of the world.

The Mayan calendar also doesn't predict the world would end in 2012.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon#Maya_reference...

There is just one inscription predicting that a particular god would do something (that's not clearly understood) at that time. Charles Mann suggested that it could be just as plausible to interpret the "investiture" when this god comes to Earth as a kind of party or celebration, and not a cataclysm.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#106

Post by pfdietz »

wcoenen wrote: post #101
pfdietz wrote: post #44

I remember someone took one of those global models and noticed all the equations were time reversible. So they asked "what does the model 'predict' the past looked like?" And it turned out the model predicted the world population was infinite sometime in the 1800s. :) I have very little faith in any of these models.

If many different initial conditions can evolve to almost the same state, then reversing time must necessarily blow up small errors/perturbations. It's the same reason why driving with a trailer backwards is more difficult than forward, even though Newtonian mechanics are time reversible.

I understand they original researchers didn't even validate their models by running them forward from, say, 1600 or 1800. They didn't even try it.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#107

Post by brandmeyer »

pfdietz wrote: post #44

I remember someone took one of those global models and noticed all the equations were time reversible. So they asked "what does the model 'predict' the past looked like?" And it turned out the model predicted the world population was infinite sometime in the 1800s. :) I have very little faith in any of these models.

Plenty of ODEs are stable in forward time, but unstable in reverse time. Just because you can run some equations in reverse doesn't mean that the result is relevant.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#108

Post by iammisc »

thewarrior wrote: post #67
sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be in the “peak oil” scene — and by that I mean, I listened carefully to my friend, who was really into the peak oil scene. It’s an illusion. The world goes ‘round. It’s the same thing humans have done for a hundred thousand years: sit around a campfire telling ghost stories. As long as you don’t take it too seriously, it’s fine to enjoy it. But I think it’s a mistake to get too into the idea that civilizat…

I don’t think that peak oil has been truly debunked. Conventional oil production has indeed peaked and shale has come in to fill in the gap. However shale oil is a lot more expensive and this does propagate throughout the economy. Right now oil prices are still at 75 dollars a barrel. That’s still much higher than before we hit peak conventional oil. It could be one reason we never really recovered from 2008. It seem…

This is like how peak wheat has not been truly debunked because we now have GMO wheat and novel agricultural practices.

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#109

Post by briefcomment »

premium-gecko wrote: post #6

The Club of Rome is some odious stuff. It seems to be a group of academic doomsayers who like to play around with toy models in order to justify quasi-communism and other goals related to neo-Malthusian beliefs. They may be the primary progenitors of using toy models to cast the bones and make scary predictions about the future, especially with regard to climate alarmism. From The Limits to Growth : "In searching for…

If you thought the world could only survive with a much smaller population, and you had enough money to buy out all decision makers and media, what would you do? Sit around and wait for the world to end, or take matters into your own hands?

Re: My take on the study from MIT that predicts “societal collapse”

#110

Post by minikites »

iammisc wrote: post #104
thewarrior wrote: post #3

I’ve become a follower of the Collapse subreddit. I initially dismissed it as a bunch of alarmist doomers but the more I looked into the more I realized that even if they end up being wrong modern civilization is a lot more fragile than most people think. Climate change, resource depletion and environmental damage all have the potential to severely destabilize the entire system we have built. I really wish we had a l…

The part that I don't get about this is it rests on the narrative that such drastic societal collapse has happened on a grand scale. While small civilizations here and there have collapsed and political orders have gone away and been replaced by others at no point do we see humans descend into mass anarchy only to have to rebuild civilization. Many doomsayers point to the fall of Rome as a supposed example of a major…

>at no point do we see humans descend into mass anarchy only to have to rebuild civilization

The Bronze Age Collapse is pretty close:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

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