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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”

#151

Post by fennecfoxen »

hogFeast wrote: post #145
chestertn wrote: post #60

When I was an undergrad I discovered blogs about peak oil, the limits to the growth, and Turchin’s cliometrics. As an adolescent I really enjoyed Asimov’s Foundation and all of this knowledge resonated with me. I had a fried who read Von Mises’ Human Action and he labeled me as a neo-Malthusian . And, according to his “school of thought”, my understanding of the world and economics incorrect. We had many interesting…

One thing that people underestimate with Malthusian thinking is that we live in a dynamic system. The amount of oil that is "out there" is connected to the oil price. Sometimes that supply effect of higher prices is limited (we are, potentially, seeing this with copper) but if you are projecting linear trends, you don't understand economics (and btw, this was the issue with the original Limits to Growth and almost al…

Economic growth is not just energy consumption. We measure it in dollars, not watts, because energy is just an input. We have ways of optimizing to use less or do more valuable things with it.

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

#152

Post by nr2x »

xbpx wrote: post #116
yongjik wrote: post #45

> One reason for this is that in Herrington’s words, “the scenarios do not significantly diverge until 2020.” After that point, the scenarios start to diverge drastically ... This sounds more like a selection bias. If any model drastically diverged from reality earlier, then it would have been already discarded, and we won't be talking about it. So, we'll be only talking about models that start to diverge around 2020…

Luckily there are many models that show divergence from the norm many years ago and continue to show stable and accurate predictions. Like the IPCC reports, and well, most climate CO2 models. Now it's less about determining if divergence is occuring and more about the slope of the divergence. Will we have societal collapse at 2 degrees or 3 degrees warming seems speculative but the general consensus is that it'll be…

I’ve lost hope in politics, I’m buying a sturdy helmet and hoping for the best.

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

#154

Post by neom »

Isamu wrote: post #102

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…

Weather. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27810895

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

mercy_dude wrote: post #118
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would be lead cause of over 100k deaths over climate change What does that even mean?

It means if one was asked to bet on an event between 100k death from a virus outbreak and 100k death from climate change, one would place their bet largely on climate change. Even though we have been warned the hidden systemic risk of pandemic preparedness l.

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by senkora »

seibelj wrote: post #89
chestertn wrote: post #60

When I was an undergrad I discovered blogs about peak oil, the limits to the growth, and Turchin’s cliometrics. As an adolescent I really enjoyed Asimov’s Foundation and all of this knowledge resonated with me. I had a fried who read Von Mises’ Human Action and he labeled me as a neo-Malthusian . And, according to his “school of thought”, my understanding of the world and economics incorrect. We had many interesting…

The Austrian view of economics (and of human philosophy), when I finally sat down and read through the material, made so much sense to me and deeply affected me. It clarified several things I had been feeling about the world that I couldn’t fully comprehend, and made me feel much less stressed and more content. The Malthusian (doom scrolling) impulse is stronger than ever. I feel happier not subscribing to the “end o…

Do you have any recommendations on what material to read?

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

#157

Post by gilbetron »

cletus wrote: post #31

So two things spring to mind with this and any doom scenario or predictions: 1. People tend to exaggerate such doom. The reasons for this vary. A lot of the time it's unknowing. It could be as simple as assuming a constant function will remain constant beyond normal boundaries. Or that a dynamic function will continue forever. Or it's sometimes disingenuous (eg to promote a particular agenda or simply to gain more at…

1. This is true 2. Solar output is at one of its minimums 3. "abrupt" in that case means over the course of decades or centuries, not a few years. Re-read that Nature article, it doesn't say what you think it says. 4. Definitely, Earth will be fine, humans not so much. There are plenty of times in the past few hundred million years where humans would have a rough, or impossible, time surviving. 5. Yes 6. Yes 7. Denier or not, you need to read more, starting with the article you linked.

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

#158

Post by anigbrowl »

School-Cotton wrote: post #98
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cursory reading of history is enough to show that civilisations collapse regularly. It's not possible to comment on this topic credibly without being aware of this. As for "flexible social norms" - there was an attempted coup in the US, South Africa is on fire, Brazil is literally on fire, and the UK is opening up to Delta having apparently persuaded itself that 50,000 cases and 500 hospital admissions a day aren't…

> there was an attempted coup in the US No there wasn’t. A rowdy protest is not “an attempted coup”. All actual institutions behaved according to the law.

No less a person than the Chairman of the joint chiefs is said to have thought otherwise. You may find this historical comparison of interest: https://johnganz.substack.com/p/feb-6-1934jan-6-2021

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

overscore wrote: post #14
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…

I was an infantry soldier and learnt very fast how fragile the logistics of necessities can be in the modern world. I don't believe that world civilisation will collapse (at least not in any way that can be prepared for), but I have moved out of the city, begun to farm organically, and have a plan to cook and live without mains power or fuel for months on end. I know people think I'm a nutjob, but I've also seen firs…

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