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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”

#181

Post by cjohnson318 »

bmitc wrote: post #175
adnmcq999 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know man, the human race makes great technological leaps, or rather leaps in understanding that allow new technology. And nobody can really predict that. It’s almost like your Einsteins, Newtons, Boltzmanns, Maxwells Paulis and Plancks had some kind 2-way channel with divinity. Even though we all stand on the shoulders of giants, sometimes a new giant appears out of the ether. And there’s no doubt we’re done.…

How does new technology help these things exactly? Isn't technology, along with the discovery of coal and oil, a major contributor to the scaling of the human population and the effects of that? The vast industrialization over the past 150 has not been good for humanity or the planet.

I think they generally mean: optimal and sustainable farming, abundant clean energy, and world leaders that can think more than two years ahead.

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

#182

Post by cjohnson318 »

bmitc wrote: post #179
cjohnson318 wrote: post #163

I love that there's a "technology will fix things" model. This assumes we'll discover some magical bullet, that we haven't thought of, that will counteract erosion of topsoil, water shortages, and climate change. Another implicit assumption is that we'll be able to move forward unilaterally with such a solution, instead of it becoming a political football until it's too late to do anything, like climate change. A lot…

I agree with you and made a similar comment when the article talking about the report was posted here. COVID-19 is a perfect example of the folly in believing "technology will always save us". In the U.S., the general sentiment was that technology in the form of vaccines and entrepreneurship will rise to the occasion, so let's just ride it out until then. Well after more than a year of shit show after shit show and 6…

Oh man, COVID-19 was a huge wake up call. I thought the response to Hurricane Katrina was bad, but the response to COVID-19 has been much worse. Scientists did a great job with rolling a vaccine out, but now every family's weird uncle refuses to get a vaccine. It just blows my mind.

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

#183

Post by xxpor »

webinvest wrote: post #167
nr2x wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah I watched a cspan question and answer session and one dinosaur-aged Republican representative from West Palm Beach Florida sounded so backwards. He was saying that we shouldn’t transition to green energy because of all the coal miner jobs that will be displaced by green energy jobs. It seemed like he was just being difficult or corrupt because Florida doesn’t even have any coal mines or coal mining jobs! Also, i…

US Supreme Court.

And there's a very good chance the entire world look different if Gore won. There may have not been a 9/11, for one. There would have certainly not been an Iraq war.

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

#184

Post by bmitc »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #181
bmitc wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does new technology help these things exactly? Isn't technology, along with the discovery of coal and oil, a major contributor to the scaling of the human population and the effects of that? The vast industrialization over the past 150 has not been good for humanity or the planet.

I think they generally mean: optimal and sustainable farming, abundant clean energy, and world leaders that can think more than two years ahead.

They specifically mentioned technological leaps, so that's what I went on, for better or worse.

I think clean energy will not by itself solve much. We need to reduce and reorganize at the same time as bringing on clean energy production, but that won't happen. Look at China, who is the world leader in clean energy production. I worry if fusion ever happens, people will just be like "great, electrical energy is free now", which won't be good.

I agree we need leaders thinking more than a few years ahead.

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

#185

Post by tanbog4 »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #163

I love that there's a "technology will fix things" model. This assumes we'll discover some magical bullet, that we haven't thought of, that will counteract erosion of topsoil, water shortages, and climate change. Another implicit assumption is that we'll be able to move forward unilaterally with such a solution, instead of it becoming a political football until it's too late to do anything, like climate change. A lot…

It's not that silly to model as historically that has also happened. To use the "peak oil" example this work also influenced, the technology of fossil oil reserves was a response in part to "peak whale" (not a joke). The main source much commercial 'oil' for things like Street lamps in the 1800s was whale blubber. As whales got overfished fossilised oil reserves were developed and not only took over those markets but created many many new ones.

You can of course make the point fossilised oil is worse for global warming etc but from the point of view of the economy and population growth fossilised oil was much better than whale.

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

#187

Post by bjornsing »

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…

> I believe that reductionist (materialistic) approaches to analyze human endeavor are misguided. There is a bit of hubris in thinking that a computer simulation can predict the entirety of human action. I am definitely not suscribed to the Austrian school of thought, however.

That sounds very much like what FA Hayek called “the presence of knowledge” and warned us of in his 1974 Nobel acceptance speech [1]. Maybe you are an Austrian after all. ;)

1. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hay...

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

#188

Post by swader999 »

foxylad wrote: post #132
notjes wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone once said: If you are a teen and you aren't a lefty, you have no heart. And if you are in your 30'S and you are still a lefty, you have no brain. Many travel along those lines. And in analogy to this, I am very optimistic about the future, because the resources are indeed infinite, because the human ingenuity is infinite. There is no peak oil. There is no peak food. There is no peak climate. There is no water…

> resources are indeed infinite, because the human ingenuity is infinite Human ingenuity is impressive, but not infinite. I recommend Collapse by Jared Diamond. It's a long read, but every single society he examines thought they were doing great but ended up eating each other (literally) within a couple of generations once some vital resource dried up. Human ingenuity failed all of them. I'll give you peak oil: our i…

Sure there will be weather events, but none of us will live to see anything climate related that causes an entire country to whither.

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

#189

Post by Xplune13 »

adnmcq999 wrote: post #169
cjohnson318 wrote: post #163

I love that there's a "technology will fix things" model. This assumes we'll discover some magical bullet, that we haven't thought of, that will counteract erosion of topsoil, water shortages, and climate change. Another implicit assumption is that we'll be able to move forward unilaterally with such a solution, instead of it becoming a political football until it's too late to do anything, like climate change. A lot…

I don’t know man, the human race makes great technological leaps, or rather leaps in understanding that allow new technology. And nobody can really predict that. It’s almost like your Einsteins, Newtons, Boltzmanns, Maxwells Paulis and Plancks had some kind 2-way channel with divinity. Even though we all stand on the shoulders of giants, sometimes a new giant appears out of the ether. And there’s no doubt we’re done.…

That is true, but basing a prediction model on the assumption that "technology will fix things, and someone will save us" is bad in my opinion.

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

#190

Post by mikewarot »

twobitshifter wrote: post #126
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…

I have heard soils have become depleted of nutrients and ammonium fertilizers are not enough. There’s also the possibility of drought and loss of pollinators.

The soil itself is depleted. This leads to a positive feedback cycle, and a hockey stick growth in the amount of industrial agriculture inputs required to keep a constant yield, right up to the point the farmer goes broke.

Then someone like Gabe Brown comes along, and uses regenerative farming, capturing about a ton of carbon/year as he builds new soil, and frees up the nutrients in the ground to be available to crops. It's a positive feedback cycle that makes the farm profitable again.

It's by no means a simple system, but it is profitable, so there is long term hope.

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