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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”

#241

Post by ivalm »

zug_zug wrote: post #236

Everyone: We were wrong about peak oil! Models aren't always right! Me: Couldn't our models be wrong in the wrong direction? Is the burden of proof to do nothing until it's scientifically definitive for societal collapse? Or is the burden to intervene until it's definitive that there is no risk of societal collapse (even if our models underestimate).

But interventions can also cause societal collapse. If you don’t know what you are doing don’t do anything since action can be worse than inaction.

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

#242

Post by adrianN »

retrac wrote: post #217
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…

> we'll discover some magical bullet, that we haven't thought of Surely there are in fact, many technologies that we have thought of, that could help in a number of ways, if only we could realize them as practical and/or get them adopted in terms of politics and the economy.

The "a technological solution" crowd isn't looking for something that requires lots of money to roll out, like renewable energy.

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

#243

Post by hughrr »

swman wrote: post #230
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 think technology will result in a great outcome for humanity as long as our greed is checked somehow. Most of the problems today are caused by our greed. I’m no MIT scholar nor as educated as most of you here, but from a anecdotal ground level I have seen it really seems some people at various positions from a office manager all the way to the highest political offices are driven by greed. Their greed usually resul…

History shows us that greedy people end up with their heads on sticks. Even when they have armies to protect them. It doesn’t take a lot to regress to that again.

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

#244

Post by adrianN »

99_00 wrote: post #227
rewgs wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your intuition isn't flawed. People are both willfully dense, and typically unable to grasp extremely complex systems, and both are at play with regards to climate change and energy shortage. The one that always gets me is how people expect us to even develop those new technologies. With what energy? The ones we're running out of? The ones that are already more and more expensive to find? And the fact that we'll be d…

Why isn't nuclear power the answer to climate change and energy shortage?

Because it's pretty expensive and time consuming to build and people really don't like to have a nuclear power plant near them.

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

#245

Post by tanbog4 »

zug_zug wrote: post #232
tanbog4 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "peak whale" and "peak oil" are naturally self-correcting in a free-market, because as the resources become scarce their prices goes up hence leading to technological incentives to find alternative sources. This would also apply to topsoil erosion. However this isn't the case with carbon emissions for example, unless we had some financial feedback loop (e.g. some carbon tax).

I would generally agree, but i guess the point is, extrapolating about production/growth/pollution when fossil oil was introduced probably failed to account for technological change driving economic and industrial change.

We can measure global warming, it is happening, and we know what drives it right now. We should at least try to model what kind of change would fix it. Including new technologies.

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

#246

Post by premium-gecko »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #182
bmitc wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> every family's weird uncle refuses to get a vaccine

Suppose I thought you should get some injections, and you researched it and concluded they almost certainly wouldn't benefit you, and might harm you. Would you be OK with being characterized as a weird uncle who refused to get a treatment?

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

#247

Post by adrianN »

zug_zug wrote: post #232
tanbog4 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "peak whale" and "peak oil" are naturally self-correcting in a free-market, because as the resources become scarce their prices goes up hence leading to technological incentives to find alternative sources. This would also apply to topsoil erosion. However this isn't the case with carbon emissions for example, unless we had some financial feedback loop (e.g. some carbon tax).

Most markets aren't particularly "free". Agriculture for example is heavily subsidized.

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

#248

Post by rytis »

hughrr wrote: post #243
swman wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think technology will result in a great outcome for humanity as long as our greed is checked somehow. Most of the problems today are caused by our greed. I’m no MIT scholar nor as educated as most of you here, but from a anecdotal ground level I have seen it really seems some people at various positions from a office manager all the way to the highest political offices are driven by greed. Their greed usually resul…

History shows us that greedy people end up with their heads on sticks. Even when they have armies to protect them. It doesn’t take a lot to regress to that again.

I think it's excessively greedy who end up on sticks. Moderately greedy are doing just fine...

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

#249

Post by adrianN »

s5300 wrote: post #143
alasdair_ wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. My belief in disaster preparedness from the powers that be was severely shaken by the early to mid term response to covid in the US. I genuinely thought we’d handle a large scale disaster that had been prepared for forever much, much better than we did.

I think it was heavily dependent on the administration. To my knowledge, recent past administration quite literally made a step by step "playbook on how to manage a pandemic" and the current administration quite literally completely ignored it, or something close to this.

I have a hard time coming up with examples of countries that handled the pandemic very well, so I would think that it's less dependent on the administration than it might appear.

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

#250

Post by c0nducktr »

swader999 wrote: post #188
foxylad wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'd take that bet.
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