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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”

#381

Post by mattcaldwell »

rewgs wrote: post #223
pksebben wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's fundamentally confounding to me that more people don't seem to come to this conclusion. I would love to hear a reasonable argument from someone in this cohort, because I'm willing to accept that my intuition is flawed, and I just can't see how.

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…

The stuff of nightmares... and it's all true. Well said.

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

#382

Post by bklaasen »

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).

You'd hope so, wouldn't you? However our markets aren't free. I can highly recommend Clive Ponting's "A New Green History of the World". The weight of historical evidence is against us finding a fix. We have tended to over-exploit every resource until it's depleted. For instance, we switched to coal because the wood and whales were running out, not because coal was a better source of energy.

(My main concern with the book is the lack of references; for each chapter he provides " further reading", but I'd have preferred to see a source for each claim.)

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

#383

Post by simonh »

coldtea wrote: post #350
simonh wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you are relying on a cultural change it isn't a technological fix If traditional food sources go away and technology provides an alternative food source, that is what people will eat. Culture will follow technology, if that's what people have to do to survive. EDIT:That mostly applies to the population in the developed world with access to capital, technology and industrial resources that we can use to adapt our…

Yes, but survival is not living. And culture can adapt to everything, including slavery, dystopia, etc.

Indeed, I think those are much more likely outcomes than massive population collapse.

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

#384

Post by kwhitefoot »

belorn wrote: post #327
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…

The problem which we already have the technology to fix is food. What people eat is cultural and is effected by cost and availability. There is much we currently discard or do not cultivate because it not what we traditionally see as food and because there is no cost incentive to encourage a change in culture. Changes can however occur given the right triggers, like how large portion of Europe went over to potatoes d…

The Netherlands is a net exporter of food and it does this by producing what people want to eat. See https://aboutthenetherlands.com/why-does-the-netherlands-exp...

Why should we have to change what we eat? Surely taking that choice away takes away part of what we are, reduces our autonomy.

Why switch to seaweed when we can already produce what we already know we want?

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

#385

Post by refurb »

anticodon wrote: post #311
ganafagol wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next target will be also rich in oil, although it would be definitely said that it's only because of lack of democracy in the said country. Haiti.

It was just a minor coup at the USA backdoor. The next victim of US military incursion will be oil rich country. There's no reason for incursion if it is not going to be profitable for the US. If there's "no democracy" in some country but also no valuable natural resources, it's not worth spending expensive missiles and bombs. E.g. dictatorship in Cambodia would be always safe as there're little gains in occupying Ca…

What natural resources did Afghanistan have that was worth 20 years and trillions of dollars?

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

#386

Post by giantg2 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #374
saurik wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe that everyone deciding to eat something different is "fixing" the food scarcity problem in the same way that desalinization (ignoring all other issues with it as we assumed technology improved to solve them also) "fixes" water scarcity: if everyone is told tomorrow "all water will safely come from desal" we might breath a collective sigh of relief... "starting tomorrow, all food will be replaced by s…

Imagine the uproar if you tried to build a nuclear powered desalination plant on Long Island. That's basically what you're alluding to with the seaweed and food thing. Cultural and ideological hangups will go right out the window in a hurry when there's a real crisis and a culturally incompatible solution. People aren't gonna let things truly go to shit over something as trivial as what they eat or where their water…

"Doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine how climate change might F-over downstate Illinois (because farms) but Chicago won't let them do anything about it because they hold all the cards and they make their money a different way."

I actually can't envision what you mean by "Chicago won't let them do anything about it". Isn't Chicago the more liberal area that wants to fight climate change?

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

#387

Post by saberdancer »

dane-pgp wrote: post #62
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…

> 4. At different points in the Earth's history it has been both substantially hotter and colder than it is now; The atoms in your house were much hotter when they were being formed by fusion inside a star, but that doesn't mean you'd be happy about someone committing arson. I'm saying it's not really relevant whether Earth has experienced higher temperatures before, what matters is how long it will be able to suppor…

My takeaway was that Earth as a system has operated outside of these temperatures and did not result in a runaway effect.

This means that there are self correcting systems that allow Earth to be relatively stable and life bearing for billions of years.

My first thought is that with increase in temperature, you get an increase in plant life which reduces CO2 levels resulting in lower temperatures and less plant life.

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

#388

Post by ericmay »

vmladenov wrote: post #273
choeger wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone has said this in every decade of the last century.

It’s also not true. Cars are currently undergoing the single largest revolution since they were invented: electrification. Designs that people have been optimizing over a century are suddenly obviated and new challenges are taking their place.

True but the usage of cars themselves is the main problem. Electrification of cars helps, certainly, but we should be walking and biking, not driving. They’re more efficient, but we are still just using expensive energy to power them when we could just build better and not need them. Calories are cheaper than watts.

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

#389

Post by PeterisP »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #366
simonh wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if you are relying on a cultural change it isn't a technological fix If traditional food sources go away and technology provides an alternative food source, that is what people will eat. Culture will follow technology, if that's what people have to do to survive. EDIT:That mostly applies to the population in the developed world with access to capital, technology and industrial resources that we can use to adapt our…

It also mostly assumes that the undeveloped world won't eat the developed world. Societal collapse in for example India or Brazil would make things awkward real fast for a large chunk of the world

In general, that would be prevented by the fact that the developed world is militarily stronger than the developing world. If some resources are not enough for India or Brazil, they can't take them from the developed world in the style of the earlier resource wars for e.g. oil.

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

#390

Post by evgen »

coldtea wrote: post #349
belorn wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem which we already have the technology to fix is food. What people eat is cultural and is effected by cost and availability. There is much we currently discard or do not cultivate because it not what we traditionally see as food and because there is no cost incentive to encourage a change in culture. Changes can however occur given the right triggers, like how large portion of Europe went over to potatoes d…

> The problem which we already have the technology to fix is food. What people eat is cultural and is effected by cost and availability That's not fixing, that's a band aid, and an ugly one at that. "Let's just eat worms, algae, problem fixed".

And if we suggested ten years ago that your burgers would be plant-based I am sure you would tell us how much Americans hate tofu and that this was just another ugly band-aid. Food is trivial to fix and is barely a small step below clothing choices when it comes to things that are driven almost entirely by culture and fashion. My children regularly request food like sushi and spring rolls that I was ridiculed for eating the the 1980s in the US midwest. Adding insect or algae-based supplements to processed food is already happening.

It's easy. It will happen. The only question is if it will take ten years or twenty.

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