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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”

#471

Post by pksebben »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #469
native_samples wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I'll do so. To put it brutally it's because on Hacker News and probably your social circle, there are too many people whose social status and income depends on being clever, or at least the perception of being clever. This leads us to seriously over-index on things that look like science or data analysis, without even being able to see alternatives that in my experience easily occur to the less (over?) educated.…

Things always seem fine until they aren't, and then they're real bad. Invariably, the nature of a difficult situation is that they're difficult to get out of, so we tend to be very interested in avoiding difficult situations. This is why people are so interested in avoiding climate change, rather than waiting for more real-time data about how much climate change actually sucks so they can update their Bayesian priors…

This is specifically what I'm referring to. Temperatures are already getting lethally hot and we're not really doing all that much about it. It's not resource scarcity that seems like the killer, here.

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

#472

Post by pksebben »

pksebben wrote: post #470
YouCanDoBetter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For example if there is a >9 magnitude earthquake due to San Andreas fault, I have zero doubt California has any preparedness and if will even be able to airlift millions of people even though everyone knows it’s a ticking time bomb. At least people are retrofitting buildings in CA to prepare for the San Andreas. This is nothing compared to the real big one: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-b…

thanks for the article, it was a great read. I wonder what new research on the cascadia subduction zone had happened since 2015 when it was published - and what changes in the forecasts might have to be made post-COVID-19, given new data on disaster preparedness.

To add context, I found the source for current art on this: https://pnsn.org/outreach/earthquakesources/csz

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

#473

Post by 99_00 »

Joeri wrote: post #254
99_00 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

We would need to build thousands of nuclear plants, adapting each plant for its location (so you can’t mass-produce a single design), and we don’t have the skilled people to do that. In addition, they will take decades to build, we lack enough fuel for those plants, and we still haven’t solved the disposal problem. Solar panels, batteries, and wind mills are comparatively easy to produce at ridiculous volumes. They’r…

I'm having problems squaring this with the real world examples of France and Germany

>Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity in France, with a generation of 379.5 TWh, or 70.6%

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

>France is Europe’s biggest net electricity exporter in 2019, says report

>French electricity costs are just 59% of German electricity prices.

https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/electricity-export...

>Nuclear power in Germany accounted for 11.63% of electricity supply in 2017

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

>German power export surplus shrank 46.2% in 2020

https://www.reuters.com/article/germany-electricity-statisti...

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

#474

Post by inglor_cz »

PeterisP wrote: post #389
Dudeman112 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is not as if the countries lack resources. Their fast growing population does [0]. So far, Europe does not seem to be willing to repudiate the asylum treaties it signed, so the young men always have the option to try and reach Europe(an resources) under the guise of seeking protection. And once they are in, their forced removal is unlikely [1], so they cease to be a resource problem for their country of origin and start to be a resource problem for the new host society.

The military does not even play a role here. All the poorer countries need to do is a) not prevent their own young people from leaving, b) not prevent activity of smuggler gangs, c) complicate deportations by refusing to issue passports to their citizens who destroyed their papers underway. None of those actions need guns, much less superior guns.

[0] ... India and Brazil aren't really in the "top population growth" league. Look up population pyramids of Niger, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Yemen. Those graphs promise future mass migration streams. (https://www.populationpyramid.net)

[1] ... https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

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

#475

Post by webinvest »

roenxi wrote: post #323
downWidOutaFite wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In two decades of reading about it I've seen this oil theory many times but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that it was the real motivation. The closest strategic explanation was the neocons' PNAC letters which were basically just bravado about America throwing its weight around to maintain their global dominance. Reprehensible stuff.

If it wasn't the real explanation then nothing America does makes any sense. There have been a notable lack of invasions of African, Asian, European or South American countries. The Middle Easterners aren't that different from everywhere else - except they have lots of oil.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AQPlREDW-Ro

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

#476

Post by naasking »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #468
naasking wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Who says we haven't thought of it? There are plenty of candidates technologies, like moving food production into cities via vertical farms so top soil erosion is irrelevant. Lab grown is on the short-term horizon as well (5-10 years). Water shortages are a non-is…

Regarding vertical farms in cities. You generally need about 1 acre of farm land per (American) person per year. A vertical farm can squeeze about 5 acres of horizontal farm land into one acre of vertical farm land. If NYC (proper) has 8.4M residents, then you need about 1.7M acres of vertical farms. For reference, NYC (proper) is about 200K acres right now. (The NYC metro area has 20M residents over 8.5M acres.) It'…

> It's doable, but it will require an enormous expenditure in infrastructure, so good luck.

It's simply one among many possible resolutions to soil erosion. There need not be a single solution. Soil erosion won't kill all traditional farming practices, and vertical farms can simply make up part of the difference (and progressively more if soil erosion isn't tackled directly).

> Likely, the places that are unaffected by climate change are going to be so expensive that most of the people fleeing the effects of climate change will not be able to relocate there.

We may or may not have refugee crises driven by climate change. There is simply no way to estimate these likelihoods.

> The Comprehensive Tech model is far fetched because it requires planning, cooperation, commitment, and sacrificing short term gains for long term stability--basically all of the things humans are terrible at.

You just described that regulations require demonstration of any new development's water access for 100 years, which is exactly the kind of planning, cooperation, and commitment you said we need. Clearly we are capable of it when necessary.

Regulations have certainly gotten a bad rap over the past few decades with the push for deregulation, but the worse the situation gets due to lax regulations, the more this will change.

Your conclusion is based on the naive assumption that circumstances don't change people's behaviour and so the past couple of decades will predict the next century, but history doesn't support this argument. Cultural views on nearly every issue have changed dramatically in each generation.

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

#477

Post by inlikealamb »

exporectomy wrote: post #282
inlikealamb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they were bad at it doesn't mean they didn't try. Here's a list: * Breaking into congress * Carrying flags representing a rival (dead) government * While wearing tactical gear, some carrying blunt objects, handcuffs, mace * Stealing computers and documents * Searching for congresspeople * Killing a police officer, beating others Not to mention they were doing it while Congress was meant to be counting el…

Apply the criteria for criminal attempted crimes. You have to do more than just attempt it, you have to have a realistic possibility of succeeding. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll isn't attempted murder, no matter how seriously you believe it will kill the person. So how would that event in the US have succeeded in overthrowing the government? What would the next steps have been? Even if they killed everyone in the bu…

The voodoo doll seems like a weird example to use, these people weren't sitting in their houses imagining it. They literally broke into congress in search of congresspeople, you can watch videos and hear people say "where are they"... they went to their offices and congressional chambers to find them...

Analogies aside, if you don't think it was an attempted coup... what would it have made it one? I'm legitimately curious (I don't think incompetence is an excuse, and courts usually don't either).

Thanks for pointing out the disparity about Sicknick. To anyone else who isn't aware... the autopsy determined he died from a stroke the day after. These people still assaulted police officers to gain access to the Capitol.

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

#478

Post by inlikealamb »

anticodon wrote: post #251
inlikealamb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because they were bad at it doesn't mean they didn't try. Here's a list: * Breaking into congress * Carrying flags representing a rival (dead) government * While wearing tactical gear, some carrying blunt objects, handcuffs, mace * Stealing computers and documents * Searching for congresspeople * Killing a police officer, beating others Not to mention they were doing it while Congress was meant to be counting el…

It's funny considering how USA intensely finance and prepare coups and revolutions all over the world. I'm from one ex-USSR country and living in another ex-USSR country. It happened several times right in front of my eyes. USA funds several media outlets so that they publish a precisely mixed mash of truth and lies. People mindlessly consume the mash and start to get a feeling they live in an imperfect society that…

It's technically a different thing because this attempted coup was domestic, and I don't think the whattaboutism accomplishes much... there's no hypocritical rhetoric in the thread you're replying to.

The US has certainly inflicted coups abroad, and I also disagree with those... but I suspect you weren't commenting to get my opinion on the matter.

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

#479

Post by caskstrength »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #384
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 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?

I can assure you that nobody actually _wants_ to eat tasteless dutch tomatoes.

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

#480

Post by pope_meat »

jmnicolas wrote: post #333
adrianN wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To the best of my knowledge Belorussia did absolutely nothing and didn't have a massive death wave. And before you tell me it's a dictatorship so they have hidden the true numbers, I'm pretty sure if it had been the case it would have been at the forefront of the protests last year. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I do think COVID fear has been massively overblown.

Running an authoritarian regime in a former Soviet satellite is a decent way to ensure you don't get too many international travelers. That would be my guess for why they might have dodged the brunt of the pandemic.
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