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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”

#501

Post by swman »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #301
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…

The problem is defining “greed”. It feels like when I want more stuff per unit time/effort, I’m just “trying to support my family and build a better life for my children”. But when other people do the same, it’s “greedy”. Is there any definition of “greedy” we could use for the purposes of this discussion that would apply yo all humans equally?

I think there are many examples, from French Revolution to day to day examples of people throwing others under the bus for a promotion.

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

#502

Post by effingwewt »

jopsen wrote: post #392
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…

> There is a bit of hubris in thinking that a computer simulation can predict the entirety of human action. Individually humans are hard to predict... but a flock of humans might not be so hard to predict :) That said: it's easy to underestimate the power of economics. Once natural resources becomes expensive, we'll find ways to minimize, recycle and migrate to renewable resources. The biggest risk is if we don't lim…

I think you are positing the question of 'does human behavior have emergent properties'.

I wonder this a lot myself, but how could we see it without Aeons of data? Will we survive ourselves long enough to find out?

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

#503

Post by drallison »

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…

Well said. It may be that we should do nothing and accept our fate. In the geological frame of reference we are just an instant from extinction.

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

#504

Post by mrpopo »

iammisc wrote: post #453
mrpopo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your answer makes no sense. There is no peak wheat, it's not a non-renewable resource. The difference between peak oil and shale oil is the EROI which is very bad (between 1 and 2) compared to conventional (20 to 50). This would make it absolutely useless as an energy source, except we also get free Nat. gas out of it. Once the EROI on all our fossil energy sources gets below 1 we won't be able to use any, despite so…

Except it makes total sense. There is a clear transition happening to non oil energy sources. Oil is a fungible good with alternate energies for many applications. It makes no sense to talk about peak oil if oil demand will soon greatly lessen. As technology increases with oil extraction and alternate energy sources come into play, the peak oil scenario will likely not be realized.

> There is a clear transition happening to non oil energy sources.

No transition. Energy usage is stacking up. Globally, renewable energy sources are built in addition to fossil energy sources. See source below - compare relative vs. absolute :

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...

Peak oil doesn't care that the relative share of oil as an energy source is decreasing (which is true) . It's the global number of oil barrels extracted out of the ground that matters.

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

#505

Post by drallison »

mythrwy wrote: post #146
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…

I never accepted the premise of that book as being universally true. Societies have collapsed for reasons other then resource scarcity. In fact I'd say more often they collapse for reasons other then resource scarcity. I don't think the Mayans ran out of anything. Neither do I believe the Romans ran out of anything. My guess? The professional political/priestly/mid-level manager class gaining self serving control and…

Check out Joseph Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies. He looks at a large number of historical complex societies that collapsed and suggests that they collapsed when the cost of the complexity exceeded its utility. A very appealing concept. His arguments about why our society is not at risk were not convincing.

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

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Post by drallison »

Dynamic models are useful ways to explore complex systems. For example:

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies S Motesharrei, J Rivas, E Kalnay Ecological Economics 101, 90--102

Modeling Sustainability: Population, Inequality, Consumption, and Bidirectional Coupling of the Earth and Human Systems S Motesharrei, J Rivas, E Kalnay, GR Asrar, AJ Busalacchi, RF Cahalan, ... National Science Review 3 (4), 470--494

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

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Post by freemint »

adrianN wrote: post #341
exporectomy wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't think that's relevant since whale and mineral oil are finite natural resources. Governments can't distort them into existence like farm products.

Fertile topsoil is a finite natural resource too.

Top soil can be regenerated so it is literally not finite. Yes it takes long to regenerate and systems with latency are harder to control but it's decidely an regeneratable resource.

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

#508

Post by XorNot »

marcosdumay wrote: post #465
XorNot wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the house price: it's your house is destroyed and the land is no longer viable. What do you do? Same problem with coastal real estate: your house is now uninsurable against flood, and then gets flooded and is destroyed - what do you do? Take a recent disaster: say as a resident you believe the Miami condo you lived in was structurally unsound, but the management does not: what do you do? "Adapt" means quite…

> It's not the house price: it's your house is destroyed and the land is no longer viable. What do you do? Move. Our difficulty to move is a new phenomenon and isn't created by any of the variables on those simulations.

With what capital?

Essentially no one can afford to lose the value of their house. That's the point: you're going to take a 100% loss on the value of the land and building.

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

#509

Post by kwhitefoot »

caskstrength wrote: post #479
kwhitefoot wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can agree with that!

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

#510

Post by tartoran »

ModernMech wrote: post #418
boredtofears wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would not solve climate change, but really, what's horrible about it? We live in a world of finite resources. If we, as a species, overpopulate to the point where these finite resources run dry, what are the best options?

We could decrease our rate of consumption/production, for one. The rate at which we're consuming is what's unsustainable. We have enough resources today to cover everyone's needs. The problem is we are producing well past that, and even still not everyone is getting what they need. Just look at how much food is thrown into dumpsters every day. Or all the energy locked up in landfills in the form of deteriorating plas…

I agree but it seems we’re in minority. I don’t see the rate of consumption decreasing willingly
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