Society Is Right On Track For a Global Collapse, New Study of Infamous 1970s Report Finds 323
fahrbot-bot shares a report from Live Science: Human society is on track for a collapse in the next two decades if there isn't a serious shift in global priorities, according to a new reassessment of a 1970s report, Vice reported. In that report -- published in the bestselling book "The Limits to Growth" (1972) -- a team of MIT scientists argued that industrial civilization was bound to collapse if corporations and governments continued to pursue continuous economic growth, no matter the costs. The researchers forecasted 12 possible scenarios for the future, most of which predicted a point where natural resources would become so scarce that further economic growth would become impossible, and personal welfare would plummet.
The report's most infamous scenario -- the Business as Usual (BAU) scenario -- predicted that the world's economic growth would peak around the 2040s, then take a sharp downturn, along with the global population, food availability and natural resources. This imminent "collapse" wouldn't be the end of the human race, but rather a societal turning point that would see standards of living drop around the world for decades, the team wrote.
So, what's the outlook for society now, nearly half a century after the MIT researchers shared their prognostications? Gaya Herrington, a sustainability and dynamic system analysis researcher at the consulting firm KPMG, decided to find out. [...] Herrington found that the current state of the world -- measured through 10 different variables, including population, fertility rates, pollution levels, food production and industrial output -- aligned extremely closely with two of the scenarios proposed in 1972, namely the BAU scenario and one called Comprehensive Technology (CT), in which technological advancements help reduce pollution and increase food supplies, even as natural resources run out. While the CT scenario results in less of a shock to the global population and personal welfare, the lack of natural resources still leads to a point where economic growth sharply declines -- in other words, a sudden collapse of industrial society. "The good news is that it's not too late to avoid both of these scenarios and put society on track for an alternative -- the Stabilized World (SW) scenario," the report notes. "This path begins as the BAU and CT routes do, with population, pollution and economic growth rising in tandem while natural resources decline. The difference comes when humans decide to deliberately limit economic growth on their own, before a lack of resources forces them to."
"The SW scenario assumes that in addition to the technological solutions, global societal priorities change," Herrington wrote. "A change in values and policies translates into, amongst other things, low desired family size, perfect birth control availability, and a deliberate choice to limit industrial output and prioritize health and education services." After this shift of values occurs, industrial growth and global population begin to level out. "Food availability continues to rise to meet the needs of the global population; pollution declines and all but disappears; and the depletion of natural resources begins to level out, too," adds Live Science. "Societal collapse is avoided entirely."
The report's most infamous scenario -- the Business as Usual (BAU) scenario -- predicted that the world's economic growth would peak around the 2040s, then take a sharp downturn, along with the global population, food availability and natural resources. This imminent "collapse" wouldn't be the end of the human race, but rather a societal turning point that would see standards of living drop around the world for decades, the team wrote.
So, what's the outlook for society now, nearly half a century after the MIT researchers shared their prognostications? Gaya Herrington, a sustainability and dynamic system analysis researcher at the consulting firm KPMG, decided to find out. [...] Herrington found that the current state of the world -- measured through 10 different variables, including population, fertility rates, pollution levels, food production and industrial output -- aligned extremely closely with two of the scenarios proposed in 1972, namely the BAU scenario and one called Comprehensive Technology (CT), in which technological advancements help reduce pollution and increase food supplies, even as natural resources run out. While the CT scenario results in less of a shock to the global population and personal welfare, the lack of natural resources still leads to a point where economic growth sharply declines -- in other words, a sudden collapse of industrial society. "The good news is that it's not too late to avoid both of these scenarios and put society on track for an alternative -- the Stabilized World (SW) scenario," the report notes. "This path begins as the BAU and CT routes do, with population, pollution and economic growth rising in tandem while natural resources decline. The difference comes when humans decide to deliberately limit economic growth on their own, before a lack of resources forces them to."
"The SW scenario assumes that in addition to the technological solutions, global societal priorities change," Herrington wrote. "A change in values and policies translates into, amongst other things, low desired family size, perfect birth control availability, and a deliberate choice to limit industrial output and prioritize health and education services." After this shift of values occurs, industrial growth and global population begin to level out. "Food availability continues to rise to meet the needs of the global population; pollution declines and all but disappears; and the depletion of natural resources begins to level out, too," adds Live Science. "Societal collapse is avoided entirely."
Doomsaying 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
"Societal collapse is coming, we just got the day wrong last time" is the favourite excuse of doomsayers.
Re:Doomsaying 101 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Doomsaying 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, when taking a look at how stupid vast parts of humanity have been acting through this pandemic out of spite, IF the pandemic does not manage to weed out considerable parts of that stupid, I don't think some kind of notable collapse is that unrealistic within this century.
We learned our lesson so much after engaging in one World War, that we engaged in another one.
100 years ago, the second wave of the Spanish Flu was the most deadly not because the threat had actually subsided, but because humans were tired of dealing with lockdowns and silly masks.
The 2008 financial crisis was apparently so bad that we did nothing to prevent it from happening again.
Not sure what in the fuck makes you think we humans get smarter over time, or that another global pandemic would educate. We can't even wise up enough to stop repeating the worst of our history.
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* Our amazingly large capacity for denial
* Our likewise large capacity to take advantage of peoples' denial for whatever reasons
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I'd tell you to go through my comment history if you want to find out about my stance on things with a higher degree of reliablilty, but I'm fairly sure that you won't, so I'll address it here and you'll have to take my word for it (unless you look into my history).
I mean sure, some parts are utilizing the possibilities of education, and might be getting what you can call 'smarter', but other parts are getting dumber or at best stay
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What relevance does "wisdom" have to survival?
Hint: Evolution only evaluates all life on a single criterion. Ability to survive into the future. And being too wise is a good recipe for getting culled, because you start falling in love with delusions produced by your intellect, rather than be constantly faced with the fact that you're not wise enough to "wisdom through" actual reality.
Because objectively, humans are nowhere near cognition levels needed to do so. Which is why we survive through cultural adapt
Re:Doomsaying 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
To be slightly more optimistic...
While we had a second World War, we have not had a third one. Of course there's fighting all the time, which is horrific, but overall much better. You can sum all of the fatalities since World War II from all the wars and still have a lower number than World War II, despite total population increasing three fold. It seems we have learned our lesson.
While the same stupid behavior was seen in the Spanish Flu, COVID is in the neighborhood of 10% of the total deaths despite being a worse disease, meaning that our medical science has offset the same bad behaviors of humanity at large.
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How is that meaningfully worse than how humanity has acted throughout its history?
Actually, scratch that. I have a better question:
"How in the world did you manage to become someone who can comprehend English and write in it fluently without ever coming in contact with human history?"
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Yes, we're some kind of ape after all, but our tools are getting more dangerous with the time.
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To be honest, when taking a look at how stupid vast parts of humanity have been acting through this pandemic out of spite, IF the pandemic does not manage to weed out considerable parts of that stupid, I don't think some kind of notable collapse is that unrealistic within this century.
Remember: The people of Walmart get the same number of votes as you do... it's democracy!
(the people at the top just love democracy...)
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They tried, but didn't do well, and were eventually consolidated into a different super market chain.
Nonetheless I'd say that the average person that lives in Germany isn't any more 'enlightened' than the average person living in the US. While many Germans liked to pretend to be very evolved due to their Vergangenheitsbewältigung [wikipedia.org] recent events made it evident that this has mostly been an illusion. Progress has been made on level that doesn't go much deeper than the
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Re:Doomsaying 101 (Score:5, Interesting)
"Societal collapse is coming, we just got the day wrong last time" is the favourite excuse of doomsayers.
And yet, our species will eventually learn the four most expensive words in human history, because we're too stupid to learn otherwise.
"I told you so."
Re: Doomsaying 101 (Score:2)
Withthisring, i thee wed.
Re: Doomsaying 101 (Score:2, Informative)
This. According to the original report, we should already be well into a sharp decline. So it was obviously time to revise the prediction. The Club of Rome has a political.agenda.
Re: Doomsaying 101 (Score:2)
Propaganda 101 (Score:5, Informative)
"Create strawmen to knock down since they are easier to attack than the facts."
Your "summary" isn't remotely what the updated report says. It says, 50 years after the initial prediction, we are still on track for disaster. Only now instead of it being 70+ years in the future from 1972, it is less than 20 years in the future from 2022.
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Also I think obsession over "the end is nigh" is exactly something that the selfish and short-sighted use to justify their selfishness and short-sightedness, i.e., "there's no point in worrying about 50 years from now because it's all going to blow up in the near future anyway, so we might as well operate as we please until then."
And "shocker" of course operating in that way leads exactly to the predicted outcome getting only closer so then they use their self-fulfilling prophecy just to justify even more p
sounds like ... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Communism is the only way. Aka a planned economy within sustainable limits, but you - with your short-sightedness - would just call it communism.
The Disease of Greed, has plagued mankind for thousands of years. Long before communism came along. Greed has tried to sell 31 different flavors of it, falsely promising the Disease wouldn't infect the "new and improved" flavor.
It still did. It always does.
100 million citizens lay dead at the feet of that ideology, so as long as you're cool with mass culls then we'll go with your shortsightedness. Which one of your family members is volunteering for liquidation? You know, sustainable limits and all.
For
Re: sounds like ... (Score:2)
Majority of those people who died, starved, if you are referring to the long march. And yet this act started a path towards the fastest growing economy in the world, just so China could be more globally competitive. It's hard to imagine a China where this would of happened if other countries didn't keep trying to make China it's bitch. So the context matters a lot here and ultimately explains why you cannot just lump deaths together based on their governments because we can easily chalk up a similar number
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Solve for the Disease of Greed. Otherwise we perish, right here on this dying rock, forever addicted to it.
I've got an ideology for you: https://cryptome.org/ap.htm [cryptome.org]
FWIW: I'm 100% in favor of it.
Re:sounds like ... (Score:4)
What did you yes, you personally do to improve the lives of people saved by capitalism from death camps of communism?
Raised my right hand and swore to give everything, including my own life, to protect and defend every citizen of a free nation from those horrors, just as my ancestors did.
What did YOU personally do?
Re:sounds like ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States system of government tries to prevent that by making our elected representatives accountable to their constituents, but even then over time it's become incrementally corrupted to the point that so many people in these United States feel that their votes don't mean anything and that the so-called 'powers that be' will just do whatever they want regardless of what The People want.
If you want a system of society or government that prevents all that corruption then come up with something that is so completely and fundamentally decentralized that no one person or no group of people have any real power, yet you can effectively govern 350,000,000 citizens in a nation with a GDP of 21 trillion dollars and that is a world military power.
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Communism requires a different kind of human to work.
One that prefers working to earning money.
Re: sounds like ... (Score:3)
Re: sounds like ... (Score:2)
If you were intellectually honest, you'd mention things like how the US and UK killed 20% of the Korean population in an effort to prevent communism. They have destabilized all of c
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A planned and highly regimented society seems like the logical outcome of a large and dense population. You need the regimentation, rules and organization just to keep a lid on everything. The bigger and more complex the system, the more likely it breaks if its not closely managed.
"Communism" as we've known it is one way to do it, but I think the trend is toward systems like that even when they are not called that or give any respect at all to the Marxist philosophy which inspired communism in our recent
Re: sounds like ... (Score:3)
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I'm not arguing for communism, I'm arguing that highly dense civilizations inevitably produce highly regulated civilizations.
I'm not even arguing they work *well* but that the alternatives wind up being seen as worse for various reasons, mostly because they are seen as being a major risk for destabilization and collapse.
Re: sounds like ... (Score:2)
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That's the rub (Score:5, Insightful)
humans decide to deliberately limit economic growth on their own, before a lack of resources forces them to.
That of course has never happened and will not happen.
Human being as individuals are intelligent and can foresee the catastrophe about to happen. Humanity as a whole is hopelessly short-sighted and in perpetual state of falling-man delusion: as long as the windows keep passing by, it's fine, even if the ground is coming up fast.
It is Possible to Continue Growth (Score:3)
There is a way to continue to grow, that is in the focus of the shift away from more of, to better quality, better durability, better reliability. You can put additional investment into achieving a higher quality society. The amount of investment to recycle all waste, zero waste cities through the mining and refining of all waste product, need the energy though and mechanised and automated recycling is a great place to put surplus renewable energy.
You can slow population growth, really easily, simply supply cheap intoxicants with birth control added, or highly taxed intoxicants without birth control (all of them, so alchohol, pot, opioids, cocaine, so what, death by misadventure is a human right). Add in a high penalty for birthing a drug addicted child, you pay the price for their suffering in the years after birth, with a custodial sentence of equal duration, 18 years, mean as but hey, want a lower better population it comes at a price (zero cruelty involved, just adults given adult choices). You of course subsidise quality reproduction (an indication, they are not addicted to unhealthy substances a sign of reliable parentage). Carrot and stick approach to birth control. If you do not think the population will drop give a few decades, instead of going up, you bet nuts and robots and war drones obviate the need of a larger population.
Add in some marine aquaculture, with desalination and wind farms, to deal with the current problem and you are done. Societies that fail to make the shift are contained along with their population, using force as necessary. No sane country wants to go that route so it will be at a minimum.
Then of course the is the great beyond, the old homestedd my be a bit mucky, but if is doesn't stay as fractured and messy as it is, why would humans come back to visit, in the centuries ahead. Don't deny them a interesting home, of many countries and cultures to come back to, only for holidays of course, eww, who would want to live here ;D.
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You are incorrect. It would be the child that would pay the most for its parent's drug addiction.
And in a society with more drugs, it is society at large that would pay for the additional drug-addicted people - leading to more chaos, and less chance of actually keeping society organised and on track.
And then there are lots of people who don't want to get intoxicated at all, that would not
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Forcing birth control on people is about as dystopian as it gets and if you tried it you'd get dragged out into the streets and torn to pieces.
Pretty much your ideas are about as tone-deaf as
Re: It is Possible to Continue Growth (Score:2)
Re: It is Possible to Continue Growth (Score:2)
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By and large, I agree with your post. Your summary was particularly on point:
The standards of life or the population will have to be adjusted to what our world can provide sustainably.
This adjustment will happen ether way controlled or chaotic.
Having said that though, I find myself disagreeing with your analysis of the psycho-social aspects of the problems we face.
The society will have to regress to more efficient structures:
Let me start by pointing out that efficiency, assuming you lose nothing else in the process, is not regression...
specialized roles based on natural aptitude (no more equality)
This first 'aspect' is not only 'wrong', but wrong in two ways. Firstly, we already live in an extremely specialised society. If the world becomes less connected we (well I anyway) would expect to se
Same as it ever was (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, I remember when the world became overpopulated and ran out of resources in 1980, and all we had to eat was Soylent Green. Petroleum had long since run out, so we had to warm ourselves by burning books. Libraries were such a treasured resource!
Things have only gone downhill since then, I'm afraid. The children are growing up monkeys.
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"deliberately limit economic growth" (Score:3, Insightful)
So, in other words, we're going mask off. To "save the world," we have to let the billionaires reduce our population growth through hormone contamination and anti-sexual propaganda, and we have to accept a standard of living that probably won't include literacy.
No, I think I'd rather not. It can be better than that, for everyone, or it can burn.
Re: "deliberately limit economic growth" (Score:2)
No, I think I'd rather not. It can be better than that, for everyone, or it can burn.
Somebody mod this up.
Regardless of what anybody thinks, it's *this* thought that's at the ankle point of us either all making it, or all going down.
Is this "news for geeks" or news for common idiots (Score:3)
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It's news for people that understand that you can't forever use up finite resources at any ever increasing rate and that because the rate of resource usage is ever increasing then the resources will run out sooner rather than later. And we depend on those resources for our modern lifestyle.
Do you disagree? Are you one of the odd people that for some reason think that resources are effectively not finite and that we can just keep using more and more of specific minerals endlessly?
What if the report is WRONG ? (Score:3)
Noone seems, in this scenario, to have considered the fact that the report could be WRONG. While certain factors surely can be predicted, certainly not all can. And while averages might be enough to steer things one way or another, the ability to steer things at all, still calls for unification of governmental society. I do NOT see that happning in my lifetime.
So, the reports most bleak results basically describes natural market mechanisms. However, still many factors are not included, or is heavily underestimated. One being innovation. While we can predict that predatory use of resources means resources gets used up, then we cant predict what innovations are driven forth, due to the lack of those resources. If fish go extinct in the seas, fishermen dont die, they find something else to do. When the ozone layer got depleted, the world came together to ban CFC gasses, things like this CAN happen again, if the alternative is bleak enough. Humans do not go to a corner to die silently.
Sure, some people might be willing to go "minimalist", but the general hoarding of wealth, shows that these people are not enough to drive a movement towards this goal, that is sufficient to "save the world". So the hoarders are our best bet to make relevant changes, they will have to find new products to sell, products that conforms to the requirements of society. They have to be innovative enough to drive further growth. Either by substituting products, adding new products, or finding additional resources to exploit to meet growing demands.
Why would three of the richest men in the world be building their own space agencies ? For the betterment of mankind ? For the love of pure science ? Or because the end case might be good for their net profits ?
Re: What if the report is WRONG ? (Score:2)
The Problem with "Economic Chicken" (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem we are going to have to overcome first is the history of the last ~70 years.
This recent history has shown that the combination of productivity gains, automation, innovation and improvements in lifespan and health have all combined to become massive wealth creators. Nations have used their relative wealth to project soft power - so for example the United States gives billions of dollars to foreign nations and in return have been able to build and sustain an economic and political hegemony that has endured these last 70 years.
Now look at the more recent past - say the last decade at most. For most of the last 4 years, the US has been inward-looking. We have insulted or otherwise hacked off former allies. We have been caught spying on their leaders in embarrassing ways. We have ignored threats to stability and allowed aggressors to invade neighbours [such as Russia invading Ukraine]. We continue to turn blind eyes when other idealogical adversaries steal our intellectual wealth and then use it to massively grow and accelerate their own economy [as has happened with China].
The massive economic momentum of the last 70 years, led by the US, is stuttering - or at least others are catching up - and fast. The US continues to believe that control of wealth is the secret to ultimate global dominance and influence. China, meanwhile, builds schools and hospitals in return for mineral rights. China builds roads and railways and extends the "One Belt, One Road" initiative. Today, that transport scheme might look pointless... but unless the world develops environmentally sustainable mass airborne transit, road and high-speed rail are our planet's future.
And what happens when we try to do something on a relatively tiny scale with infrastructure plans? Politicians who gave away trillions in tax cuts just a few years ago suddenly want us to believe they are being fiscally responsible by holding us back from the global race to stay competitive.
The big dilemma we face as a species is that the overall need to "cut back" is implicitly tied to diminishing economic power and global influence. So nations are going to mouth platitudes and do little - a bit like the way that instead of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, they "buy credits" from un-developed nations. Do we think the planet cares for such sleight-of-hand?
As the Native Cree tried to teach us such a long time ago [and we piously ignored them]: "Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish has been caught and the last stream has been poisoned will we realize that we cannot eat money."
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2040 Sounds about right. (Score:2)
Well then we're going to hit the wall hard then because rich people are not interested in not getting richer. And if the people in developing countries are to reach a western lifestyle then in theory westerners would have to get poorer.
2040 sounds about right, the question is can we keep maintaining infrastructure and food production with reduced resources due to us suckin
Frankly... (Score:2)
...it's about time.
I mean really, not only is our way of life absolutely not feasible, weÅe also completely fraying around the edges and the seams of society are coming apart.
We've gotten so used to social media style drive-by outrage postings, that we're getting more and more incapable of having an actual discussion, let alone a respectful disagreement. Corona is a superb example of this.
I for one am not going to cry after this society... I just hope what comes after isn't way worse and the transition
As a god fearing Christian American (Score:4, Funny)
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Myths (Score:3)
Japan is doing fine with a shrinking population and stagnant GDP.
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They actually both serve the same goal, making it possible for people who make money by owning things rather than working to continue to do so. GDP growth means continuous endless stock price increases, and population growth has historically been the main driving force behind GDP growth. Workers can get by economically without these and would overall be better off.
don't you guys ever... (Score:2)
...get tired of telling us the sky is falling?
"Brave new world" (Score:2)
Government depends on there being more people making the tax-base bigger and there is no reward for a corporation limiting its profits. We can't have limited growth because everything is built to do the opposite.
This is the beauty of Brave New World (A. Huxley), a story about culture-clash: Pregnancy is not needed so society isn't divided into making-babies and paying-for-it cohorts. Marriage and (female) celibacy are no longer a social need. Even better, the government controls child-development: It g
test it your self (Score:3)
There will be a collapse, the 30 years update shows we are better at conservation, but population is spiking.
Counter point. (Score:5, Interesting)
But we know that human beings are following culture and are defying evolutionary instinct to have more children. Evolution can be imagined to be an intelligent entity that shapes our behavior. It wants species to thrive and produce off spring so that the next generation is created to continue the chain. It works by making sex very pleasurable and bundled reproduction with sexual urges. So all species enjoy sex and accept pregnancy as a sort of not-so-desirable by product. Once contraception is available and human beings are able to disconnect sex from reproduction, the dynamics changes.
Every country where contraception is available the birth rate plummets among the educated and the affluent. Even Iran, as soon as contraception was made legal, birth rate plummeted. China is struggling to raise birth rates now. It relaxed one-child policy and allowed second child. Recently it relaxed again and allowed the third child. Its on track to remove all restrictions. Still birth rate is falling in China.
Birth rates are above 2.1 per woman only on less developed parts of the world, and education and contraception will bring down the population dramatically.
Of course I am assuming China will not go all the way and ban contraception or demand each woman to produce 2 children.
Growth ist mostly a matter of definition. (Score:3, Interesting)
Right now the first world is pretty much living in a post-scarcity economy, if you don't count our abysmal eco-balance. Which we actually don't, which in turn is the actual core problem of the eco-disaster we're facing right now. ...
Anyway, in a post-scarciy economy that runs reasonably well you have "money-rot", meaning money also and finally becomes a good that grows stale if you just stock it. This is why negative interest actually is a good thing in such an economy and if we handle things well and don't crash the economy we could slowly ramp up negative interest even further and it actually would do good, encouraging potentially parasitic "super-rich" people to invest, even if they're not as smart as Elon Musk who as quite a few others concluded that he doesn't want to just become the richest guy in the graveyard.
Another truth from the 1970s (Score:2)
Balderdash! (Score:2)
The entire "Limits to Growth" program was a scary fantasy of idiots who couldn't imagine change. I read it back in the early '70's, and it was obviously garbage then, and it's even more obviously garbage now.
OK, Doomer (Score:3)
The infamous Limits To Growth report was a product of the Seventies doomsday mentality. Small wonder that the same people who were wrong about the end of the world in those days are still predicting it today. All they're doing is preending that their predictions were not for immiment doom then, but for immimemnt doom now.
That was a time when China and India were known mostly for starving to death and we were supposed to be about to run out of vital resources. Everyone, left or right, knew that war with the all-powerful Soviet Union was imminent.
Not only did Limits To Growth underestimate the ability of open markets to find new resources as we needed them, but it underestimated the ability of other MIT researchers to invent our way out of destruction.
Most things are found to be wrong (Score:3)
A whole lot of prognostications from the 70s were found to be wrong. This one is no different. There was a general malaise in the 60s and 70s and it shows in a lot written during that era. It took the 80s for us to realize that we can do anything. Unfortunately, a small but incessantly vocal minority insists on perpetuating that malaise. For those with power, it helps keep them in power with the constant mirage of fixing it... as long as you keep voting for them. For those without power, it's confirmation bias and constantly complaining about it gives their life meaning otherwise they'd have to find something useful and productive to do.
Re: (Score:3)
The whole point of this study is that this particular prognostication (The Limits to Growth model) is found to be right so far, with 50 years of data to compare. This is not good news.
The 80s showed us we can do anything? That kind of delusion is going to be the end of us.
"deliberately limit economic growth on their own" (Score:4, Insightful)
Would the people that don't want the same or better standard of living for their children please stand up?
No, you folks not having children sit back down. You don't count. You have chosen for your genes to be eliminated.
A Good Thing (Score:3)
A Global Collapse is a good thing.
Unfortunately the so-called COVID-19 plandemic wasn't up to the tast so now onto the next contender.
Link to the actual report (Score:3)
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitst... [harvard.edu]
A lot of wiggle room in interpretation there.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet resource us is not going down. The "tech will get us there" mindset ignores the fact that innovation doesn't happen for social goals, at least not well funded innovation, but for commercial goals. Automation isn't reducing the work day and easing our labor's, it's just accelerating production..
And when an innovation comes along that can actually reduce harmful consumption? Electric cars and solar or wind? Out comes the lobbyists with bogus "research" from results-for-cash think tanks staffed by graduates of Bible colleges and no discernible scientific qualification (my favourite;- , "wind farms cause cancer *somehow*)
Our economy is not designed to let our species thrive, it's designed to centralise power.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Insightful)
Our economy is not designed to let our species thrive, it's designed to centralise power.
I think that's the single most important thing to realize.
Getting caught in various specific debates about how exactly a specific feature fails or not just distracts from this essential insight; one may be slightly wrong about a detail or other, at which point there won't be a lack of vultures to use that crack in your argument to debate the consequences.
But the main conclusion always remains, and is exactly as you formulated it.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:4, Insightful)
Our economy is not designed to let our species thrive, it's designed to centralise power.
I think that's the single most important thing to realize.
Getting caught in various specific debates about how exactly a specific feature fails or not just distracts from this essential insight;
Yep, and that distraction is just what they want, they even encourage it. Let people argue over trivial stuff instead of looking up towards government and asking real questions.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:3)
Who is this "they" you refer to?
It's always the same fight: the Haves vs the Have-Nots.
"They" are usually the Haves.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for that eloquent post, wish I had mod points left.
The "tech will get us there" mindset ignores the fact that innovation doesn't happen for social goals, at least not well funded innovation, but for commercial goals.
Also, the mindset is just an excuse to ignore problems and try to pass them off as someone elses while going full steam ahead. Not a sustainable model for solutions.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Funny)
"Our economy is not designed to let our species thrive, it's designed to centralise power."
Perhaps the biggest mistake people make is failing to understand evolution doesn't select for what is best *long term*, it selects for what is best *right now*.
And very, very often what is most efficient in the moment is achieved by dumping mechanisms for long-term survival.
The 'economy' has evolved to its present state: the average life of companies has plummeted from ~75 years, a century ago, to ~17 years right now. Expect that particular trend to continue.
Unless intelligence is applied to the situation, companies are going to go the way of dinosaurs: unquestioned masters of the world one day, extinct the next due to a situation they were no longer flexible enough to handle.
Dang, I almost wish covid were a little more fatal, the way it seems to be targeting Trump supporters right now. Evolution in action, and all that stuff.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:3)
Re:Just look at the CCP's influence on everything (Score:5, Funny)
4: An all-female Ghostbusters
Re:Just look at the CCP's influence on everything (Score:4, Informative)
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:3, Informative)
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Oil usage for pumping, transporting and burning fuel is worse, and as the grid goes greener, so do EVs,
Here's [theicct.org] a recent study which shows electric cars are still less polluting over their lifetime than ICEs, even when connected to "dirty" grids.
while gas cars don't (not entirely true, since refineries use a lot of electricity).
Not sure what you mean by the note in parenthesis. When oil usage goes down, so does the need for refineries. As the petroleum refining sector is the largest consumer of fuel in U.S. manufacturing [energy.gov], representing about 15% of all industrial consumption [osti.gov], we have a virtuous cycle, where reducing the number of ICE cars will eliminate not only their direct consumption, but
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And when an innovation comes along that can actually reduce harmful consumption? Electric cars [...]. Out comes [sic] the lobbyists with bogus "research" from results-for-cash think tanks
Except the oil usage to mine and make those batteries is hardly a win...
What an excellent illustration of the GP's point!
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Informative)
If anything replacing most existing vehicles will require enormous consumption of resources.
That's just daft.The average of cars in the UK at scrappage is 13 years.If you ban sales of gasoline cars it will take 20 years. 20 years after a general ban on sales, ICE cars will be an irrelevance in terms of numbers.
https://www.researchgate.net/f... [researchgate.net]
ICE cars don't last that long on average. They are ALREADY being replaced using enormous resources.
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Most homes in the US got washing machines 70 or 80 years ago. Progress stopped soon after that.
The gist of the comment you're replying to seems to be that "making a living" thing - the part that kitchen appliances don't address. The housewife who was spending 2 hours a week with a washboard, now has to spend much more than that waiting tables somewhere, because the husband's income is no longer enough.
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Just look at lighting with LEDs itâ(TM)s orders of magnitude more efficient than back in the 70s. Same with nearly every industry innovation improves efficiency and reduces energy use.
A single-shot musket, turned into a world with their finger on a nuclear trigger.
A regulated militia, turned into a Military Industrial Complex, paid for in dollars and blood.
The local hospital, turned into the Medical Industrial Complex, paid by the same.
Instead of banning opium, we legalized it and shoved it in a pill bottle, pretending it wasn't just as bad.
Bankers got creative with investing causing the 2008 global financial crisis, which is poised to happen again.
The dial-up internet, morphed into a ce
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You must be a lot of fun at parties.
He is what's known as a Jeremiah. And what we found out is that Jeremiah is just a bullfrog.
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Just look at lighting with LEDs itâ(TM)s orders of magnitude more efficient than back in the 70s.
...and the cheaper a resource is to use, the more people use it. Hence, the
and reduces energy use.
part does not follow. Energy use may very well increase.
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Re:The world evolves and innovates (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the the kind of naieve thinking that keeps us on the BAU track.
"Something better will come along and fix it"
No, that horse left the barn in the 1970's. The time to act was during the 1973 and1979 oil crisis. And we didn't. Instead we've only burned more oil, made more plastic, and basically drove off a cliff in "buy more rubbish you don't need"
Here's a few examples of why we're headed to BAU:
- We still incentivize buying more than we really need. Buy 1lb of food for $2 or buy 2lb of food for $3.50. People will always pick the latter option and either over-consume, or waste it.
- Smartphones, TV's and laptop computers are being built not to be reused and recycled, but to be landfilled after 2 years. Along with many other consumer goods.
In the 1940's or so, there was this dramatic change in how things were built, instead of having like solid wood furniture or heavy steel appliances, during WWI and WWII, (and you can see this in many comics, cartoons and films of the era) people were encouraged to recycle suddenly. Things were made thinner, lighter, and the beginning of making things less durable and less reusable.
But come the 1970's, we didn't learn, and two oil crisis lead back towards cheaper, lighter cars (all the boxy-looking cars of the 80's) , and while vehicles have gotten better since, we still didn't get rid of the luxury cars with big engines. No, instead car companies doubled down on luxury models.
And that's what keeps happening. Despite the impending doom of resource shortages, and nobody willing to go dig up landfills of the last century to recover materials that weren't recycled then (remember a lot of stuff was just incinerated, regardless of how toxic it was) we still haven't moved very much on very needed resources.
Batteries, we're still not making end-user replaceable parts, and we are still using inefficient batteries (D/C/AA/AAA/9V) batteries that should have long been replaced with reusable, rechargable LiPo batteries. OLED screens are not durable and quickly burn out (did you know many CRT's lasted 40 years, while most LCD panels (TN, IPS) only last 10, and OLED only lasts 2?
But that's just talking about high level indivudal waste. We haven't scratched the surface of industrial level waste, like building CPU and GPU's only to waste energy on bitcoin and other crypto coins. If there is any reason to blame our path to BAU global collapse, it's because we aren't discouraging this waste of resources hard enough.
And the mindset of most people born since 1950-1979 is "oh, I'll be dead by then, good luck", they see no reason to stop.
So there are two ways we can force a controlled collapse:
- Limit population (1-child/2-child policies depending on state/country) so that no country is incentivizing 2+ child families, and apply the same logic to immigration, where your mobility is infinite as long as you do not have more than 2 children. Go where the jobs are, don't bring your parents and their family unless you're willing to trade someone (eg not have a second child to bring your mother.)
- Put energy, housing, health care and food entirely into the state/government's hands, ration out all four, and permit the government to build efficient housing and vertical farms next to each other, and only sustainable options. If the government needs more people to do a thing, they will incentivize people to move to those places by giving them housing if they take those jobs.
The latter basically kills off things like bitcoin, the landlord class, and junk food. Not pretty, but that's how you avoid an uncontrolled collapse.
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Batteries, we're still not making end-user replaceable parts, and we are still using inefficient batteries (D/C/AA/AAA/9V) batteries that should have long been replaced with reusable, rechargable LiPo batteries.
This got me thinking. Most stuff recharges now. I've got a few things which don't:
* A smoke alarm with a lithium primary battery (like a short AA, lasts ~8 years).
* Two rarely used LED flash lights taking AA batteries. Replaced every few years.
* Ye olde incandescente torche with C cells which I'll pr
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Just look at lighting with LEDs itâ(TM)s orders of magnitude more efficient than back in the 70s.
LEDs are the same efficiency as fluorescent lamps, which overtook incandescent in the 1940s. That is almost 80 years ago.
Re: The world evolves and innovates (Score:5, Informative)
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Current LEDs give off about twice the lm/W as fluorescents,
They don't. Maybe compared to very old fluorescents but not to new ones.
I recently had a 3700 lm (46W) CFL die on me, an LED replacement was 29W. It's a big boy, (slightly smaller than the CFL) also really quite pricey but rated for 50,000 hours.
The best modern T8/T5s with electronic ballasts have good efficiency (up to 100/105 Lm/w and long lifespans, e.g. 30,000 hours). LEDs are better, but not better enough that you don't have to shop around. If
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LEDs are about twice as efficient as Fluorescent. Not as dramatic as Incandescent to LED, but still a remarkable improvement.
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Just look at lighting with LEDs[, it's] orders of magnitude more efficient than back in the 70s. Same with nearly every industry innovation improves efficiency and reduces energy use.
Bitcoin.