You know it's funny that people make fun of the way that afghans live, like in the dark ages, but upon global collapse these are the people that will thrive. take away our computers and grocery stores and I doubt many people here know how to survive, including me. I think it's time to practice by starting our own gardens and living more sustainably. If it does happen by 2030 or sooner at least you will have a foot up on the non believers.
MIT researchers: If things continue this way, "Global economic collapse" by 2030
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
- Status
eh, that's only true if the population keeps expanding. Look at Italy or Japan. They've had a shrinking population for a while now. As countries industrialize and more women enter the work force the birth rate drops precipitously as women put off having children which means the population growth slows or even shrinks.
Hell, everyone's worried about China but considering the demographic imbalance favoring males they're going to be in trouble eventually as the current generation dies off because the remaining women won't be able to pump out nearly enough kids.
People are constantly doing things to 'stop the snowball' you just aren't told every time something happens that helps move us toward a more stable and sustainable economy.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
A friend of mine who recently went to India told me yesterday about the time she saw two guys fixing a plastic bucket by melting in new holes for the handle. That simple act was so outside my world view I didn't know what to think.
In short: I am so fucked if the world goes tits up. My only hope is to become a leader and have other people supply me with food in trade for taking responsibility of decision making.
WeAreStarStuff
Member
Hey, there is nothing wrong with that; I wasnt trying to say dont pursue what youre passionate about. I entered undergrad as a computer science major, and my first economics course changed everything. I instantly fell in love with the subject, and even transferred to a different university that had a better econ/finance curriculum.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
You don't just have to think about it in terms of population vs food though, because other finite resources enable us to sustain the numbers of people that we do. If all the oil up and disappeared tomorrow you can bet that billions would be starving to death.
I see the future as a race towards the singularity. If we get there in time, or we can make enough intermediary technological advances to stave off collapse until we do, then we once again escape the next cycle of malthusian catastrophy. Universal assemblers, hyperefficient solar and fusion power, and utility fogs can solve our woes for the distant future. But you know, heat death of the universe, so the bastard still wins in the end!
Insane Metal
Member
I'm shocked!!!
Not really. I guessed that was pretty obvious. (the collapse, not the date).
Not really. I guessed that was pretty obvious. (the collapse, not the date).
Mr. B Natural
Member
This was great. Thank you.
NEOPARADIGM
Banned
Lock it up folks, we're done, this guy "would be surprised."
Tesseract
Banned
i too see the future as a race towards the singularity, though i tend to favor the big chill if we're being depressingly cynical about the endgame.
Mortrialus
Banned
This has less to do with economic trends and more to do with exponentially growing consumption of resources.
teruterubozu
Member
Seriously, if they've factored in tech and ecological improvements and we're still doomed, then why don't we just pack it all up and party 'til we die?
Does this study assume stagnation? Solar tech for example is getting more and more viable and less and less costly. Adoption will obviously pick up, and eventually - like in a decade - it might become extremely viable.
Or how about advents in recycling tech, or how maybe a developing nation that develops enough having a reduced reproduction rate.
If the calculation is "If everything is exactly the same as today, and nothing changes, we're fucked" its not super realistic.
Or how about advents in recycling tech, or how maybe a developing nation that develops enough having a reduced reproduction rate.
If the calculation is "If everything is exactly the same as today, and nothing changes, we're fucked" its not super realistic.
My declaration is just as reliable as a pseudoscientific computer simulation.
The consumption of resources is something we can and are course correcting. The simulation cannot possibly accurately predict the economic and population impact of the consumption of resources. It's a guess, more educated then throwing darts sure.
Like the hat?
Banned
time to stock up on iodine, canned food, and bullets.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
HarryHengst
Member
I like how you keep calling it 'pseudoscience' in a hilarious attempt to disprove it.
Tesseract
Banned
well when you put it that way, yeah. i often overlap heat death, big crunch, big freeze, cold death, etc.
More Fun To Compute
Member
What's pseudo-scientific about it? If they have a model it can be tested and corrected using scientific method. Your declaration is just statistically insignificant.
teruterubozu
Member
Well, it's neither science nor pseudoscience, it's statistical algorithms. If it was really a science, we'd all be rich off the stock market.
I don't need to disprove it, it's not proven anything.
It's not a model that can be tested though. There is no way to create a model that will accurately predict human ingenuity.
There is a distinction between pseudoscience and science that uses legitimate methods, but goes on a limb and makes questionable claims.
We also have to invent problems for profit. We always do.
I love how some people in here are trying to put this down and oversimplify the situation. It's a fact that the world cannot continue on it's current course and remain prosperous. Fucking fact.
Studies like this only further the point that we aren't making enough changes in enough time.
Xdrive05
Member
Save up for your antibiotics, guns and ammo, folks. Learn to speak Arabic, filter your own water and cook human flesh.
And get out of the cities!
And get out of the cities!
That's a fine line indeed considering many pseudoscientific claims are based on legitimate methods, but take those methods and apply them in ways that are not credible. Much like this computer simulation.
ClassyPenguin
Banned
Vicetrailia
Banned
The dangers of conservatism.
tfur
Member
Pretty sure there was a thread about this video, but its completely relevant here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=watch_response It's long so if you're only interested in Energy, start ~ 49:00
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html#
I do not agree with the slope of the purple 'non renewable resources available' line. We may have a problem keeping up with demand, but the resources are available.
Escape Goat
Member
LEAVE THE BRONX!
More Fun To Compute
Member
Wouldn't that be in the parameters of the model though. Like this model assumes there will be no way of creating oil from sea water for free or growing mushrooms on the moon. So in that case the model would still be scientific but you could say that it isn't going to be a prediction of the future if you are sure that we will have such technologies. Or you could just look at the real data and see if the it makes the model implausible, which apparently it hasn't done since it was created in the 70s.
Forgive me, then, if I prefer to use the term conservatively in the interest of separating quacks and charlatans from people who are using proper methodology but are just misguided or wrong.
The whole world in debt probably makes more sense from the perspective that today's world is effectively borrowing from a hypothetical, richer world in the future and that that richer world could at some point fail to materialize.
Collapse has happened at various times and we have evidence of civilizations destroying themselves, though. The problem is that we're all pretty interconnected and there isn't anywhere to go if a collapse occurs.
Jason's Ultimatum
Member
Planning on buying a shit ton of guns soon. Stock up on canned foods. Make my own veggies.
Gonna live out in the mountains like Bobby Lee Swaggart.
Gonna live out in the mountains like Bobby Lee Swaggart.
If someone tries to present misguided or wrong studies as science, I will call that pseudoscience. Whether it's in the interest of curbing global resource use or in the field of homeopathy.
This particular 'study' quoted in the OP isn't anything more than the 'Limits of Growth' as applied now and a look at how the actual data matches up with the predicted data from 1970. It doesn't tell us if 'Limits of Growth' had any validity at all and shows very clearly that all the factors used in 'Limits of Growth' are actually on the optimistic side of the predicted trends.
Global population is trending lower, food per capita is trending higher and resources are not being used at the rate predicted.
Mr. B Natural
Member
Global population is trending higher than predicted. Food per capita had an uptick (cause hiccups solve problems). Exponential is still exponential. Simulations are simulations, not pseudo-science or else be "misguided and wrong."
Dreams-Visions
Member
This is a computer simulation, not a study.
Technology they couldn't fathom to add to their employed formulas today will be available tomorrow (figuratively), rendering their commentary here obsolete. New fuels, new energy sources, better refinements, better bioengineering, water purification techniques, better food storage and less wasted, etc. Obviously usage of various non-renewables will have to change. Duh. And it will, because that's what humanity does when needed: adjusts, invents, creates, succeeds.
Tldr: Science! It gets shit done. It always does. And we will adjust and invent as necessary.
To me, a 30-day weather forecast is more exact and meaningful than this. Can someone tell me if it's going to be cold here on May 3rd? But researchers gotta publish, so yea.
Deified Data
Banned
I'm fairly confident we won't reach the end of the line in my lifetime.
How do I know? Nothing as interesting as the total collapse of the world economy would happen in my lifetime. Sounds unreliable, but it's true.
How do I know? Nothing as interesting as the total collapse of the world economy would happen in my lifetime. Sounds unreliable, but it's true.
Sorry, I meant to type pollution and accidentally typed population.
The rise in food per capita is significant as is the resources available. The original simulation is just a simulation that is just white noise, the 'Study' in the OP is pseudoscience that uses the original Limits of Growth simulation as some kind of basis for further predictions based on the fact that the numbers it predicted were 'Pretty close' to what we have.
D
Deleted member 13876
Unconfirmed Member
If anything it serves as a good incenvite to get things done so we don't end up in this mess. If we go down the path we're going there is probably going to be trouble so we need to actively think up solutions before we reach a point of no return. Research like this could serve as a good wake up call.
SteveWinwood
Member
Pretty sure there was a thread about this video, but its completely relevant here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ&feature=watch_response It's long so if you're only interested in Energy, start ~ 49:00
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html#
I remember seeing a graph that some scientists had made, it was basically this except where we are now or whatever was the '40s and by the 1960's half the world would be dead and we'd all be starving and have no oil.
Edit: Might have been '60's to the '80s. I can't find it now though.
Of course the current rate of consumption is unsustainable. That's what 'non-renewable' entails. But Doom-Saying like this is only going to increase the amount of misinformation available.
Thomas Malthus --> Paul Ehrlich --> researchers at Jay W. Forrester's institute at MIT
Too bad Julian Simon isn't alive to take these guys on...
Wired: The Doomslayer
Too bad Julian Simon isn't alive to take these guys on...
Wired: The Doomslayer
Seraphinianus
Banned
Economy is based on how people feel...so lets write articles with phrases like "Global Economic Collapse" in them! kurasupartyhatguy.jpg
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
While I firmly believe that one day our economic model will no longer be sustainable, I find that the study glosses over the fact that we will likely streamline new technologies to replace these existing resources as we go along.
FallingEdge
Member
The iPad 24 will be our saviour.
- Status