MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century.

[TC Talks]

Not just because of climate, but a fascinating growth theory that has proven itself. Glad I bought that farm.

BMW might actually ponder this one despite his conservative beliefs.

MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule.

A 1972 MIT study predicted that rapid economic growth would lead to societal collapse in the mid 21st century. A new paper shows we’re unfortunately right on schedule.

VICE

A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has found that a famous, decades-old warning from MIT about the risk of industrial civilization collapsing appears to be accurate based on new empirical data.

As the world looks forward to a rebound in economic growth following the devastation wrought by the pandemic, the research raises urgent questions about the risks of attempting to simply return to the pre-pandemic ‘normal.’

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse. Their system dynamics model published by the Club of Rome identified impending ‘limits to growth’ (LtG) that meant industrial civilization was on track to collapse sometime within the 21st century, due to overexploitation of planetary resources.

The controversial MIT analysis generated heated debate, and was widely derided at the time by pundits who misrepresented its findings and methods. But the analysis has now received stunning vindication from a study written by a senior director at professional services giant KPMG, one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms as measured by global revenue.

Limits to growth
The study was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040.

The study represents the first time a top analyst working within a mainstream global corporate entity has taken the ‘limits to growth’ model seriously. Its author, Gaya Herrington, is Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States. However, she decided to undertake the research as a personal project to understand how well the MIT model stood the test of time.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/ ... lapse-soon

[TC Shuts Up]

Keep electing people like Biden and Associates and it will collapse by 2030. "The Year 2525" was way off. More like 2025. "You won't find a thing to do. Some machine's doing that for you. Every thing you think do and say, is in the pill you took today."

You bought the farm? Sounds like the mobsters who use that phrase in Oakland County finally got to you. Where did they whack you? The Machus Red Fox?

https://www.wise-geek.com/what-does-buy ... m-mean.htm

[TC Talks]

My apologies, this article uses big words from highly educated people. Why don't you find some trash science from one of those sites you enjoy so much and leave the big ideas to us thinky folk.

[TC Shuts Up]

You said you bought the farm. I found it ironic since you lived near the Machus Red Fox. Good thing you got away from those mobsters.

[bmw]

We're certainly in unprecedented territory as far as population is concerned. The graphs in that study only go back to the year 1900, but taking a broader view and looking at a graph of the last 12,000 years visually shows just how exponential that growth is:



That growth rate is absolutely not sustainable, and because our current population growth rate is an inevitable consequence of both industrial and technological advance, I do agree that SOMETHING has got to give, and that it is going to happen sooner than later.

I don't think that any of the hypotheses contained in that study are far-fetched. I think food shortages are probably the biggest threat given the number of different things that can cause them, and just like when specific animal populations get too big for an area, food shortages can be catastrophic and can kill off a significant portion of the population in a very short period of time. While the US certainly has its own set of problems right now, I think North America (and especially the US and Canada) are better situated than most other countries to ride out such a problem. Where you will see catastrophic consequences is in third-world countries and high-population-high-density areas such as China and India.

I would also note that there are several scenarios that could drastically speed up the process, such as nuclear war, a Carrington event (ie, a giant solar flare), an asteroid, or a pandemic far worse than Covid 19. Me personally, I put a catastrophic solar flare at the top of the likelihood list followed by pandemic, then nuclear war, then asteroid.

Looking at a longer time-scale than just to 2100, this will, at the end of the day, be a self-correcting problem as the faster the growth, the harder the fall - and that "fall" will act as sort of a "reset."

[TC Shuts Up]

This theory has been around since before 1970 at least. Earth Day. Barry Commoner stuff. There's a Mathematical Model that says it will correct itself, and it won't need Bill Gates or Anthony Fauci or Margraret Sanger to devise an evil disease or event or other calamity to do it. Though maybe we should export Planned Parenthood to China and India. That would do it. BTW, if they hadn't aborted millions of babies, the US wouldn't have needed to import illegals to depress wages and living conditions.

[Bryce]

If the American society collapses it will be because of unchecked illegal immigration and poorly managed legal immigration. Combine this with the Marxists hell bent on fomenting racial divides, splintering our American society into groups that are pitted against each other as well as policy that creates generations of unproductive people.

[bmw]

Of course it will correct itself - when there isn't enough food to feed everyone or when some catastrophic event kills a significant number of people. I would suggest that anyone who thinks this can't happen this century either has their head buried in the sand or is of the attitude "it won't happen to us here in the US."

Count me in the doom-and-gloom camp. I'm just being realistic. Again - look at that population graph. That is a STEEP exponential curve.

1 billion in 1810
2 billion in 1928 (118 years)
3 billion in 1960 (32 years)
4 billion in 1975 (15 years)
5 billion in 1987 (12 years)
6 billion in 1999 (12 years)
7 billion in 2011 (12 years)

So while the acceleration rate has leveled off at a rate of 1 billion people per 12 years, it isn't slowing down (yet). As a mathematical model, economic growth REQUIRES a growing population because once the population stops growing, either demand stops growing with it, OR natural resources become scarce.

All that said, I don't think there is much the US government or any other government can do to change this trajectory. Whether we collapse for other reasons before this is kind of irrelevant to this discussion.

[TC Talks]

It would seem the self correction could be most dramatic in Asia.