[cryptonector]

Right, because all these models are just that: models, and very simple ones at that. They encode a few functions, often linear, when the thing they model are enormously complex and dynamic. Humans generally fail to grasp the non-linear and the dynamic.

The Malthusian model is: more food supply -> more humans -> more food demand -> more food supply -> more humans -> ... A vicious circle. A positive feedback loop. But it's a positive feedback loop operating in machine with negative feedback loops too. It's been over a decade since it's been understood that global human population is going to plateau in just three more decades, then begin declining. Reasons for that are myriad, but if I had to summarize it it would look like this: low child mortality + high life expectancy + high standards of living + high taxes and costs + high retirement costs == low interest in reproduction -- i.e., price signalling works! Who would have thunk it? Not Malthusian modellers, for sure.

[rsj_hn]

I remember the Club of Rome was the first to do these models, assuming peak oil and the collapse of western civilization based on resource constraints. They would have these coupled differential equations, similar to predator-prey, calculating cost of extracting resources and the resulting declines in food production and thus population.

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

But I thought all of that had fallen out of fashion by the early 1980s when oil prices fell and it was discovered that you don't have stable relationships or known parameters for most of this stuff.

[cryptonector]

Exactly. You can have very sophisticated, non-linear, dynamic models developed over many years by brilliant people, then still see the models fail miserably.

[dredmorbius]

World3, implemented in the Python module submitted here, is the Club of Rome model.

[mdp2021]

('thunk': «from an 1876 glossary of words in the mid-Yorkshire dialect in Britain», presumably jocular.

Used by Joyce: “I thunk I told you” (Finnegans Wake); “Have a good old thunk.” (Ulysses)

Does not come, as one may suppose, from a jocular integration from the area of the onomatopeic "thunk", which is 1952. Interesting. Considered in grammarphobia.com )

[cryptonector]

It's a purposeful misspelling of "thought". It's fun to use it once in a while.

[coolspot]

> high standards of living + high taxes and costs + high retirement costs

Add unsustainable mining/fishing/farming/pollution to feed/dress/entertain all those people with high standards of living.

Now you will see the plateu eventually, yes. But it’s not a natural plateu where we stop because we want chill life, but plateu where we stop because there are no resources (everything is expensive) to support our kids.

[nefitty]

You're not taking into account technological and industrial innovation. Presumably there will be new ideas iterated upon that get us closer to universal abundance.

My main concerns over the next few decades are cyberwar collapse (< 1% chance), runaway AI (10% chance), robotized world war (30% chance), and solar flare induced societal collapse (40% chance).

Yeah, cereal is 20% more expensive but DeepMind just beat GPT3.

[RealityVoid]

I wonder why solar flare societal collapse ranks so high on your list.

[kortex]

Not GP but it's a cascade failure mode with theoretically no upper bound in how much chaos it could cause. A toilet paper shortage caused millions to lose their goddamn minds, what do you think having no refrigeration on a world scale for even a week would do? A CME could potentially fry enough equipment that we would be left in in the dark and unable to repair for months, just due to availability of parts. I believe those estimates are at current production rates, too. If the supply chain and global comms are compromised, it's even harder.

It's definitely at the sweet spot of "terrifying" and "completely plausible."

[nefitty]

Yes, perfectly said.

Here's in-depth info on solar flares. Major ones are considered "Carrington-level events", due to a flare that occurred in 1859: https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-...

Vox's 2014 breakdown of the systemic risks: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2014/7/30/5951263/a-catastr...

NASA article on the prediction that there was a 12% chance a Carrington-level event would occur by 2022: https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/2...

My 40% is based on that information. I'm gut-extrapolating to the next few decades, with the understanding that large devastating flares occur every few hundred years.

[xsarin]

Society is so incredibly dependent on technology that is not EMP resistant and if a solar flare knocks out most of our electronics the bottom is going to fall out. No phones or internet to figure out what's going on, no cars since the onboard electronics are needed- same with trucks, trains etc. Can't go to the grocery store and buy food with your debit card, can't get cash from the bank, grocery store isn't going to get shipments anymore etc.

Our dependence on it all puts us on really fragile ground given that we know there have been sun events in the last 150 years that would obliterate everything we have today

[RealityVoid]

I have read that the dangers of EMP's are greatly overstated and they could damage stuff, but mostly the power grid, since you need long lines to induce sufficient power for it to matter.

[jacquesm]

Exactly. At about 30V / km the potential to do damage to smaller electric circuits is limited, but anything connected to longer lines is at risk.

[baq]

resources are finite and technological innovation is finite, too. thermodynamics gives us very precise upper limits to efficiency increases and to the surprise of no one, low hanging fruit are all picked.

[jstanley]

You could have said the same thing 100 years ago.

[CuriouslyC]

You're making the same mistake all the star eyed futurists make, which is to not realize that in reality, all exponential curves are just early/mid stage sigmoidal curves. You can paradigm shift all you want, that's not going to make infinite progression a thing.

[azeirah]

You're making the same mistake all star eyed futurists-skeptics make, which is to not realize that in reality, new sigmoidal curves are started all over the place.

It's just a matter of time and survival. How long? I don't know. Probably long.

[snovv_crash]

Not just sigmoidal, on a longer timeframe they usually end up being more like gaussian

[baq]

a single example: a 100 years ago the efficiency of ICEs was less than 50% of today's. we're left with maybe 2x until physics doesn't allow us any further improvements.

another example - transistors - we've got maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe 30 years of improvements ahead of us, after that there are fundamental limits that forbid progress.

the rate of change of total technology improvements will slow down and at some point will start to approach zero; maybe even go negative as we as a civilization start to forget how to do things faster than invent new ways of doing things.

[nefitty]

The hard variable is paradigm-shifts. We see things like quantum computers now, which seem boring at the moment, but the sorts of problems they'll be able to handle are staggering to imagine.

Robotics keeps improving, eg replacement/enhancement of human labor. That's a paradigm shift.

I definitely see your point about physical limits. I propose that we're nowhere near our ideational limits, which give us the imaginative capacity to form new solutions within those limits you cite.

[cryptonector]

And people did. Malthus was over 200 years ago.

[cryptonector]

Yes, but you're assuming indefinite growth. Again, in the real world we're already on a path to decreasing population.

[cnlevy]

Sure, African agriculture is already at max. efficency. Giant farms fully mechanized, of course /s

[snapcaster]

Kind of unrelated but if you're interested in African agriculture you should look into Seeing Like a State. The book argues mechanized farms aren't necessarily the highest form of farming for maximum sustainable yield in many places (like many regions in Africa) and has many many hard to notice downsides. A lot of the pressure to consolidate and mechanize has to do with legibility for taxation purposes compared to true yield maximization

[nefitty]

Great point. I'm starting to look at Africa for that low hanging fruit.