Systems: Overshoot and Collapse

[@keyboarddancers7751]

She died of cerebral meningitis in 2001 at the age of 59 (life is far too cruel and unfair sometimes) leaving behind her equally erudite and foresighted husband Dennis Meadows.

[@siquq]

Outstanding lecture.

[@em945]

Sweet voice...enjoyed lecture. I guess this saves me from reading ' limits to growth'? I feel she could say something like ' my exponential growth charts tell me we are all about to die tomorrow...this may not be the preferred direction' ...and it would feel like a lovely bedtime story:). Thank you for uploading this.

[@zoewilliams2251]

This is an excellent talk - thank you for uploading it.

[@summondadrummin2868]

Systems thinking ought be a basic part of all education

[@CastleHassall]

the governors of the system don't want that system to produce good thinkers

[@romainbousquet4569]

Outstanding indeed... Thanks for uploading this!

[@leiliu83]

Nothing short of amazing even today

[@donnaw.neighborhood8216]

Wow. That's really interesting. Looking for more, now...

[@socksmonyane4866]

Great lecture.

[@HappyBelly10]

Amazing talk. Learned a lot. Started simple and then ending up being wowed.

[@captainplanet1260]

A true genius, eloquent even while nervous. I've been saying this for years...that humanity absolutely needs a predator/wolves to purge and regulate human numbers. But we have a race of zombie cowards that cannot confront this fact.

[@JeremyLeJyBy]

I think/fear that self called elites just adopted war as a mean to reduce (regularly) world population, following the pig's festival example. But then, they seem to have skipped the part about the absolute erosion of oil and metal resources (and consequent societal collapse).

[@nigelharvey640]

Great lecture! Why do I feel in love though?

[@serano5023]

i love this!! thank you for uploading

[@brycebray9149]

20 years before it becomes apparent... we are there with our pollution and degradation of ecosystems.

[@gabrielc.cabrera5045]

Definition of "equilibrium" in system dynamics at 04:58

[@flikkie72]

Funny to see she describes what is nowadays commonplace with black box modelling. We have no clue what our KZbin algorithm, chatgpt or other self-taught/artificially intelligent models do specifically. We can only know what went into the training set, not what it is that the models found. That's not too say the systems age is over though, it's just that humanity is no longer the only complex choice maker anymore.

[@arthursmith7468]

Biological fractals, you cannot "fuck" the system, you ARE the system

[@Jakob172]

Brilliant!

[@andy-the-gardener]

i wouldnt say humans prefer reduction in fertility as the limiting factor to their population growth. they seem instinctively repelled by it. observing their reaction whenever a one child policy is mentioned as an answer to our woes, most humans consider the regulation of fertility to be the most evil thing ever dreamed of. humans seem to much happier with the limiting factors of disease, starvation and esp war and it even seems built into our behaviour to actively promote war as a solution to there being too many humans. this is bourne out by how the so called primative tribe acted. they did not impliment any restrictions in baby production at all. sadly, not breeding goes against basic, mindless live and grow behavioural mandates, wheras war seems to occur for precisely the same reasons. whatever works is good i suppose.

[@mr85grim]

Yes I would attribute this to our mystical wooden-headed thinking that we cannot dare interfere with our sacred and holy world that god created. Everything happens for a reason right? Like the holocaust and the black death lol. This is why religious dogma still persists to this day. We cannot accept the idea that we are truly on our own and the universe is indifferent to our plights as a species and as individuals.

[@conduit24]

I believe your analysis is wrong. she's not talking about authoritarian policies designed to restrict peoples freedoms,, but rather a natural reduction in birth rate as people simply choose to have fewer children. this happens commonly everywhere - as health and education improves the death rate falls off and then a few generations later the birth rate also falls. this is observed as the "demographic transition". of course in the event of overshoot and collapse there may be many other factors causing people to have fewer kids or even have none at all. also I would argue that pollution can affect fertility as well.

[@andy-the-gardener]

@@conduit24 but the humans dont like a fall in fertility either. every nation where that happens insanely creates policy to encourage non breeders to sprog out the economically desirable number of babies again. and/or they just import humans from areas where there is a surplus, which encourages further breeding in those areas to make up the losses, and then some. the 'lets make everyone rich so they dont breed' is both inconsistent (it contradicts the mainstream opinion of 'experts' that it is consumption that is the problem not population!) and not bourn out in practice because governments prevent it anyway, for economic reasons. only an enforced global zero child policy will save mankind (in conjunction with other popular policies lol). but that of course is a tad unrealistic. making a human future a tad unrealistic. so lets not pretend we have one eh. we dont have one, and we wouldnt deserve one if we did. and it would just lead to an even bigger disaster lol

[@Addicted2OILau]

and here we are in 2020 standing on the precipice

[@invictus327]

Brilliant.

[@mattockman]

Sums up our relentless consumption of everything with predictable results.

[@jofoliveres2]

How old are these lectures ? Thank you for uploading them !

[@Sagitarria]

i think around 50 years

[@sirjamesgray]

it was recorded in 1977

[@timbushell8640]

@@sirjamesgray clearly a "KZbin" generation... ... thumbnail, but not reading the notes.

[@drilldrulus1235]

use policy to try to change the dynamic systems behavior

[@mrjonno]

If only our politicians would understand systems and evidence rather than rhetoric and votes.

[@didforlove]

so where are we exactly right now

[@bradleywinter2803]

Smart

[@felipearbustopotd]

This was known in 1977, how's it remotely possible that we are in do-do way over our heads in 2023. Is it the love of greed, in essence the love of money that will see us self annihilate?

[@conduit24]

It was known even earlier because LtG was published in 1972. but you are right, it's a good question. personally I believe a positive feedback between [wealth political influence] has been a dominant feature. The more wealth you have, the more influence you exert over the decision-making process, which in turn generates more wealth. This has driven an acceleration of inequality as those who gain disproportionately more material benefit from the system gain greater power over the future direction of the system, which in turn yields further gains. Of course the delayed negative feedback loop which may limit this might be the feedback between [political/wealth inequality social instability (dissatisfaction/lack of trust/civil violence/war)]. This could partly explain social revolution cycles. However environmental pressures will also increase social unrest.

[@didforlove]

@@conduit24 its already happening

[@conduit24]

@@didforlove Thanks for the reply. My comment was a response to the above user's question "if we've known about this for 50 years why haven't we done anything about it?". regarding your comment about collapse already happening, I agree. We surpassed the long term carry capacity of the planet some time in the early 70s when the Earths human population was around 3.5bn and have been in overshoot for the last 50 years. when you look at the stats, global population is slowing down considerably and looks like it will probably peak in the next 20 years before collapsing, which is exactly what the World3 model predicts. Regarding the social pressures and political instability, I'm currently reading Peter Turchin's 'End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path to Political Disintegration', and he argues that we're in a disintegrative phase leading to increased political instability and social violence, and explains the internal dynamics that are driving it. Thoroughly recommend it for anyone interested in the cycles of political violence and social disorder.

[@didforlove]

@@conduit24 this Peter torching end times elite counter elites is that a consequence of population overshoot /.?

[@TennesseeJed]

Y'all, I don't believe society appreciates what Donella (Dana) Meadows did for it.

[@ilikecoorsbeer4529]

The Zimbaga had the right idea. Who is up for a good old pig """festival""" ; ) . Joking aside, I think that war and the elimination of healthcare would probably be the fastest way for the world to reach a state of equilibrium without allowing the world to suffer from mass starvation. This is extremely cruel and messed up, but it would far less cruel than tolerating a world which forces most children to starve. I would take a bullet over starvation everyday of the week. This is probably one of the most convincing arguments against government subsidized healthcare that I have ever seen, though if you ever used this argument in public, you would be called the devil incarnate. With this said, I obviously am not god or the leader of a major country, so this is not up to me. It seems that the world, knowingly or not, has chosen the route of mass starvation and economic collapse. As Samuel Jackson said in Jurassic Park, hold on to your butts ladies and gentlemen! Also.... buy land and ammunition.

[@drilldrulus1235]

new policy no wars ....

[@vincentkosik403]

501👍

[@drilldrulus1235]

abort as policy and massmurder as policy

[@quicknumbercrunch8691]

Excellent work wasted on baboons.

[@drilldrulus1235]

technology will become a balancing feedback loop for the no renewal resources keeping the costs low and increase efficiency

[@conduit24]

the growth in renewable resources won't be be large enough or fast enough to replace the rapid decline in non-renewables, hence still collapse or partial collapse. at best renewables may marginally soften the landing.

[@MrSvenovitch]

The whole system of life has always been unstable, otherwise there would never have been any extinction events. This lady herself has been extinct for over two decades herself. If you want to do good in life, all you need to do is not breed. Stop this madness of copy pasting yourself, it ultimately goes nowhere except the grave. Or do you like 'pig festival' and the ensuing war for lowering the number of ppl alive....? Every single decade...? I love how casual and matter of fact she was about it...

[@munyansebastien7127]

Rapid decrease in population would itself mean collapse. The answer is never that simple. We cannot solve world problems at an individual level. What would happen also if all conscious people stopped having children: the next generation would have been raised in Mcmansions and SUVs. What is needed is a reasonable reduction of population combined, more importantly, with an considerable reduction in consumption in rich countries, and consequent social reorganization. A shift to ecological forms of development in the "third world" and better technologies are also a necessity. Likewise, individual decrease in consumption e.g. voluntary simplicity, while morally important, is not by itself an efficient solution.

[@nirvonna]

I love this reply. My thinking exactly, which is rare. That said there is a non-zero number of anti-natalists out there that hold the philosophy that it’s better to never be born.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

human choice decentralization, God's kingdom central authority