[FRIAM] hot time in town tonight

[Steve Smith]

a
>
> “A cultural efflorescence or an apocalyptic collapse?”
>
> It is not clear to me these options need to be mutually exclusive.
>
> Marcus
>
I agree heartily...  there are many paths...  in the very weak ensemble
study (10,000 scenarios) we did before Stockholm last year, using the
World2 SD model, we found a strong positive correlation between a high
per-capita GDP in the year 2100 and a peak in human population sooner
rather than later.  Not terribly surprising I suppose?

Per Capita GDP is in no way a progressive measure of life, liberty, or
the pursuit of slap-happiness but the most obvious one in World2 and the
population peak (soon) could alternatively represent a thoughtful and
significantly pervasive global negative population growth, or an
apocalyptic collapse following a sharp increase in population (or some
other manner of overrun of resources).

I'm sure buried in that 10,000 high-dimensional points, are some
trajectories where an efflorescence magically *precedes* an apocalyptic
collapse, but I'm guessing that the bulk are ordered just the opposite.

And of course, from the point of view of the bulk of the biosphere, a
human collapse (all the way to zero population?) might represent a "best
case scenario" as many species *did* seem to enjoy the quietude of human
activity in April-May 2020.



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