http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sidesho...rchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html Doomsday articles from random authors and fringe groups don't bother me. But when it comes from MIT...
Interesting. I've always been somewhat pessimistic about our long term prospects....and this only reinforces that. Having said that, people have been predicting collapse for a LONG time now...check out Thomas Malthus and his essays on the Principles of Population. So maybe we can put it off a little longer.... (I had to fight my pessimism to write that...not easy! )
Theyre using computer scenarios to do these calculations. Even MIT alumni and super-computers couldnt encompass all the factors that would go into a total collapse of civilization. We all know any country with ties to the US is headed for economic collapse, and that we need to cut back on resources. Regarding the latter, The general population, and leaders are too pre-occupied to care. Its been that way since people began to realise that living with our excessive consumer lifestyles is beginning to hurt the planet.
Yep. Mark my words, we're one bad pitch/disaster away from Bartertown. If you really want to get scared and motivated, go listen to what Michael Ruppert has to say on the subject of peak oil.
unfortunately, when there is an economic collapse, it's typically the poor people who get screwed the hardest
I have a hard time understanding why our governments aren't doing anything about this. It's not like their money will protect them once they have no clean air to breathe or drinking water or enough food....
With computing it always comes down to Moores law, everything decided by one bottleneck If super computers were so awesome they'd be able to predict lottery numbers by now, cant even predicta horse race, let alone the end of the world The worlds resources? There is a european company buliding a supersonic airliner that runs on seaweed. Sounds weird, but as a bio fuel, makes sense, our world is mainly ocean The west hasnt faired so well in the last decade, so we'll get sucked into this doom and gloom crap. But in terms of the world, theres an extra billion people on the planet now than there was 12 years ago, without so much as a hiccup Then theres that bright shiny thing you see in the middle of the day, all it will take is one nerd to work out how to harness solar power effectively and then we've got all the power we will need for 10 billion years or so
Your right, but it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, the poor might be better equipped psychologically to endure and even thrive in these circumstances, if they subscribed to peace and love for each other, and resisted the urge to prey on each other, and to focus their wrath upon the systems and misguided thinking that created this poverty to begin with.
When "the grid" goes down, I'll just jump into the "safety net". Oh,,wait,, In other, related news, SoCal may be headed for "rolling blackouts" in the power grid, coming soon. http://news.yahoo.com/power-shortages-loom-idled-calif-nuke-plant-001159278.html
Precious few of our politicians give two fucks about the state of the planet beyond their own miserable lifespans. Besides, they don't have the faintest idea how to even slow this process down. Everything they know is based on this ridiculous notion that infinite growth is plausible. Basic physics shows that it's not plausible. These "wars" in the middle east are last ditch efforts by the United States (the most gross offender when it comes to unbridled consumption) to position themselves globally for the remaining reserves of easy and cheap oil. The thinking is: gorge yourself for as long as possible, until it's all gone, and then die fat and happy, while your offspring starves and curses you.
So basically if there is an apocalypse only the Rednecks will survive? Rednecks and Cockroaches, I think I already saw that movie
Of course economic collapse and population die-off are inevitable. We've chosen a global economic model that demands infinite growth but we live on very lovely yet quite finite Earth. And despite hearing this message over and over again since birth, my kids didn't get the message:
The war on terror, seriously. Greedy US trying to steal all the oil, over a decade later looked whats happened. Egypt and Syria seem just as or more affected by it than anyone else. The afghanis are better off and Iraq would have turned to shit anyway. You cant predict this stuff, Iraq might have just been headed for another war with Iran if it wasnt for the Bushes. And in the interim, the US economy has a bit of a melt down, mainly cos your banks lent too much to those that wanted a bigger mortgage than they could handle and China and some other Asian countries snapped up all those debt repayments. If back in 2002 someone had asked you or anyone else how The war on terror would have ended up. No one would have come close to an accurate prediction, that in 2012 the rest of the world more worried about Greece than anyone else
An if overpopulation is going to be the death of us all, no one ever mentions the main cause. Stop fuckin breeding! Buttsex to save the planet I am only joking of course, I dont believe that, we could fit a trillion people on this rock no problems, and yhe way you lot are goingl well get there in my lifetime
Yeah, it can be an easy way to sell a book and make some easy money. But you know MIT has never operated on that level. They have world-class credibility with intelligent, well-educated people. This is not your typical scare of the month. I want to look for more details about their findings, when I get more time. I'm sure this is an in-depth study, and there will be a lot said about it over the next few months. Exit plan for the global economy and civilization? Lots of farm land, and a small, loyal militia to protect the crops. And that only works until your farm equipment starts wearing out or you need medical treatment. If we reach a point where ordinary people start killing each other for food and water, my "exit plan" is to become one of the first victims. If the human race is going back to survival of the meanest, I hope it will be doing it without me. Any preparations that I make will have to do with having some kind of suicide plan available. Don't be so smug. There were computer programs at MIT in 1972 that came up with the same projections, and several computer models predicted almost every detail of the financial catastrophes of 2008, but the bank CEO's failed to act on the warnings. The bottom line: Without functional international banking systems, a stable climate that allows large crops to grow, and adequate clean water, common sense should tell you that civilized society can't survive. They don't need a computer model of the social chaos. It's just going to happen on its own. We have very good computer models in the business world of economic systems, climate change, and agricultural yields. I suspect MIT has stuff that is much higher in quality than what businesses can buy commercially. Some people saw this a long time ago, and they did something about it. The EPA did a great job of improving air and water quality in a lot of large American cities. Edible fish came back to rivers and lakes where nothing had lived in decades. But it was a lot easier to work on problems when everything was going on within one country. Politicians? The ultra-wealthy won't fare so well either. What good is a shitload of money when nothing is for sale? But they are so goddamned optimistic. They never believe anything really bad is going to happen. And they only think about the short term. On Wall Street, eighteen years seems like an eternity. They think in fiscal quarters. You can't fix the world in a quarter. They are intelligent people, but they have a particular form of intelligence that apparently doesn't allow them to comprehend long-term trends, and the forces that drive them.
Some of the wealthiest people I know are rednecks. Poor and Redneck (at least in my neck of the woods) are not synonymous. The urban and rural poor share certain skill sets, mainly the ability to keep trudging along under hopeless conditions. During the the U.S. stock market crash of 1929 - you didn't see poor, displaced sharecroppers flinging themselves from buildings. Racism is systematically and deliberately perpetuated by the elite class in the United States to divide and conquer the poor. If ever poor whites, poor blacks, poor latinos, poor asians, poor natives, poor everyone saw common purpose and cause in their poverty, saw through the theater of politics whose sole purpose is to redirect their attention away from the systems and people who exploit them, this nation would be a true haven of freedom in the world.