>Passell found the study's simulation to be simplistic while assigning little value to the role of technological progress in solving the problems of resource depletion, pollution, and food production. They charged that all LTG simulations ended in collapse, predicting the imminent end of irreplaceable resources. Passell also charged that the entire endeavour was motivated by a hidden agenda: to halt growth in its tracks.
> The World3 model is based on five variables: "population, food production, industrialization, pollution, and consumption of nonrenewable natural resources. At the time of the study, all these variables were increasing and were assumed to continue to grow exponentially, while the ability of technology to increase resources grew only linearly
As we all know, almost all continents have a negative birth rate with the exception of Africa [1]
Large populations such as China with their one child policy, have curtailed their population growth.
We've lost a significant amount of people in Russia/Ukraine, and now Gaza.
In some areas we have limited availability of surface water, and deep aquifers are being tapped in unsustainable manners.
Post-Covid mortality is trending down in many western countries too.
There must be this dick and today it's me. Warfare these days is mostly precise. It's no more throwing tanks at a problem but rather precise actions to destroy infrastructure. There is no dehousing strategy to break people's support for war.
Statistically seen, significant without numbers doesn't mean anything anyway. However as we are talking about people, any discussion like that is in danger to enter a terrain of technocracy. Ad an unaffected, we shouldn't lead such a discussion
"Precision, outside of the confines of military manufacturers and strategists, has taken on a new meaning that implies exactness with minimal unwanted damage. A focus on the razzle-dazzle of high-tech precise weapons conveniently avoids inconvenient questions about the legality and success of aerial warfare. This adapted usage has been reproduced by mainstream media outlets, especially in the US and UK, with little scrutiny. We are left with the widespread use of a word, fuzzed up and detached from its initial definition, that serves to benefit those in power seeking the extension of their military might overseas. "
https://medium.com/@ambrosev/beware-the-deadly-vagaries-of-p...
Everyone is taken in by technological razzle-dazzle. Especially the generals and politicians.
That's how a certain country ended up spending an extra £100k per round to add high precision GPS targeting and guidance to wide dispersal flechette munitions. Now we can attack a square kilometre, with an accuracy of 50cm. Perfect for when you need to take out an enemy column right next to a school sports day, right?
Most of us are taken in by the merest technological puff and bluster, with words like "precision", "accuracy", "power", "security" having no common meaning whatsoever. It's why we're in such a mess with privacy, cybersecurity and the like, because those in charge are good at comparing numbers but haven't the least idea what they're talking about at the most fundamental conceptual level.
Disease is much much worse than war, even in the bad old days (WW1 17 million vs Spanish Flu 25-50 million), and today the comparison is with covid: even if Gaza was literally nuked with 100% fatalities, that's 2.4 million people, whereas Covid deaths, according to wikipedia, are:
> 6,988,666 (reported), 18.2–33.5 million (estimated)
Not really sure why you'd make that point when you could argue with considerably more force that the number of people being bombed in both conflicts is a rounding error in terms of global population modelling.
An estimated 67 million people died in 2022 globally, and 134 million were born. Not to downplay the deaths in these wars, but from a global perspective they don’t move the needle that much.
> In 2023, the parameters of the World3 model were recalibrated using empirical data up to 2022. This improved parameter set results in a World3 simulation that shows the same overshoot and collapse mode in the coming decade as the original business-as-usual scenario of the Limits to Growth standard run.