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Nope, per the article: collapse “does not mean that humanity will cease to exist,” but rather that “economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline,

Nope, per the article: collapse “does not mean that humanity will cease to exist,” but rather that “economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living Economic decline that hurts standard of living is very far from a societal collapse, if the analysis is even accurate. It seems like the best selling book that put this out in the 70's traded on fear mongering, and now this article is just repeating it.

regularfry 5y ago
It depends how much standard of living is affected, and what nonlinear effects might go along with that. "Hurt food production", in the BAU2 scenario, means mass starvation as the food supply shrinks from feeding 7 billion to feeding less than 2 billion. Humanity hasn't seen that sort of contraction before. It is unlikely to be pretty.
pelasaco 5y ago
"Economic decline that hurts standard of living is very far from a societal collapse", if it doesn't cause War. Quite impossible that Countries won't fight each other to see who falls slower than the other.
aylmao 5y ago
> Economic decline that hurts standard of living is very far from a societal collapse, if the analysis is even accurate. This depends on the base standard we're talking about. If someone's standard goes from not having to think about energy consumption, to not being able to afford running the dishwasher or dryer, then sure, no big deal. If someone's standard goes from getting by to starving, they are going to fight. I imagine there's a lot of places around the world where a sharp decline in standard of living could lead to civil war.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Ah, excellent point. This is why I come to HN, because discussion. Will reveal when I need to consider something with more nuance and dig deeper into topics. It would definitely depend on how evenly spread the decline is. 10% (or whatever) evenly spread out would be bad, because a developed country can tighten its belt and not buy new things as much and focus on less waste, change eating habits to be a little more based on most productive crops instead if taste preference, etc. 10% for a a less developed country would, in terms of the relative utility of money, mean a lot more loss. And that's hoping they didn't decline more than a developed country. (By relative utility of money I mean that the more money a person has, the less that a single unit if money impacts you. $10k increase for a person who makes $35k is a noticeable step up in quality if life. For someone making $500,000k it changes practically nothing)

regularfry 5y ago

It depends how much standard of living is affected, and what nonlinear effects might go along with that. "Hurt food production", in the BAU2 scenario, means mass starvation as the food supply shrinks from feeding 7 billion to feeding less than 2 billion. Humanity hasn't seen that sort of contraction before. It is unlikely to be pretty.

pelasaco 5y ago

"Economic decline that hurts standard of living is very far from a societal collapse", if it doesn't cause War. Quite impossible that Countries won't fight each other to see who falls slower than the other.

aylmao 5y ago

> Economic decline that hurts standard of living is very far from a societal collapse, if the analysis is even accurate. This depends on the base standard we're talking about. If someone's standard goes from not having to think about energy consumption, to not being able to afford running the dishwasher or dryer, then sure, no big deal. If someone's standard goes from getting by to starving, they are going to fight. I imagine there's a lot of places around the world where a sharp decline in standard of living could lead to civil war.

ineedasername 5y ago
Ah, excellent point. This is why I come to HN, because discussion. Will reveal when I need to consider something with more nuance and dig deeper into topics. It would definitely depend on how evenly spread the decline is. 10% (or whatever) evenly spread out would be bad, because a developed country can tighten its belt and not buy new things as much and focus on less waste, change eating habits to be a little more based on most productive crops instead if taste preference, etc. 10% for a a less developed country would, in terms of the relative utility of money, mean a lot more loss. And that's hoping they didn't decline more than a developed country. (By relative utility of money I mean that the more money a person has, the less that a single unit if money impacts you. $10k increase for a person who makes $35k is a noticeable step up in quality if life. For someone making $500,000k it changes practically nothing)