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According the the wiki article, world3 is too general to be realistic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3 > But tho

According the the wiki article, world3 is too general to be realistic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3 > But those of us who knew the DYNAMO language in which the simulation was written and those who took the model apart line-by-line quickly realized that we had to deal with an exercise in misinformation and obfustication rather than with a model delivering valuable insights. I was particularly astonished by the variables labelled Nonrenewable Resources and Pollution. Lumping together (to cite just a few scores of possible examples) highly substitutable but relatively limited resources of liquid oil with unsubstitutable but immense deposits of sedimentary phosphate rocks, or short-lived atmospheric gases with long-lived radioactive wastes, struck me as extraordinarily meaningless.[7]:168

mrpopo 5y ago
Yes, world3 is meant as a simulation exercise that is sometimes taken too seriously. But even its critics consider that the conclusions of the model are valid. Here is the continuation of your quote: > He does however consider continuous growth in world GDP a problem: Only the widespread scientific illiteracy and innumeracy—all you need to know in this case is how to execute the equation y=x*e^{rt} prevents most of the people from dismissing the idea of sustainable growth at healthy rates as an oxymoronic stupidity whose pursuit is, unfortunately, infinitely more tragic than comic. After all, even cancerous cells stop growing once they have destroyed the invaded tissues.[7]:338–339
- omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago
  That's also trivial. Continuous growth of anything tangible in a finite system will eventually hit constraints of that system.
- native_samples 5y ago
  No, lots of critics of the model (like me) consider the conclusions of the model to be invalid. It's inherent in the nature of validity actually - a fraudulent model like World3 cannot be said to be "valid" even if a few of its vague prognostications end up in the right general area. Any definition of validity that allowed such a thing would also have to apply to fortune tellers, who often say things that seem directionally accurate but whose methods are of course not "valid".
- IshKebab 5y ago
  If "continuous growth is unsustainable" is the only conclusion of the model then it isn't very useful!

mrpopo 5y ago

Yes, world3 is meant as a simulation exercise that is sometimes taken too seriously. But even its critics consider that the conclusions of the model are valid. Here is the continuation of your quote: > He does however consider continuous growth in world GDP a problem: Only the widespread scientific illiteracy and innumeracy—all you need to know in this case is how to execute the equation y=x*e^{rt} prevents most of the people from dismissing the idea of sustainable growth at healthy rates as an oxymoronic stupidity whose pursuit is, unfortunately, infinitely more tragic than comic. After all, even cancerous cells stop growing once they have destroyed the invaded tissues.[7]:338–339

omgwtfbyobbq 5y ago
That's also trivial. Continuous growth of anything tangible in a finite system will eventually hit constraints of that system.
native_samples 5y ago
No, lots of critics of the model (like me) consider the conclusions of the model to be invalid. It's inherent in the nature of validity actually - a fraudulent model like World3 cannot be said to be "valid" even if a few of its vague prognostications end up in the right general area. Any definition of validity that allowed such a thing would also have to apply to fortune tellers, who often say things that seem directionally accurate but whose methods are of course not "valid".
IshKebab 5y ago
If "continuous growth is unsustainable" is the only conclusion of the model then it isn't very useful!