“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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