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175 comments on Is the World's Biggest Machine Breaking Down?

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odograph on January 14, 2007 - 1:03pm

The concept map will be interesting, especially if it honesty charts the "aligned interests" looking for collapse.

I did like the Bartlett lecture, but found it kind of basic. All the interesting questions come after that groundwork. At worst, if "the exponential" is taken as the total driver, it gives students a superficial tool for a superficial understanding of the world.

On the digital world bit ... geology doesn't function in a text world either, but a lot of text is spent teaching and understanding it. And from what I remember digital data logging in geology (especially seismic exploration) pushed the limits in data acquisition for a long time.

There are what James Burke would have called "connections" that are probably non-linear, and not as simple as a mere (and consistent) exponential.

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GreyZone on January 15, 2007 - 12:06pm

Either refute Bartlett or admit he is correct. Enough with the backhanded dismissals with no objective evidence from you. And if he is correct, then your rosy optimism is screwed. Stop smoking the corporate happy weed and open your eyes.

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Nick on January 16, 2007 - 1:44pm

Bartlett says that exponential growth in population and commodity consumption cannot continue forever. That's obvious. It doesn't need refutation, and it can't be refuted.

The problem is, it's a straw man. No serious economist argues that it can, or that it should.

Both population and commodity consumption follow an S-curve of exponential growth followed by a plateau. Any professional demographer will tell you that's true of population, any serious economist will tell you that's true of commodity consumption.

The hard question is, can developing countries achieve that plateau in the same way as the OECD? The answer is probably not: if they are going to be prosperous, they will have to do it differently.

But Bartlett's arguments are just a distraction from the real problems.

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