Exactly to some extent trying to figure out the exact chain of events is fruitless. We are probably living at or post peak oil now and have used in my opinion just about every possible approach to study peak oil yet even with thousand of enlightened people on the net working on the problem we find ourselves in a fog of unknowns.

Thats the real world and certainly the Irish did not have either the tools we have today thus they too where surrounded by a fog. I doubt many Irish even new the population of the land much less the rudiments of science needed to understand the danger. I'd suggest we are no better of then they. Our tools have done little to make our real situation clear.

The problem is not the exact cause timing or nature of our situation its understanding that complex systems have the intrinsic capacity to collapse if strained. We have enough information to understand that our current world is under immense strain and we know and understand the concept of collapse even if we lack the mathematics to really understand complex systems. Thats all we need to know the rest is wants. We have all the knowledge we need to have to make the right decisions to keep collapse a remote possibility.

In fact I suspect if it had been possible if you talked to the Irish before the famine they would have been uneasy about their plight and desiring change. Even they knew that they where not in a good situation. I'm sure even the poorest most illiterate Iraqi or African could tell would easily be able to explain if he thought his region was close to collapse. In the case of Africa of course it depends on the country but the point is we if we look are pretty good at seeing the looming problem. For the US at least we choose not to look.

I love your article it makes a reasonable guess at the cause of the problem and certainly you have highlighted important issues that at least played a supporting role in the collapse of Ireland. Figuring out the details is fantastic science and good for advancing our understanding of collapse but what you have presented is sufficient as a wake up call to the rest of the world we simply don't need more information.

For oil I think I've presented the case that a collapse of oil production has a reasonable chance or probability of occuring we simply don't have enough information to know for certain. However a reasonable argument that is sensible which has as dire and outcome as collapse of oil production or a famine in Ireland need not be perfect just reasonable. We need to act. Certainly one part of action is to do the science get the data find out what or real situation is and the other part is to proactively find solutions before a collapse happens while we still have a functional society. If people need more before they are willing to act then we obviously know one of the biggest reasons for collapse its that people are simply to arrogant to except that imperfect information is all we will ever get before we collapse. And thus collapse itself become ever more certain.