We all want to know when our society will collapse, when we will meet a fate like the dinosaurs. The last prediction for “End Of Civilization” was 2012, which obviously turned out to be not true.
Another prediction, or study, in this case, has predicted that society is on track to collapse by the year 2040. That’s just 18 years from now. The study was conducted back in the day in 1972 and a follow-up study confirmed it.
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The World Will End In 2040?
In an 18-minute long video posted on the YouTube channel Economics Explained, they explained how we might be heading towards the collapse. In 1972, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) predicted a societal collapse by 2040.
A follow-up study conducted by KPMG stated that we might be ahead of our schedule. The first economic study by the MIT team created a computer model for the entire global economy. Titled World3, it had a system to calculate everything from population to economy, birth rates, etc.
Researchers ran the simulation with tweaks and tried to predict work productivity and rate of innovation. Every possibility was looked at (lower birth rate & higher birth rate). But every result showed a decline in 2040.
Keeping in mind that the research was done nearly 50 years ago without climate change, we can assume that the situation is much worse now.
Every Scenario Points Towards “End Of Civilization”
The research talked about all the situations. If we continued with the current speed of innovation or not. If the birth rate will be the same or different. In 2021, a follow-up study was concluded by Gaya Herrington tends to agree with the 1972 study.
He suggested that the path we are on right now fits the decreasing rate of innovation mentioned in the previous study. The scenario, named “business as usual,” is bad news. It notes the increase in pollution will affect industrial output.
Gaya also said that the ever-increasing population will affect food production but it will vary from country to country. All these border on a complete collapse of society. Plus, climate change will surely accelerate the speed of the collapse.
If you are feeling sad reading this, perhaps there’s something to make you feel better. The model of this study has also received criticism. Critics have pointed out that the limits to growth reports have a very pessimistic way of looking at human innovation.
They said that humans will be forced to improve if/when our back is against the wall. Case in point the various renewable energy sources available these days.
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