Gaël Giraud (Chief economist of the French Agency for Development) said something along these lines: In economy, usually when someone builds a model that predicts the future for 18 months they later get the Nobel. The World III model from the Meadows Report almost exactly described the world for more than 45 years.

If we may think that it's still modelling our world exactly enough, complete civilisational collapse will probably come in the next couple of decades.

>"If we may think that it's still modelling our world exactly enough [..]"

Some people think that it has been pretty accurate:

"[..] The dotted line shows the Limits to Growth “business-as-usual” scenario out to 2100. Up to 2010, the data is strikingly similar to the book’s forecasts."

From: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits...

Do you have links to any decent analysis of that model?

Because the only things I've been able to digest are the criticisms (the majority of what I've found is that the model does not accurately reflect the world we live in). I'm not trying to confirmation bias myself here, but I would like to see what the proponents have to say.

Here is a pretty good one IMO (loooong read):

https://jancovici.com/en/readings/societies/the-limits-to-gr...

Another article that explains well what the model does, that economists do as if matter and laws of physics didn't exist (unless they're of the rare breed of Georgescu-Roegen's disciples):

https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/societal-choices/...

Another article from another source:

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/09/discovering-limits-to-gro...

This (esp the first figure) reminds me of economics research on long waves:

http://joshuagoldstein.com/jgcycle.htm

Thanks, looks like an interesting read.

How much of that is just survivalship bias though? As in, if you were to asked to bet on a 50-year-in-the-future model in 1970s, would you have picked this model?

Might be transformation rather than collapse, not a done deal