This is why I was always skeptical of dystopias that depend on overpopulation. If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?
> 1. If the present growth trends... continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years...
> 2. It is possible to alter these growth trends...
> 3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success
Far from "missing the negative feedback loops", I think that amplifying that feedback was the whole point.
Also, we're only halfway through the original period, so it seems premature to declare victory.
The sci-fi dystopias about overpopulation never really come up with a mechanism by which the birth rate remains high despite low infant and child mortality and low economic need for human labor. It always seems to boil down to "people are controlled by irrational instincts".
There are multiple grave markers listing children that died under the age of 10. Like a family had a 4 year old die, then had a baby 2 years later and then 3 years later buried that baby in the same grave as their older sibling.
This right here is why I'm child free.
First, My own upbringing did nothing to equip me to properly raise a child. I simply cannot trust myself to do a good job.
Second, why would I bring a child into a world where each year will only be worst than the last, and their lot in life is to suffer the decline of the natural world and perhaps civilization as we know it until they themselves have to make the same choice? I'm sure someday the future will look brighter but it sure as heck isn't today, or any time in the next 50 years.
With this realisation alone you might be in the top percentiles of the population.
> I'm sure someday the future will look brighter but it sure as heck isn't today, or any time in the next 50 years.
And yet it still might be better than at least 99.98% of human history (50 out of 300k+ years).
Several of those feedback loops came from people seeing the theoretical scenario and the evidence for it mounting. Like literally the phrase "if we don't do something - this will happen" is the rallying cry. It's silly to say it was an oversight in the model that shows that things need to be done.
> If life is so miserable why would people continue to have so many children?
Something humans like to do to escape misery is: sex.
Definitely in another dark age in that sense, due to the postmodern decline of meaningful written communication on paper.
Even though your statement is meant to be evocative, as opposed to factually descriptive, it sure feels to me like it captures the zeitgeist.
Which is... disappointing, upsetting, sad.
I suspect that, like me, you hope you're wrong.
But the way that the model's predictions have come true is different than what's been popularized. Instead of mass die-offs from famine and pollution, we're seeing population collapse because of birth control, declining fertility, and the rising (opportunity) cost of raising a family. Instead of seeing a collapse in industrial output because of declining resources, we're seeing a collapse in industrial output because of market saturation and a shift toward services and online experiences. Instead of pollution growing unbounded, it's actually declining because of green technology and de-industrialization.
The world is still trending toward a dystopian hellscape, but the dystopian hellscape is not a barren planet where nothing grows and we've stripped everything bare, it's a dystopian hellscape of everybody glued to their device and ignoring social interaction or family formation because Fortnite is more interesting.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
[2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xw3x/new-research-vindicat...