Yes, I agree that sustainability is the key and that "Technological progress should enable us to reduce our environmental footprint while increasing our capacity to meet human needs. Clean energy technologies, circular economies, and efficient material use are essential components of this future". Yes, definitely. Unfortunately we are not on this path at all. The US under Trump is on the fast track in the opposite direction.If the World3 "Limits to Growth" model is correct and there will a widespread collapse of civilization in the middle of this century, then every other economic model becomes insignificant. There have been multiple attempts to validate the World3 results in the last decades, and the results are always the same: the model is valid and relevant, we are still in the "business as usual" scenario, and society as we know it will collapse soon. One of the latest papers ishttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13442I believe the collapse has already started under Trump. Trump is to America what Dieselgate was to Volkswagen. Faced with insurmountable obstacles - creating a clean car based on fossil fuels to meet increasingly sharp environmental regulations - Volkswagen which was addicted to building Diesel cars started to cheat. Dieselgate was the result: a disaster for the company.George W. Bush said the US is addicted to oil. Faced with insurmountable obstacles after peak oil has been reached (the point where global oil production reaches its maximum rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly), the country has elected a person who embraces cheating as a way of life, as his niece wrote in her book "Too much and never enough". We are witnessing the disastrous results in realtime. He is a disaster for the country.-J. -------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]> Date: 5/4/25 10:23 AM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] agent-based macroeconomic model The *World3 Limits to Growth* model, developed in the early 1970s and made famous through the Club of Rome’s report, is a well-known example of how internal conceptual frameworks are externalized and explored through computer modeling. In this case, the authors constructed a systems dynamics model to simulate long-term global trends in population, resource consumption, industrial output, and pollution. Their primary aim was to communicate a particular vision of the future: one in which exponential growth in a finite system inevitably leads to overshoot and collapse unless proactive changes are made.What is often overlooked, however, is the degree to which the conclusions of such models are shaped by the assumptions built into them—assumptions that may not always be made explicit. In the case of the *Limits to Growth* model, one of the most critical assumptions underpinning its projections is that technological development during the period from 1900 to 2100 will not proceed rapidly enough to fundamentally change the dynamics of resource availability and consumption. In other words, the model implicitly assumes that no breakthrough technologies will emerge in time to mitigate the depletion of key resources or to radically improve the efficiency and sustainability of industrial activity.This is a crucial point, because the validity of the model’s most dramatic conclusions—such as widespread societal collapse by the late 21st century—hinges heavily on that assumption. If, in contrast, technological innovation does accelerate and lead to the discovery or creation of new resources, energy sources, or modes of production, then the trajectory of global development may look very different from the model’s projections.I freely admit that I do not know whether this key assumption is ultimately correct. No one can say with certainty what the pace or direction of technological progress will be over the next 75 years. However, based on historical trends and current trajectories, I am inclined to believe that the assumption is too pessimistic. In my view, it underestimates humanity’s capacity for innovation and the accelerating feedback loop between knowledge, technology, and problem-solving.Of course, we must acknowledge that the Earth's natural resources are finite. At some point—whether decades or centuries from now—this finitude will impose constraints on economic and population growth. That said, the timing and severity of these constraints depend heavily on how we define and access resources. Technological advancements can dramatically alter both. For instance, materials once considered scarce or inaccessible can become viable through improved extraction techniques, recycling, or even synthesis. Similarly, previously unusable energy sources may become dominant through innovation, as was the case with oil in the early 20th century.To illustrate this point more concretely, consider the domain of energy. Energy is foundational to almost every aspect of economic growth and societal development. If we are able to develop clean, scalable, and abundant sources of energy, many other constraints—such as water scarcity, food production, and even material shortages—can potentially be addressed. Sam Altman and others have argued persuasively that the combination of abundant energy and advanced intelligence systems (even if narrow and artificial) could usher in an era of material abundance.It is important to clarify what is and isn’t meant by this. I am not referring to fantastical technologies that violate the known laws of physics. I am speaking of plausible, science-based advances that are already in development or on the horizon. Nor am I invoking some vague notion of sentient or “real” artificial intelligence. The kind of AI I have in mind is the narrow, task-specific form we see today—tools that, while limited, are increasingly capable of solving complex problems, optimizing systems, and accelerating scientific discovery when combined with human ingenuity.Nor should this vision be interpreted as a license for ecological destruction. On the contrary, I argue that the path to abundance must be rooted in sustainability. Technological progress should enable us to reduce our environmental footprint while increasing our capacity to meet human needs. Clean energy technologies, circular economies, and efficient material use are essential components of this future. One promising example is the development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, such as the one currently being built in China. These reactors offer the potential for abundant, safe, and low-waste energy—possibly serving as a bridge until nuclear fusion becomes a practical reality.In sum, the *Limits to Growth* model is a valuable intellectual exercise and a cautionary tale. It highlights the risks of unchecked growth in a finite system. However, its conclusions are not inevitable. They are based on a set of assumptions, the most consequential of which concerns the pace of technological development. If one believes that innovation will stagnate, then the model presents a sobering and perhaps accurate warning. But if one believes—as I do—that human creativity and technological capacity will continue to grow, then a more optimistic future is plausible.Ultimately, the debate over such models is less about data than it is about belief—about how we weigh uncertainty and how we envision the future. I do not claim certainty in my outlook. Rather, I argue that we should be cautious in drawing fatalistic conclusions from models that may underestimate the transformative power of innovation. No one can guarantee that a future of abundance awaits us. But likewise, no one can confidently assert that it does not.In that uncertainty lies both the risk and the opportunity of our time.On Sat, 3 May 2025 at 07:46, Jochen Fromm <[email protected]> wrote:Nice model! Not bad. One aspect we could try to model is the distribution of supply chains in a globalized world. In 2021 the average gross income in the US was about 70,430, in Taiwan 21,689, in China 11,890, in India 2170, and in Myanmar 1,140. Supply chains of companies in a world where income differs so much will obviously end sooner or later in low income countries. Typical supply chain lines for Apple are for instance Apple (California) > TSMC (Taiwan) > Factory (Guangdong Province, China) or Apple (California) > Foxconn (Taiwan) > Factory (Henan Province, China).How are supply chains affected if transportation costs rise or tariffs are imposed?What would cause a world-wide economic crisis in such a model and how would it look like? One of the most famous models on a global scale is the world3 model from the Club of Rome. Brian Hayes decided to rewrite the world3 model in Javascripthttp://bit-player.org/limitsThe article is herehttps://www.americanscientist.org/article/computation-and-the-human-predicament-J.-------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp <[email protected]> Date: 5/1/25 7:48 PM (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: [FRIAM] agent-based macroeconomic model I made a very "quick and dirty" start on developing an agent-based macroeconomic model.Posted about it on X: https://x.com/pietersteenekam/status/1917995128678986170 , the post reads as follows:Me: “Let’s understand global macroeconomic policy better.”Also me: Builds a crude ABM with AI because economists can’t agree on tariffs.Is it useful? Not yet.Is it cool? Heck yes.🔗 https://github.com/pieterSteenekamp/bottom-up-macroeconomics"; .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. 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