Upgrades

For much of this year I nursed a slowing computer while attempting to further my research and to do some writing within time limited by working a full-time job (luckily at home). As has happened in similar experiences, I built up a cache of insights that I could share when conditions permitted while sharing tidbits of related wisdom and information on social media platforms, most notably Twitter (@bradjarvis), which also served as a tool for collecting relevant source information. Just when my computer became unusable due to “upgrades” in the operating system and software that its speed could not handle, I capitulated to the need for a hardware upgrade (a new computer) to keep up with them and maintain the most basic functionality.

My new insights, as the most useful have, came from taking a fresh look at the essence of the mathematical modeling of historical data that has dominated my decades-long research into how basic values and resource availability are coupled to affect how long and how large a population can survive. This phase of the research focused more on what happens to groups within a global population than on projections of what happens to the entire population, requiring many more calculations to provide meaningful results. I had enough results by the time my computer became unusable to begin drawing conclusions that could be tested and used to extract a simple set of rules that embody their derivation.

The most fundamental insight of the model has been that human consumption of ecological resources (provided for sustenance of life in ecosystems) varies predictably with habitat density; where habitat density is the ratio of consumption for needs to the number of resources that remain (which are available to members of other species to meet their needs). One of my new insights is how consumption for needs (which is proportional to the number of people) increases with habitat density, and how the amount not consumed for needs (what I call waste) decreases with habitat density. 

Economic activity, measured globally as Gross World Product (GWP) and on a national level as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is a function of the number of potential exchanges of resources, which varies with the number of people and the resources they consume. The distribution of people and resources derived from their relationships to habitat density can therefore be used to estimate the range of habitat densities occupied by an economically active group like a nation for which that activity is measured. Related aspects of people’s lives such as life expectancy and happiness show looser correlations with habitat density that can therefore be used on a society level to infer the dominant values associated with those aspects along with the more direct ones: population size and longevity (how long the society can survive with its resource base).

The upgrades to the underlying historical data and its analysis showed that, in general, nations have kept their minimum habitat density the same as the world’s while varying their maximum habitat density. This maintains a link to the people in the society with the most access to resources that can be used to meet needs and are paid handsomely for it. In the extremely rare exceptions where that link has been severed, it appears to have been accompanied by rapid demographic transition or government collapse. If, as most of my simulations of the world’s future show, the minimum habitat density climbs in response to critically depleted resources, what triggered those exceptions may also become outcomes in a self-sustaining feedback loop that accelerates the process, enhanced by environmental feedbacks that further reduce available resources.

For now, my new computer is performing as well as I hoped, apparently matching what my not-too-old computer was able to do. Like humanity’s instinctive drive to increase the number of people in the world, which seems to be our dominant value, my hard drive is filling up with the inevitable upgrades to my software and the files (and increases in file size) that I am generating with each new increment of my research and writing. Some time when I least expect it, a critical amount will be used and a new set of upgrades will threaten to make this computer inoperable, just as our planet is on the verge of becoming unable to sustain life as we know it, forcing us to quickly (and impossibly) find and move to another one or die. Refusing that next upgrade is still an option, as is reducing what we’re already doing with it so we can use fewer resources. Unfortunately, our planet – like my last computer – may be doing the ecological equivalent of changing the operating system so that functions we need can no longer be done without a lot of adaptation. Time is running out to find and implement a solution to this conundrum, and I’ll keep doing what I can to help that process.

Values and Responsibilities

Next month will mark three years since I quit my job to work full time on completing decades of research into how actions serve values and translate into global consequences. Beginning with the primary value of survival (because without survival there can be no other values) I had focused on how many people can exist, for how long, and under what conditions. The scope broadened to include life satisfaction, or happiness, which correlates strongly with the number of resources people consume that are provided by other species. Statistical analysis of historical data for population, life expectancy, economic activity, and other variables revealed other correlations that tracked consistently throughout the data and suggested a theoretical framework that linked them together.

Translation of the resulting mathematical model into experiences of individuals and groups enabled testing by comparison with events and stories from the past and present, along with projections of potential futures. The potential futures were extremely disturbing, since they indicated a high probability of an extinction-level population crash in the near future. Because of this, I worked mostly on deriving alternatives and actions that would enable them, much as I had used models of equipment and conditions to troubleshoot problems that I found during my career as a test engineer. I concluded that effort last year after simulations incorporating global warming variables and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic converged on a narrow range of actions that might significantly delay catastrophe.

With my savings starting to run out and hardly any income from the writing business I hoped could support my efforts, I spent more time searching for another paying job. This experience has been both a necessity and a test case for how to live based on what I learned. Reading hundreds of job descriptions has reinforced a lesson learned during past job hunts and embedded in my model: money flows toward those taking risks to find, exploit, and trade resources that can be used for future growth. Servicing those people or becoming one of them is increasingly a key to individual survival; it is also a surefire way to help decrease the longevity of civilization by eliminating other species that we depend upon for our collective survival because there are no new ecosystems that can sustain us. The fastest and most direct way to extend our lifetimes is to clean up and leave habitat we have taken from use by other life, which is the opposite of what our economy rewards.

Hunting for income triggered an evaluation of successes and failures in past jobs so I could find better matches in the future. Defining success as the meeting of my expectations and my employer’s expectations with minimal difficulty for both of us, I realized that success for me depends on matching my responsibilities with my values. Ability is another factor, but I’ve been able to learn and adapt quickly enough in most situations to keep it from being a major one. Failure, when I experienced it, was typically associated with a conflict between an employer’s expectations and one or more of my values which couldn’t be remedied to the satisfaction of both of us. 

This insight about employment suggested a new way to characterize the results of my research, which I was coincidentally starting to formalize as a scientific paper that could be reviewed by academics and others for strengths, flaws, and potential use in further research. A person in any of three relationships with their environment (growth, overshoot, loss) focuses on attaining one or more states of being (survival, happiness, longevity) for one or more groups (self, other people, all people and other species). Values and responsibilities can both be categorized by focus, which usually includes self-survival, self-happiness, and self-longevity. 

 

Relationships to environments tend to predispose the people in them to get what they don’t have enough of, so the relationships can be used as proxies for common sets of values and responsibilities. In general, everyone prefers to be in the overshoot relationship - every person that is, since overshoot involves our consuming more than other species can replenish and therefore depends on them dying off. The inevitable decline in resource availability reduces how long the population can survive (its longevity), which is felt by individuals who are forced into the loss relationship and therefore value reversing what caused it. Meanwhile, people in the growth relationship value survival of themselves and people in their closest groups; this drives population growth along with individual consumption that increases happiness by enabling creation of personalized artificial environments.

Although most of my life has been spent in overshoot, I was strongly influenced by a culture of growth. I also experienced loss and have accepted its all-inclusive values. I’ve been questioning the wisdom of unlimited consumption and its impact on longevity since I was 16 years old; and for various reasons I avoided situations where I might have children until it was practically too late. As an older adult facing loss again while trying to maintain a hold on overshoot, I know from my research that the world as a system is about at the same point and is on the verge of moving every person and other species into the loss relationship either by choice or by force.

The scenarios that I derived for delaying catastrophe are simply summarized by one rule: Avoid loss. Keeping everyone from being in the loss relationship with the environment starts with freeing up habitat for those already there, which my most-likely scenario estimates could be 5/6 of the world’s population by mid-year. Completing that move by the end of this decade could also keep global warming from making parts of the world uninhabitable while we develop ways to reclaim even more habitat and learn to live with the result. Notably the (simulated) last time no one was in the loss relationship was in 2001, and the last time no one was in overshoot was in 1949, which provides some historical context for what we might expect.

As improbable as that scenario is, I suspect another one may be emerging that could be considered just another version of catastrophe by those valuing all life. Humanity’s ability to consume more than what other species can provide without harm (thus “overshoot”) is a consequence of large-scale replacement of natural habitat with artificial environments that contribute to happiness and together can be considered artificial habitat. In the new admittedly speculative scenario, attempts to escape the deathtrap caused by reducing the amount of remaining natural habitat are enlisting molecular engineering and machine intelligence to create a new biology that totally redefines what and who we value, including ourselves and our needs. Time is running out for this scenario to play out: my model projects that, on the current trajectory of consumption, people will start dying from lack of habitat by 2026 and humanity will be extinct by 2057. For the new scenario to match the expected one (and what I consider a reasonable timeline for new technology rollout), this may be a manifestation of how the rest of the population transitions from growth through overshoot over the period 2028-2044 while so many others are dying.

The next two decades will either validate or invalidate the concepts I developed over the past two decades. Since exploration is a process and not an endpoint, I expect that if I’m alive then I will have asked many more questions than I answered while helping to more effectively find other answers; and I will be happy to have done so. To the extent that my efforts, whatever they are, contribute to creating a longer and better past for those whose lives I affect directly and indirectly, my life will have served my values. By that standard, I intend to increase my overall positive impact until I can’t, choosing appropriate responsibilities along the way.

Habitat Loss

As our species dominated and the world’s ecosystems, we made them part of our own habitat. The tools we used to do so were simultaneously used to create artificial environments that removed or spoiled resources that could be used to meet the basic biological needs of species we directly or indirectly depended upon for our survival, threatening to exterminate them and - in much the same way - us. This is a story told by statistical simulation of our history by my Timelines model and ecological observation of how extinctions occur.

 

 

According to my simulations, resources available for meeting human needs (what I’ve called “ecological resources”) are now only double the amount consumed for needs. This allows for consumption of only 15% more needs before population reaches a peak and then collapses. Most likely, collapse occurs because the populations of species (counted as resources) that supply the resources we directly consume themselves collapse. Our population peak is projected to occur no later than 2024, after which casualties are unavoidable.

 

 

ABOVE: Current summary of global variables and their projected trajectories. 

 

The COVID-19 virus is already exacting a toll on our population. It can be thought of as a consequence of habitat loss, because the other species in our habitat are likewise experiencing habitat loss, being forced to share more of their space with us and enabling those that prey on them to prey on us. Critically shrinking habitat is making this situation catastrophically worse even as our temporarily restrained consumption slows the rate of the shrinking. 

 

Meanwhile, climate change is becoming a self-sustained feedback of our pollution that is destroying habitat and creating conditions such as melting ice that will drive it further on its own. Our collectively growing obsession with reducing greenhouse gas emissions (climate-altering pollution) might slow the destruction, but more is necessary because we are too close to the critical point where species including ours might not avoid collapse in time to recover. 

 

As I’ve suggested before, the best option is to radically increase the total amount of habitat by reducing what we are currently consuming (in needs and waste). This will buy time for us and the other species we save to create barriers to further loss, including cleanup of waste such as that threatens to increase global warming. My simulations of such an approach provide insight into the attendant physical and social consequences that be used to craft a strategy for making them a reality and monitoring the results.

 

ABOVE: Summary of global variables after a reduction in consumption from 2021 to 2030. Reducing the amount of greenhouse of gases in the atmosphere to avoid more dangerous temperatures would need to occur soon. 

A Pandemic-Altered Future

I have continued refining my simulations to account for the progress of the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential futures that might result from it. The strong correlation of carbon emissions and total consumption suggested that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration could be used to estimate total consumption; I would then project total consumption along with the ratio of needs to remaining resources based on population projections made from pandemic global death statistics and my simulation (Green Prime) of population without the pandemic.

A curve fit of carbon dioxide concentration and total consumption automatically factored in the effects of natural contributors and the cumulative aspect of consumption and extracted the resulting consumption, as shown below.

I updated projections using weekly mean concentration and the average difference between Green Prime population and total deaths from COVID-19. The current projections are shown below.

Despite the apparent convergence of deaths toward a maximum beginning in May, the projected population (“R Projected”) suggested a much different situation. This was perhaps due to an excess of deaths by people who couldn’t be treated for life-threatening conditions other than the virus, or it was due to underlying growth in the virus-related deaths, or both, but it convinced me to continue allowing the possibility of greater growth in deaths as shown in today’s population projections below.

Projecting global variables into the future based on current data shows that the virus would result in one year less of survival for our species, as shown below.

Reducing per-capita consumption (ecological footprint) would still extend our remaining time, although temperature would continue to rise. The following graph shows one such scenario: a 2% annual drop until just needs are being met.

Another option is to freeze consumption at peak happiness and life expectancy as shown below. This would result in temperature exceeded the 2-degree Celsius threshold earlier, which would likely force a decrease in population.

Bridging the Future

Shortly after discovering that constant capacity (total ecological resources) provided a better fit to historical data by my Timelines model than my baseline simulation (“Green”) that decreased it, the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to significantly change the world’s population-consumption trajectory on its own. 

The model has two main purposes: to help people judge how to live their values and understand the effects of doing so; and to identify ways to avoid humanity’s extinction. Simple curve-fits to world deaths from the pandemic suggested that, left unchecked, it could result in extinction by August of next year. I knew enough biology to dismiss that as highly unlikely, but it would almost certainly result in a population peak, and close to the time that my new simulation (Green’) was indicating.

  

ABOVE: Projections of population for simulation Green’ and with projected COVID-19 deaths (as of March 31, 2020). Unchecked deaths would result in extinction, a population of zero, by day 560 (August 3, 2021).

If the new population reached its peak on schedule around September 1, 2020, and then synchronized with the Green’ population projection, the net deaths would be the difference between the values of the two peaks. The virus would essentially wipe out the gain in population since mid-2019 that appears at the resolution of weeks instead of years.

ABOVE: Global variables projected for simulation Green’ at mid-year 2000-2050.

If the average population and per-capita consumption stay at the 2019 values from 2020-2021 (to crudely account for reduced activity as well as population), the model projects that extinction will occur one year earlier than otherwise, as shown below.

Looking ahead toward how to achieve the primary goal of avoiding extinction, the prescription remains the same as before: reduce per-capita consumption as soon as possible while maintaining constant population. A 2% annual reduction from 2021-2062 would keep the global temperature anomaly below the catastrophic level until 2100, as shown below.

Doubling the decrease in per-capita consumption until only basic needs are met, as shown below, adds another 50 years to the time when the maximum temperature is reached.

Note that these projections reflect my personal valuing of human life. Letting population decrease instead would keep per-capita consumption at an arbitrarily higher level, even though the economy would likely drop more (because it depends strongly on the number of transactions, which varies with the square of population).

Social Cohesiveness

The differences in experiences between people in a group can provide some insight into the cohesiveness of the group as a society, which recently has appeared to be decreasing. Action phases provide a measure of those differences, which correspond to different ranges of global variables that can be loosely associated with roles and experiences in the manipulation and distribution of resources throughout the population. The total range of phases has tended to expand throughout history, as shown below for the simulation “Green.” 

If the world of this simulation as a whole was experienced by a single person, that person would follow the World phase trajectory in the graphs. This is considerably different from the average person (the green line marking the 50% trajectory) and the person with the highest phase (the red line). Those people in the 10% with the lowest phases are the most different from the rest of the population, now occupying five of the seven phases where people can be found.

Global variables projected for the end of this month are shown below for the range of phases as it will exist then. The obvious phases people would want to occupy are 4 and 6 based on life expectancy and happiness, but the expansion of the range of phases caused by the reduction of unconsumed resources is forcing everyone higher - toward the dropping population that follows a maximum phase of 8 and a world phase of 6. The graph shows half the population above phase 7, with no happiness or life expectancy (for children born in that group), which will surely be a major event for the simulated world it inhabits.

To the extent that the simulation coincides with our real world on which it is historically based, the changes in life expectancy and population growth will be observable here on a global scale, although individual nations will vary based on their resources, consumption, and interactions with each other. 

With so much at stake, it would be unsurprising see social fragmentation of the population into three groups: the one-sixth of the population that benefits from increasing consumption; the half that is being driven toward death; and the remaining one-third that is suffering catastrophic loss of happiness and life expectancy. Such fragmentation would have a strong economic component, since the one-sixth that wants more consumption owns four-fifths of the world’s wealth, and that wealth tends to increase with consumption.

Termination

In early 2014, people in the simulated worlds I call "Green" and "Hikeyay" began entering the Termination phase, and external impacts started to drive available resources down. Green is what I consider the best match to our real world, and Hikeyay is the world portrayed in my fictional Simulated News blog. Termination is marked statistically by high age and no life expectancy, ending in the Death phase a few years later. 

By early 2020, half of Green's population will be in the Termination phase, and people will be in the Death phase by 2026. I chose a different path for Hikeyay by essentially reversing the drivers of extinction: stopping population growth; reducing per-capita consumption; and using technology to eliminate both waste and the external impacts. The timing of Hikeyay's global strategy (especially the new version that was recently "approved") is determined by the simulations, which are based on correlations between variables and trends identified in the historical record, and is consistent with recommendations from people who have studied the range of possibilities in far greater depth than I have.

I have been attempting to add higher resolution to the simulations that could ideally guide actions by groups and individuals to reduce the number of people in the Termination phase (from whatever that number might actually be). The results are being presented in all my venues – especially this blog, the Simulated News blog, Twitter posts, and Patreon posts. 

For example, since my last post here I have identified two major groups within the global population whose constant merging may help to explain political preferences within the actual population: one of them embodies the past and the other embodies the future; and their relative population sizes tantalizingly correspond in percentage to those of U.S. conservatives and liberals. I have also derived population-level phases and how many people might be supported in each nation if the world has a healthy overall phase distribution determined by total consumption. 

Just recently, I had an insight into the interactions between people in different phases that prompted a new way of visualizing their relative amounts of population and consumption. It is based on the trading of resources from high to low phases that best matches historical data, and accounts for the counterintuitive observation that those people who consume the most have the highest ratio of natural resources to resources used for basic needs (are at the lowest phase). Essentially: the majority in settled territory is converting raw resources to processed resources, and trading them with "colonizers" who are exploring and preparing new territory and its resources that are becoming so scarce that they will become processors right after people begin entering the Death phase at the population peak (five years from now in simulated world Green).

C-low

A new simulation ("C-low") using my updated Timelines model holds annual population change equal to the historical raw death rate while reducing per-capita consumption so that by 2040 no one is in the decline or termination phases as shown in the following graphs. As before, external ecological impacts such as climate change are taken into account along with our affect on them until that point, after which the impacts will need to have been stopped to avoid disaster.

By comparison, the "Hikeyay" simulation used for the Simulated News blog includes a population rate based on estimated population loss due to age that is more than four times the historical death rate to achieve a lower maximum phase (5.4 vs. 6.0). The best we can do to reduce total consumption, using the current death rate and a final per-capita consumption that allows for basic survival only (simulation "C-min"), results in a maximum phase that is just a little larger than Hikeyay (5.6).

The model's improved evaluation of economic variables, now including the observation that money flows from high phase to low phase – which the previous observation of flow from small to large per-capita consumption very closely approximates – confirms that wealth inequality is still a problem regardless of what approach we take. Our present inequality (the ratio of maximum to minimum wealth per person) is still the highest: about nine times C-low and Hikeyay in 2040; and about eight-thousand times C-min in 2040.

I am inclined to claim that I misjudged the fraction of the population dying due to age in the Hikeyay simulation, and favor the C-low simulation instead. In that case, per-capita consumption would need to decrease by 3.75% per year until external impacts stop (resources stop becoming unavailable for consumption). If impacts continue past 2040, restarting population growth will become progressively harder, and basic needs will not be supportable after 2050, virtually ensuring the extinction we are trying to avoid.

A Brief History of Simulated Wealth

About sixteen hundred years ago, people on average began consuming more than what nature had allocated to meet their basic needs. At that point, personal wealth switched from depending on access to people to depending on access to resources. This enabled wealth to flow to fewer people who could trade and consume more resources. Extraction of resources increased environmental degradation which made fewer resources available for trade (the difference being "waste"). Perhaps as soon as 2025 there will be more waste than what people consume for basic needs, and more people will die than are being born. With fewer resources and fewer people, wealth will become more evenly distributed until everyone is dead. 

That scenario is based on a simulation of civilization, with a likely future where people do not work to reduce waste that is increasing faster than they are creating it (such as greenhouse gases that by amplifying climate extremes and chaos are making more of the world uninhabitable). In an alternative future projected by the fictional denizens of the simulated world "Hikeyay" featured in my Simulated News blog, total consumption is humanely forced down until 2040 so natural ecosystems can assist fighting climate change, resulting in wealth being cut to 1/6 of its starting value this year and wealth inequality dropping by more than half while waste is totally removed. Waste could come back with a vengeance if its external sources aren't disabled, but the means of stopping it cannot be done with wealth compensation if additional consumption is to be avoided.

The inherent dependency of wealth on per-capita consumption and transactions (proportional to the square of population) is also true of economic activity (embodied in gross domestic product) both as an observation and as a fundamental aspect of any economy. If everyone is consuming the same amount, such as meeting their basic needs, people's economic activity and wealth (the amount of resources being exclusively used) will vary with differences in population between groups. If people are consuming different amounts of resources (such as when consumption exceeds basic needs), then those who have the most resources (as wealth) will be at the focus of the most activity.

Performing functions such as removing waste would undoubtedly require some consumption of resources to create, deploy, and maintain any technologies involved. Offsetting existing consumption is one way to avoid this problem, which governments traditionally accomplish by collecting taxes and ensconcing wealth as capital "owned" by its citizens that cannot be traded by them. Other species (as our species once did) perform many such functions as part of meeting their basic needs, and as "resources" meeting the basic needs of others, therefore making that work and its results essentially free. Using other species in this way is ideal if we are to limit our consumption, while using institutions such as government is justifiable only until existing consumption can no longer be offset, such as when taxes keep citizens from meeting their basic needs. 

In the admittedly unlikely future of Hikeyay, people will work together to improve the scope and health of natural ecosystems while reducing their personal consumption and population to what can be maintained with the amount of available resources projected for 2040 by a coordinating institution that collects and processes observations from around the world. In the worst case, externally increasing waste is unstoppable and people end up barely meeting their basic needs until diminishing resources crash the population. In the best case, a stable population consumes the same amount per person as the world did around 1920. This is what I see as the best case for us too.

BELOW: L = life expectancy, h = happiness, Fert = fertility, Cum P = cumulative population, World P = world population, R = total consumption, Cap = capacity, C = per-capita consumption. Year of plot indicates associated phase with dark triangle below x-axis.

Focus on the Future

The fictional "world like ours" portrayed in the Simulated News blog is about to execute a global strategy for confronting a threat of imminent global extinction that was confirmed nearly seven months ago. Definitions of the threat and the strategy have evolved along with my progress in simulating the future and evaluation of options for making it better than the alternative that we are living.

Our real-world trajectory is bleak, as any open-minded perusal of recent scientific research on climate and ecology will attest. Timelines for action to limit mass death of people and members of other species are converging on the period that my simulations have identified, along with a similar scale of effort. 

Humanity's extinction, which results from all of my simulations if action isn't taken, is generally considered an extreme worst-case scenario by mainstream science, and taken as an article of faith by a growing minority that is focused on what I call "self-sustained feedbacks" (such as the melting of permafrost and polar ice, and the decimation of species at the base of ocean and land food chains). Global catastrophe involving sizable fractions of the world population by the middle of this century is a likely alternative outcome, which can at best (with current capabilities, as I understand the literature) be delayed until the end of this century. 

The apparent dependency on available ecological resources of population (among other variables) modeled by my simulations has yet to be proven as more than a strong correlation. Demographic transition is the generally accepted explanation for the observed changes, involving reduced fertility in response to better economic conditions that are notably a reward – if not the goal – of dominating our natural environment. Both explanations logically ascribe a peak in population to a peak in economic activity (which I model as a function of a group's population and total consumption – essentially the trades of resources). A decline in economic activity would naturally accompany a reduction in resources that can be traded; and people (traders) dying from harmful environmental conditions, reduced resources, or both. Population loss is effectively inevitable; the main uncertainty lies in how soon and how much.

Probability is not destiny. As individuals and as groups we can take actions that will alter the trajectories of our lives toward something better, however we choose to define that. Alteration does not ensure success, but it changes the probability. I personally define success as, at a bare minimum, extending the survival of our species – and the species it depends on – for as long as possible; beyond that, "better" includes minimizing pain and suffering for as many people as possible, and extending to the affects of our actions on other non-human lives. My writing and research related to this topic are part of a set of personal actions intended to increase the probability of success.

In the imaginary world that I call "Hikeyay," representing one of several simulations resulting from my research and the subject of the Simulated News blog, the overwhelming majority of the global population has chosen to reduce their personal consumption and let the population decline naturally by not replacing those who die from old age until it is almost too late to maintain a constant level. Activities are focused on putting the drivers of extinction in reverse: creating habitat, controlling invasive species, cleaning up pollution, and eliminating over-harvesting of "resources" that largely include members of other species. Gaps in capability will be filled by the development and deployment of technology, especially relating to pollution and self-sustained impacts. 

Hikeyay's global strategy is based on success as I define it, taken to an extreme that is unlikely in our world but dictated by the logic of the model on which it is based. The inhabitants readily admit (as my proxies) that the intended end-state is a very unlikely, even with their civilization's extraordinary level of commitment. The effort will, in the worst case, buy time that they wouldn't otherwise have to live, and do so according to their values. I believe their example is worthy of emulation to the extent possible in this world.

A Simulated World

Last week I started a new blog, Simulated News, as a thought experiment to explore how a world like ours might implement the lessons of my Timeline model's simulations. The blog is formatted as a set of news articles relating to the development of a global strategy to deal with the threat of imminent extinction as it might occur in real time. 

There are lots of similarities and some marked differences between the simulated world and ours. Relevant ones are described in a "Reality Check" section in each post, along with some of my rationale for making choices about how events unfold. The greatest difference, besides adherence to my simulation of global variables, is the overall buy-in of national leaders to the crisis as I've chosen to define it: as a consequence of our accelerating the extinction of other species. Although climate change plays a critical role, it is not the overall focus. Another big difference is that all countries are bound by law and desire to devote all necessary resources to address the threat as existential and immediate.

In some respects, this effort resembles what I did in my Universe X micro-fiction, but it is limited to one "alternative universe" rather than snippets from multiple ones. It is not a narrative like my other fiction, with a movie-like progression of action; though I am inventing characters, settings, and events much like I have done before, but tied to the structure of a simulation even more than my novel Lights Out.

The simulation includes an updated feature, tied to and informed by the new theoretical consumption model. Sustained global warming is a possibility that could force extinction regardless of what people do in the short time they have to act, and I now have some projected effects that can be explored in detail. Unlike many people in our real world, the leaders of the simulated world are willing to accept the nature of that added threat and act accordingly.

Real-world issues are mentioned and will be discussed, such as how people might limit population and consumption to the point of allowing them to shrink without causing them to collapse prematurely. I see that discussion as being one of the potential benefits of the exercise, within the context of a fictional world where feelings and facts can be respectfully and safely exposed and examined. The model's insights into population dynamics, coupled with study of history and my own opinions, will inform some of the answers I suggest, but they are only a starting point for discussions of these issues which I expect real people will increasingly face every day in one way or another.

Future Cases

For several months now I have used Twitter (@bradjarvis) to react in real time to news that impacts the timing and quality of the survival of our species. My Timelines model has been gradually updated and tested in response to what I've learned and decided was worth exploring in more detail. So far, it seems to be very robust, and like any good tool of its kind is generating as many questions as it answers.

The most useful variable for tracking our past and future survival continues to be what I've called the "species ratio"Sratio, which compares the consumption of resources needed for basic survival by humans to that of other life that can be used as resources. Based on extrapolation of historical statistics, I estimate that Sratio is currently 51% (about 1:2, or one-half). Population tracks with Sratio, nearly-symmetrically rising to a peak at 54% and falling back down to zero at 117%. The peak will likely be reached in 2020 and hit zero in 2038 if Sratio continues to increase after that. I have seen no evidence to suggest that the timing of these events will be markedly different from what I expect.

As I've said before, one of the main functions of a model is to identify what it would take to change projected outcomes, and our extinction is an outcome that definitely needs to be changed. One such solution is a "Fix" which would have started six months ago and involved slowing total consumption (population times per-capita consumption) enough to keep Sratio from forcing population past its peak. Not surprisingly, the Fix wasn't implemented, which has made the required changes more drastic but theoretically not impossible – that point will be reached when we actually reach the peak.

Unfortunately the specter of self-perpetuating climate change due to climate feedbacks has grown in both probability and magnitude. This threatens to decrease the amount of resources available for future consumption, with the effect of driving Sratio higher regardless of what we do. Scientists focusing strictly on global warming have concluded that total emissions of greenhouse gases must decrease to have any chance of avoiding such a scenario, which means that a "fix" isn't good enough: we must decrease our consumption rather than keep it from growing. I and others have advocated this in terms of overall ecological impact (which is equivalent to what I call "consumption"), which would have the benefit of enabling other species to enable recovery by reducing the stress on their survival. 

There are at least two problems with the option of reducing consumption. One problem is the risk of increasing global warming and triggering more climate feedbacks as a result of decreasing air pollution because some of it reflects radiation from the Sun. The second problem is that population might decrease in response to people's reduced consumption, especially if it is forced (resulting in violent resistance) and/or today's life-saving technology is not replaced with a less ecologically impactful equivalent. In the first case, Sratio would be driven higher; and in the second, the lower Sratio values would be roughly matched with the historically lower values of population.

In my opinion it would ideal if everyone in the world would be willing to do whatever is necessary for our species to survive, even if it involves valuing the lives of others as much as their own and alllives more than power and property. This is ideal in large part because it would run counter to what it's taken for humanity to dominate the world to the extent it has. Competition practiced by a majority of people has been accompanied by a perception of other people and other creatures as resources – things to be used (consumed) for one's own benefit – and is this is unlikely to change at any time, especially in the short time we have available to adapt to the new world that we and our ancestors created. It is ideal for another reason: humans have a great capacity for self-delusion; this includes faith that something or someone else (new technologies or a parent figure such as a group leader or a hypothetical creator of the Universe who cares about us more than all others) will save us from any major threats to our preferred ways of life.

Because the history and future depends on the actions of individual people, I've refined my model to tease out how people in a population under given circumstances perceive their world and act within it. Intellectually this is just interesting, but it also has the potential for identifying how to influence people to take appropriate action for the survival of their population. Part of this process has been the identification of twelve groups of people within a population who each have basic characteristics and behaviors that can be compared to real people both as a test of the model and as a potentially helpful thought experiment. As I prepare a book that combines the related things I've learned with what I hope to learn, these twelve groups ("samples") are expected to figure prominently as they evolve over time in runs of the model that I think of as alternative universes or timelines. 

On Twitter I have already rolled out some of my thoughts and observations in this effort, including a preliminary approach to identifying expression of personality types among samples in the model's best approximation of our present world ("Timeline 2"). For example, one promising hypothesis is that each sample has a unique viewpoint shaped by the changes of variables as a function of changes in effort (enabled by, and measured as, basic consumption), what I'm calling focus, and that the Big Five personality dimensions find their expression based on that focus. If this hypothesis is correct, then neuroticism varies more than any other dimension with effort, being most affected by the resources available for meeting what people want instead of need in a totally natural environment.

Another example is an exploration of the effects of changes in the distribution of happiness over a population. Since happiness is primarily dependent on Sratio, increasing the population's total consumption creates more variability of happiness within the population which could be an indicator of conflict. As a minimum, it is reasonable to expect that frustration would become widespread as a larger number of people experiencing high neuroticism discover that more effort decreases instead of increases their happiness (the model projects that one-fourth of the world population is currently in that situation).

Cutting per-capita consumption by nearly half to what it was in the 1920s without changing population would restore the happiness distribution to what was in 2002, right before it reached its maximum and started to drop for those expending the most effort. It would have the added benefit of total impact on the planet equivalent to what it was in 1970 when humanity was consuming only what Nature could spare without harm. I have no idea whether these benefits would be sufficient motivation to make such a change (even if my analysis could be proved to everyone's satisfaction), but just the possibility is a valuable insight provided by the model. 

Implementation of this scenario is subject to the concerns about reducing consumption that I mentioned earlier, which implies to me that, if undertaken, it should be done as soon as possible – no more than the 19 years it would take for us to otherwise go extinct - to get the most gain from assistance by other species. In the worst case, it would buy us some time (a rough estimate is 15 years); while in the best case we could avert catastrophe altogether. If the model is right, and my analysis of it is right, then we will soon be forced to make a choice between taking this risky approach and being forced to take even more casualties without hope of recovery.

Values Realized

What we want out of life comes at the expense of Nature. This fact drives our relationships with each other and the other species we share the planet with, as well as how long and how many of us can survive.

No matter what group or groups we might be part of, we are all part of one group: the human species. The number of people in that largest group, its population, has been growing since the beginning of civilization, reflecting the value we collectively place on people. Like other animals, each of us requires a minimum amount of resources to survive, so the amount of resources we consume increases with how many of us there are. Since the populations of other species use or embody much of those same resources, the resources must be shared over time for the system of life to last as long as possible.

Most of us would prefer to live long and healthy lives. Because sharing resources is so critical, and we embody resources that other species can use for food, extending our lifetimes reduces the amount of resources available to other life during the time they are needed by those other species. Thanks in large part to our ability to develop and share knowledge and skills, and translate those things into material objects that can accelerate the process, we have enabled more people to live past birth and to thwart more of other species' attempts to consume us. As a result, we have increased consumption and more than tripled the average amount of time people can expect to live from birth (life expectancy) since the beginning of civilization.

We would all like to have satisfying lives. Happiness means different things to different people, but statistically it tends to increase with consumption in much the same way as life expectancy. This can be interpreted to mean that it is an expression of how well people are able to match their lifestyles to their personal preferences, which is enabled by economies that distribute resources among people through trade. Economic activity, which is easier to measure than happiness and tied more directly to consumption, is therefore often used as a proxy for happiness.

The Timelines model projects that, if we live like people in the simulated scenario Timeline 2, then global population, life expectancy, and happiness will reach their maximum average values between 2020 and 2022. The good news is that most people will get to see the pinnacle of human achievement, even though it won't feel good for half of them. The bad news is that life expectancy and happiness will reach zero for everyone between 2029 and 2030, and no one will be left alive by 2038.

Since Timeline 2 has 82% of its recent history in common with ours, it makes sense to use it as a baseline for discussion of the future. The values of population, life expectancy, and happiness are all dependent on what fraction of remaining resources people minimally consume: as the fraction grows, the values grow until the fraction reaches about 57%, falling to zero for fractions larger than that. 

If we don't want the values to drop (especially for population), then it makes sense to keep the population below its peak (affecting minimal consumption) and our additional consumption from growing (affecting the remaining resources). This is the logic behind the Fix timeline. We could alternatively let events unfold without intervention and hope that people will not overshoot the peaks; but if they do, that the apparent desire to consume more will be overcome by a desire to seek out the peaks, and they will voluntarily reduce their consumption to reach the peaks again.

The Fix and the "wait-and-seek" strategies include an implicit assumption that depletion of remaining resources is totally within people's control. The depletion beyond the economic equivalent of renewable products and services provided by other species is largely due to harm and killing of the species that provide them, and harm to species that those species depend on for survival. Those effects are caused by the same drivers as extinction: habitat loss, alteration of ecosystems by invasive species, pollution, use of common resources by the human population, and direct killing due to hunting and over-harvesting. Pollution in particular is having a greater role by changing the climate, whose predictability all species (including us) depend on for a variety of deep biological reasons, not the least of which being growth of plant life needed for food and oxygen production. When changes people make to the environment lead to cascades of changes that are self-reinforcing (positive feedback), then depletion multiplies beyond control.

In Timeline 2, the "waste" component of consumption (consumption in addition to basic needs and wants) accelerates its increase while population drops after the population peak. This may indicate that during that period it will be self-sustaining. If so, perhaps the significance of the population peak – and maybe the others – is that humans in Timeline 2 have a biological self-destruct trigger that activates when their actions initiate uncontrolled collapse of the biosphere they depend on for survival. The Fix timeline would therefore be impossible without some extremely powerful, and as-yet nonexistent, technology that could repair the damage as it occurs.

Another timeline diverged from ours and Timeline 2 in 1939. World War II was averted there, resulting in slower development of technology and science. The same desires and constraints existed, however, and the population peak was only delayed another 60 years...