
Self-Defeating Prophecies - paulorlando
https://unintendedconsequenc.es/the-self-defeating-prophecy/
======
coldtea
> _The end of oil as a resource has been predicted many times over the past
> century, including 1909, 1937, 1945, 1966, 1972, 1980, and 2007. Each time,
> the end was paired with attempts to move industrial use to other fuel types.
> But with the exception of a few price shocks, the adjusted price of oil only
> slightly trends upward over the last 70 years. This, in spite of demand that
> definitely trends upward over the same period. Where is the end? Did the
> belief that oil use was going to end lead to new methods of exploration and
> production?_

Well, that and wars to get cheaper control of more oil resources (the cost of
which wars is not factored in to the cost of oil, as they're fought with
public money). Plus more effective extraction while piling externalities to
the environment, e.g. by fracking (the costs of which externalities is also
not factored in).

In the end, though, oil, is a finite resource.

~~~
acqq
> In the end, though, oil, is a finite resource.

Exactly. And it's not the only finite resource we depend on. And the "steady
growth", expected by effectively all of the economists and politicians, speeds
up the exhaustion of the resources (the amount of the resources thus used is
an "exponential function").

Worth considering this example:

"Bacteria in bottles -- Professor Albert A Bartlett"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73xdpoQFLQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73xdpoQFLQk)

Apparently, we've already past the point of using one half of all easily used
oil reserves. But, aren't we lucky, we've found whole "3 new bottles":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_shale_reserves)

It's worth watching the whole talk: "Dr Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic,
Population and Energy"

As he introduces it: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our
inability to understand the exponential function."

~~~
08-15
Actual bacteria in actual bottles grow exponentially only for a brief period.
The grow slows down to cubic, quadratic, linear as the limiting factors become
space, area on the bottom of the bottle, height of the culture. Frankly, I see
no value in a talk about a toy model that doesn't apply to the real world at
all.

~~~
acqq
> Actual bacteria in actual bottles grow exponentially only for a brief period

Exactly. Because the resources are limited. Then look at graph of the total
amount of energy that humanity uses:

[https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth104/node/1347](https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth104/node/1347)

Is that sustainable? The gedanken experiment is exactly to demonstrate
unsustainbility of “permanent growth” on which our politicians and economists
depend on, nothing more.

The question was: when will the single “bacteria” stop thinking “there’s so
much more space to grow”? At 11:59? At 11:58 when there’s 3/4ths of the bottle
still empty? Etc.

~~~
08-15
> Exactly.

So, the bottle wasn't half full at 11:59. What was the guy's point again?

> Is that sustainable?

I don't know. I can't predict the future any more than you can. But I can tell
you one thing: this is not exponential growth. Exponential curves don't have
bumps. I would guess this is the superposition of multiple logistic functions.

There is one thing, though, that is sustainable for at least 4 billion years:
15 billion people who consume as much energy as Americans do today. (compare
[http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/](http://www-
formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/)) It doesn't look as if we'll ever reach 10
billion.

> “permanent growth” on which our politicians and economists depend on

Politicians don't, they just argue with it. Because if people demand more free
stuff and lower taxes, the only way to get reelected is to argue that a much
better future is just around the corner and borrow the money. That never
happens, of course, but thanks to inflation, anything expressed in money looks
as if did indeed grow exponentially, and everybody got their free lunch, and
taxes didn't get raised, but everybody is poorer for it somehow anyway.

But Economists... I don't know why anyone ever listens to them. Nobody else
can be so consistently wrong and still have such a devoted audience. When
Physicists are in an argument, they run an experiment and settle it.
Economists don't, they split into different schools who are all somehow right.
(There's a reason why there is no Nobel Prize for Economics.)

> when will the single “bacteria” stop thinking... At 11:58 when there’s
> 3/4ths of the bottle still empty?

Bacteria don't think, they grow as long as they have nutrients. The
exponential growth phase ends minutes into the experiment, as soon as the
bacteria form a clump through which nutrients can't diffuse during one
generation anymore. _Minutes_ from the _beginning_ of the experiment, not from
the end! That's why the beginning, and only the beginning, of a logistic curve
looks exponential.

Which means the bottle wasn't 1/4 filled at 11:58, it was 1/4 filled after
about 1/4 of the total time. Yes, the thought experiment is _this_ misleading,
and that's exactly why Bartlett talks about it but never runs it.

~~~
acqq
No, such detailed analysis of the way the actual bacteria grow is just a
distraction. His point is that the "steady growth" is not sustainable. Whereas
by analyzing how the actual bacteria behaves, we can easily see, as you say,
that the "steady growth" in nature is, unsurprisingly, not sustainable.

And the "thinking" bacteria is of course not what actually exists, it's a way
to try to let the listener compare that inevitability (the end of the "growth"
phase) with the state of the human society and the point of view of the
individual.

> Politicians don't, they just argue with it. Because if people demand more
> free stuff and lower taxes, the only way to get reelected is to argue that a
> much better future is just around the corner and borrow the money. That
> never happens, of course, but thanks to inflation, anything expressed in
> money looks as if did indeed grow exponentially, and everybody got their
> free lunch, and taxes didn't get raised, but everybody is poorer for it
> somehow anyway.

What is currently happening in the world is not coming out of the inflation,
but from the "steady growth" in the use of the natural resources. Which are
finite. Once it gets really tighter with the resources, it will really get
ugly and no "inflation" will be able to hide that fact. There will be less of
the actually available "stuff" and the "stuff" will be more expensive. Such
basic "stuff" as "food."

Think about it: "we managed to increase the agricultural output so predictions
of the increased hunger in the world didn't come true" etc. But how? Simply by
spending more hydrocarbon-stored energy to produce the food. Only: 1) the
stored hydrocarbon energy resources are limited. 2) We'll most probably
irreversibly destroy the atmosphere balance as we know it even before we use
up all the stored hydrocarbons. And the other effects are also easy to
imagine. "Steady growth" is simply not sustainable.

Once again:

[https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth104/sites/www.e-educati...](https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth104/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth104/files/Unit2/Mod8/Earth104Mod8fig4.png)

------
teddyh
Scott Adams has something he calls the “The Adams Law of Slow-Moving
Disasters”; i.e. if we can see a problem coming from far ahead, we’ve always
been able to fix it in time to avoid it.

* [http://blog.dilbert.com/2013/04/15/fact-checking-adams-law-o...](http://blog.dilbert.com/2013/04/15/fact-checking-adams-law-of-slow-moving-disasters/)

~~~
mikeash
I was going to use nuclear war as a counterexample, but I see that he is
somehow using it as a point in his favor. I find that very weird. We haven’t
done jack to fix that problem, it just hasn’t happened yet.

~~~
dantheman
There's been significant things done to stop nuclear war.

There are huge nonproliferation and counter-proliferation efforts going on.

~~~
sgt101
Which aren't working. Did you know that India now has a fleet of SBN's?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arihant-
class_submarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arihant-class_submarine)

------
jkingsbery
The term "self-defeating prophecy" implies that the prophecy itself is the
cause for it not being correct. A lot of the things mentioned in this article
just seem like incorrect predictions (or predictions where the cause isn't
obvious).

------
namuol
This reminds me of my favorite Yogi Berra-ism:

"People don't go there anymore; it's too crowded."

