{"id":1083,"date":"2009-06-03T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T04:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2009-06-03T00:00:24","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T04:00:24","slug":"carrying-capacity-the-big-picture-in-the-details","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/carrying-capacity-the-big-picture-in-the-details\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrying Capacity – the big picture in the details"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regarding Russ Hopfenberg\u2019s\u00a0article on population carrying capacity<\/a> Lawrence Espy and Bill Reese similarly replied to Steve Solmony that the model of population growth limited by the natural carrying capacity of the earth was too general.<\/p>\n

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Lawrence had pointed out \u2018carrying capacity\u2019 has many diverse natural system and artificial system parts, that evolve very differently and those differences need to be considered but were not. Bill similarly pointed out that many ecologists do not see \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d as a particularly useful term as the ecosystem (the species\u2019 environment) is constantly changing its \u2018productivity\u2019 and is never a fixed target.<\/p>\n

All agree with the basic premise that civilization\u2019s whole shaky house of cards will come tumbling down if we are unable to maintain the constant throughput of resources necessary. \u00a0I offered the following:<\/p>\n

Tuesday 6\/2\/09
\nLawrence & Bill,<\/p>\n

I think the way to tie the two kinds of potentials, the natural and artificial \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d limits of the earth is using the experience curves that indicate our own ability to leverage more and more of those potentials.<\/p>\n

That ability to find and invent more cheaper stuff increased for centuries, but is now decreasing, so there was a peak somewhere.<\/h3>\n
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 <\/p>\n

You can\u2019t just talk about it in generalities, as I think Bill\u2019s comment points out, so discussion should not overlook the micro-scale meaning of more general system \u201ccapacity\u201d or \u201cresponsiveness\u201d concepts, but for the whole earth the experience curves we can now draw seem to tell a dramatic story about when we went past that point of the earth\u2019s peak responsiveness to us.<\/p>\n

That point of diminishing returns for a growth curve is the inflection or neutral point (\u00b8\u00b8.o\u00b4 \u00af), where the second derivative goes from increasing to decreasing, and marks a major transition in the life of any whole system. It locates the point in time when increasing investment in expanding the system begins to result in diminishing opportunity and increasing costs and complications instead.<\/p>\n

Before that increasing investment produced multiplying returns of ever greater quality at ever lower cost, throughout the preceding extended history of the growth process.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a profound moment of changing direction, the end of a several hundred year long experience for modern economies, and a key piece of information about when a system should change what it is investing in. It\u2019s a \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d metric that is much easier to mathematically define too, and definitive for when a system should reverse its development directions.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also of much more consequence to know of that point when the compound growth of the system ends, it\u2019s \u201climit of growth\u201d than to know the ultimate asymptote of the same curve which is the whole system \u201ccarrying capacity\u201d. The limit of compound growth comes first, is one reason. The main reason is it\u2019s the clear moment of exceeding the earth\u2019s capacity for the system\u2019s growth without coming in conflict with its limits.<\/p>\n

I think once people acknowledge the concept we\u2019ll find that all the history curves show it, as with the end of exponential growth in real wages in ~1970 [http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/issues\/WWatch2009-econ-3.jpg]. There\u2019s also the whole eruption of ever larger and more urgent environmental crises, and lots of other things of that type.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I think the point at which growth actually collided with its limits was really ~1960. Naturally, from what we now know, our economies should have started their turn to self-sufficiency a good bit before then,\u2026 but we weren\u2019t conscious.<\/p>\n

Phil Henshaw \u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8.\u2022\u00b4 \u00af `\u2022.\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8
\nNY NY www.synapse9.com<\/p>\n

\u2014
\nMonday 6\/1\/09
\nSteven,<\/p>\n

I think the \u201cgenetic feedback\u201d theory seems to be just that organisms that destroy their environments don\u2019t prosper, which is true. Still it\u2019s an overstatement to say \u201cIt has been demonstrated that\u201d it \u201cis the mechanism by which species achieve ecological balance.\u201d The other main mechanism for achieving balance in systems is for the parts to be responsive, not unresponsive, to each other and to the conflicts that develop as they grow and collide with each other and each other\u2019s interests. That internal responsiveness is demonstrated in how none of our organs normally behave like cancers, for example. So, the default mechanism of achieving balance may be for the parts of an organism to act like cancers and result in death. Internal responsiveness as a way of achieving balance could be seen as the normal mechanism.<\/p>\n

True, the former is much the sense of the old neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, where survival is an accident of competitive struggle between systems bent on causing each other\u2019s demise. True also, that the more natural evidence based theory of evolution, employing learning and response by the parts, is slow in being accepted. The more natural theory acknowledges that individuals of all species are observed to actively learn about their environments and that this learning allows them to be responsive to conflict and avoid it, and succeed as a result. You see that active learning in the constant foraging and risk avoidance of most organisms, for example.<\/p>\n

Lots of kinds of growth systems, profit seeking mechanisms of a sort, become self-stabilizing by responding to the approach of conflict as being unprofitable, I guess you could say. They \u201cdo the math\u201d as it were. Our civilization\u2019s destructive conflict with nature is at the very least \u201cunprofitable\u201d in that sense, and if we were being sensible we\u2019d avoid the growing conflicts rather than blunder along clinging to denials in place of watching the real profit indicators for continuing a futile struggle.<\/p>\n

That other growth systems without central controls seem to respond to those signals just fine, is just a mystery of nature as an \u201cmost everywhere learning system\u201d. That\u2019s the evidence it seems. I think systems without brains manage to learn more easily than we do is the question. They don\u2019t have artificial worlds in their minds to clutter the signals coming from the real world. People tend to think the world is what they know and then go to lengths to ignore how the real and artificial worlds increasingly differ. That\u2019s not being responsive, and it does invite but not necessitate nature\u2019s default solution for achieving balance.<\/p>\n

Best,<\/p>\n

Phil Henshaw \u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8.\u2022\u00b4 \u00af `\u2022.\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8\u00b8
\nNY NY www.synapse9.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regarding Russ Hopfenberg\u2019s\u00a0article on population carrying capacity Lawrence Espy and Bill Reese similarly replied to Steve Solmony that the model of population growth limited by the natural carrying capacity of the earth was too general. Lawrence had pointed out \u2018carrying capacity\u2019 has many diverse natural system and artificial system parts, that evolve very differently and … Continue reading Carrying Capacity – the big picture in the details<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mail","category-econn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}