In 1973 a Computer Predicted The End of The World
"Hopefully it won't be allowed to happen-"
Can someone tell me what the hell was going on in the late 90s?
These three movies, Dark City, The Truman Show, and The Matrix, all with the exact same gnostic story, came out back-to-back in '98 and '99. I was a little kid then, so I wasn't attuned to the zeitgeist, but looking back on it, it seems like something weird and nihilistic was happening in the culture.
There were other apocalyptic movies in ‘99 too like Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut, and Magnolia.
It's no wonder people were losing their minds over Y2k.
Below, I wanted to highlight three world ending predictions from the brightest minds to ever grace our planet: think Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking, and see if they had a point with it all coming to an end in the 20th century.
A 1970s computer predicted total collapse in 2040
In 1973 scientists at MIT dabbled in global sustainability with their computer model, World 3. What started as a fun, silly experiment turned eerie when the algorithm failed to see a future beyond 2040. Humanity had ended by then.
They published a book about their study called “The Limits of Growth."
MIT didn't even bother trying to predict iPhones, the internet, electric cars, 3D printing, cryptocurrency, or high-quality free porn. And who can blame them?
Instead, they adjusted the initial conditions of the algorithm and ran it over and over again. In some scenarios, they assumed innovation remained at a constant pace; in others, they predicted we had wild technological advances, and some we plateaued in industrial output. More parameters they considered were:
High birth rate vs. low birth rate
Environmental sustainability vs. little or none
High levels of global trade vs. low levels
In the scenario closest to our reality, we all die in 2040.
Will it happen? Idk. Probably not. One critic, Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg points out that while some of the fundamental ideas from "The Limits to Growth" still resonate, the alarmist and fear-inducing predictions have not stood the test of time:
The Limits of Growth got it so wrong because its authors overlooked the greatest resource of all: our own resourcefulness. Population growth has been slowing since the late 1960s. Food supply has not collapsed (1.5 billion hectares of arable land are being used, but another 2.7 billion hectares are in reserve). Malnourishment has dropped by more than half, from 35% of the world’s population to under 16%.
Nor are we choking on pollution. Whereas the Club of Rome imagined an idyllic past with no particulate air pollution and happy farmers, and a future strangled by belching smokestacks, reality is entirely the reverse.
The environment still needs to be taken care of.
But as for the world ending in 2040? Seems unlikely.
"2060:" Issac Newton
Isaac Newton believed in an Armageddon, which would occur no sooner than 2060 and afterward there would be a thousand-year rule of saints, of which he would be one.
Newton was also obsessed with alchemy to the point of nervous breakdown and fervently studied chronology and prophecy.
He died from eating mercury because he was trying to perfect his soul.
The guy was batshit, but more generally, I can't seem to find one case of a genius who isn't batshit. So yeah.
Come back in 2060 and we will see who was batshit.
Stephen Hawking: “We have 100 years left”
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking's dying plea was: "Humanity must colonize multiple planets within a century to avoid extinction."
His bleak warning cited climate change, overpopulation, deadly epidemics, and the dread of asteroid collisions as existential threats. Let’s examine them:
Overpopulation: The world is big enough to hold another 100 years’ worth of people. Plus, we'll have 100 years of new technology to help us grow food as scientists have pointed out. The question is, will we not be dumb enough to kill ourselves?
Epidemics: This is worth noting especially since we screwed up Covid-19.
Asteroid strikes: Why can't send Bruce Willis up there to blow it up? Fuck, we'll have 100 years worth of new technology.
Climate change: We're faced with a problem here, but the scale of it remains unknown.
Final Thoughts
Why December? Why not November or January? Hell, why not tomorrow?
What's remarkable is that despite a continuous stream of predictions regarding variously vague events at every date imaginable, literally nothing has been right.
It would be cool if major events coincided with easily discoverable patterns like astrology or numerology but in reality, there are millions of factors that influence global events and no one has the full picture or full control.
Guess we'll just have to sit on our asses and see.
I’m settled in Denver for the Winter back on a regular schedule, planning on Monday, Wednesday and a Paywall-tiered article for Friday. Have a nice weekend!
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I was listening to Catherine Austin Fitts on how they are taking more technology from the ground into space. I really do not think we are that smart in understanding the possible complications of surrounding the earth with spacecrafts. I also see food being an issue and I for one am not eating fake food or bugs knowingly.