I think the tables in the âConcrete exampleâ subsections of Case 1 and Case 2, and the surrounding text, ignore that you expect the initially surviving population in a collapse scenario âwould shrink to a group of 10â100 million survivors during a period of violent competition for surviving goods in grocery stores/âdistribution centers, food stocks, and fresh water sourcesâ
This might suggest we should be more uncertain/âpessimistic than you claim
Though I donât know if this would leave us very pessimistic, given that the corresponding table in Case 3 assumes a population of 800,000, and seems to still indicate that the (relatively direct) extinction risk would be fairly low
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The above-mentioned tables show how likely it is that extinction would occur if the people who survive the initial catastrophe are split into groups of various sizes. Then you write things like:
If you thought every single one of 400 groups of 10 million people [for a total of 4 billion people] had a 99% chance of being wiped out, you would still only think there was a 1.7% chance of extinction. And, to hold that belief, youâd have to think that despite having extremely large populations (larger than any US city), none of those people would be able to work out how to practice very basic farming or fishing, or that none of them would survive conflict within the group, or that a natural disaster would kill all of them. Personally, I find this view implausible.
But you elsewhere indicate that you yourself think the initial population of 4b would be reduced to 10m-100m as a result of conflict for resources. This implies you think thereâs a ~98.75% ([4b â 50m] /â 4 b) chance that any given individual would die during that conflict period. (That could mean a ~98.75% chance that any given group is wiped out, or a substantial chance that any given group will be substantially reduced in size, possibly to below the MVP.) This seems to clash with you suggesting that this view is implausible.
And the mechanism you had in mind seems to have been conflict between groups (but maybe also within?), rather than e.g. no one working out how to farm or fish.
So it seems to me like it could perhaps be more intuitive to structure the reasoning as:
To what size would conflict for resources after the catastrophe reduce the global population?
How likely is it that, once the population is reduced to that size and an âequilibriumâ is reached, that population would be wiped out or reduced to below the MVP by various problems (e.g., failure to learn to farm or fish, intragroup conflict, and natural shocks)?
It seems like the table is intended to be about something like 2, in which case it should perhaps use a starting population of 10m-100m (rather than 4b and 800m, for Cases 1 and 2, respectively).
tl;dr for this comment:
I think the tables in the âConcrete exampleâ subsections of Case 1 and Case 2, and the surrounding text, ignore that you expect the initially surviving population in a collapse scenario âwould shrink to a group of 10â100 million survivors during a period of violent competition for surviving goods in grocery stores/âdistribution centers, food stocks, and fresh water sourcesâ
This might suggest we should be more uncertain/âpessimistic than you claim
Though I donât know if this would leave us very pessimistic, given that the corresponding table in Case 3 assumes a population of 800,000, and seems to still indicate that the (relatively direct) extinction risk would be fairly low
---
The above-mentioned tables show how likely it is that extinction would occur if the people who survive the initial catastrophe are split into groups of various sizes. Then you write things like:
But you elsewhere indicate that you yourself think the initial population of 4b would be reduced to 10m-100m as a result of conflict for resources. This implies you think thereâs a ~98.75% ([4b â 50m] /â 4 b) chance that any given individual would die during that conflict period. (That could mean a ~98.75% chance that any given group is wiped out, or a substantial chance that any given group will be substantially reduced in size, possibly to below the MVP.) This seems to clash with you suggesting that this view is implausible.
And the mechanism you had in mind seems to have been conflict between groups (but maybe also within?), rather than e.g. no one working out how to farm or fish.
So it seems to me like it could perhaps be more intuitive to structure the reasoning as:
To what size would conflict for resources after the catastrophe reduce the global population?
How likely is it that, once the population is reduced to that size and an âequilibriumâ is reached, that population would be wiped out or reduced to below the MVP by various problems (e.g., failure to learn to farm or fish, intragroup conflict, and natural shocks)?
It seems like the table is intended to be about something like 2, in which case it should perhaps use a starting population of 10m-100m (rather than 4b and 800m, for Cases 1 and 2, respectively).