Thanks for the perspective! I agree in part with your point about trusting the models while the perturbations they predict are small, but even then I’d say that there are two very different possibilities:
we can safely ignore real-world nonlinearities, cascading effects, etc., because the economic models suggest the perturbations are small.
the predicted perturbations are small because the economic models neglect key real-world nonlinearities and cascading effects.
As long as we think the second option is plausible enough, strong skepticism of the models remains justified. I don’t claim to know what’s actually the case here—this seems like a pretty important thing to work on understanding better.
I don’t understand 2. The neglected cascading effects have to cascade from somewhere. You are saying that the model could be missing an effect on the variables in its system from variables outside the system. But the variables outside the system you highlight are only going to be activated when the variables in the system are highly perturbed!
Forgetting the models for a second, if the only causal story to wars and mass migration that we can think of goes through high levels of economic disruption, then it is sufficient to see small levels of economic disruption and conclude that wars and mass migration are very unlikely.
I do not think that “small levels” is necessarily what we see—increased rates of natural disasters have really substantial effects on migration and could produce localized resource conflicts. But those don’t seem large scale enough to trigger global catastrophes.
Thanks for the perspective! I agree in part with your point about trusting the models while the perturbations they predict are small, but even then I’d say that there are two very different possibilities:
we can safely ignore real-world nonlinearities, cascading effects, etc., because the economic models suggest the perturbations are small.
the predicted perturbations are small because the economic models neglect key real-world nonlinearities and cascading effects.
As long as we think the second option is plausible enough, strong skepticism of the models remains justified. I don’t claim to know what’s actually the case here—this seems like a pretty important thing to work on understanding better.
I don’t understand 2. The neglected cascading effects have to cascade from somewhere. You are saying that the model could be missing an effect on the variables in its system from variables outside the system. But the variables outside the system you highlight are only going to be activated when the variables in the system are highly perturbed!
Forgetting the models for a second, if the only causal story to wars and mass migration that we can think of goes through high levels of economic disruption, then it is sufficient to see small levels of economic disruption and conclude that wars and mass migration are very unlikely.
I do not think that “small levels” is necessarily what we see—increased rates of natural disasters have really substantial effects on migration and could produce localized resource conflicts. But those don’t seem large scale enough to trigger global catastrophes.