Thoughtful and much needed predictions for our future as natural resources are further depleted, top soil gives way to desertification, our 3,000 times massive human overpopulation begins to crash from population density stress, the 6th extinction proceeds to the ends of the earth, estrangement from Nature makes us increasingly psychotic and "unhinged" from reality, the increasing (sic) burning of fossil fuels speeds heat energy accumulation in the biosphere, our hydrological AC is increasingly overwhelmed, formerly sequestered pathogens explode into areas occupied by humans and domestic animals, families become evermore fragmented from one diaspora after another, intellectual functioning is ever more neglected and relegated to the "technoworld", and Freud's "thanatos" predominates the psyche in the end times. Have a blessed day and think long and hard about bringing another innocent life to bear in a dying world.
Around 1900, many physicists predicted that physics would be "solved" within 25 years. We would know everything there was to know about the subject, and it would be done as an active science.
Then along comes Einstein with a quantized explanation of the photoelectric effect. Then special relativity. Then general relativity.
I'm unwilling to count out human ingenuity just yet.
And to think, we could have just kept on with that sustainable neolithic tech all along, without all that civilizational boom and bust to wind up back where we started. Had to learn the hard way, I guess.
Imagining the future is such a fun exercise! Here's my attempt.....In 2050, The Gulf Stream, which had been slowing for decades, stops...Cuba, which had its first freezing day in recorded history in January 2026, becomes temperate while Europe freezes as the new glaciers begin to creep southward...Paris, as far north as Montreal, is virtually abandoned by 2100...99% of the world's remaining population, about 30 million, has moved into southern latitudes, where many smaller groups of farmers and hunters can survive comparably to 11,000 BCE...A tiny elite settled in bases near the poles of Mars, before rocket technology became untenable, and is struggling to survive with the assistance of alien technology...Certain alien races, which had visited Earth many times earlier in the cycle, use advanced genetic technology to transition those humans into hybrids which they allow to travel to and settle in planets many light years away from our solar system...Earth itself becomes a protected planet whose population gradually creates a civilization comparable to 17th century Europe...
Which the Gulf Stream is a key part of..."Yes, scientific evidence indicates the Gulf Stream system—specifically the broader Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—has weakened by approximately 15% since the mid-20th century. It is currently at its slowest rate in over 1,000 years" per AI
Alternative: there are lots of things in this world that we cannot explain , and study of these reveals alternatives to our current energy and resource bases are possible . I think that plenty of breakthroughs have been made in science and hidden to avoid the status quo being disturbed . The obvious presence of visits from UFO's is an indicator of this . The climate has changed for millennia without our input and that will continue . We are the problem and the solution....
Tonight, I showed my philosophy club 3 of the 18 videos Tom Murphy made on the topic of Metastatic Modernity. The responses were predictable. Those who were already collapse aware had supportive comments to add. A couple of people found some provocative food for thought. And the techno diehards decided that energy decline is impossible because they wouldn't like that. Of course the techno diehards are engineers, scientists, and a mathematician, so full of themselves and their lifelong contributions to tech that they are sure that magical thinking works. They forgot that Tom Murphy is an astrophysicist emeritus and that I am retired from a career in high tech. Go figure.
Civilizational Contraction and the Long-Term Human Trajectory: Energy, Complexity, and Probabilistic Limits
Independent Researcher
Vermont, USA
January 25, 2026
For most of human history, the cosmos was a myth.
For a brief window, our window, it becomes legible.
And then the window closes, forever.
Abstract
Industrial-technological civilization has enabled unprecedented material, scientific, and cultural achievements. Prevailing narratives often assume indefinite growth or spacefaring expansion. This paper presents a STEM-grounded thesis: gradual civilizational contraction followed by eventual extinction represents the most probable long-term human trajectory. Constraints include declining energy return on investment (EROI), material and ecological limits, diminishing returns to societal complexity, declining rates of "disruptive breakthroughs", and sociopolitical fragility. Temporal Copernican reasoning, specifically J. Richard Gott’s Δt argument, further disfavors extremely long-lived or spacefaring futures. Using quantitative analysis incorporating probabilistic weighting, the probability of sustained spacefaring civilization is estimated at ~20%, while contraction leading to extinction exceeds ~80%. AGI/ASI may temporarily extend peak complexity, but cannot overcome fundamental physical and systemic constraints. Even breakthroughs in fission or fusion energy are unlikely to change this outcome. Humanity’s significance lies in its brief achievement of scientific understanding, not in survival or cosmic expansion.
Excellent essay and really quite plausible in many in my opinion. However, one thing that I almost never see addressed in these types of thought experiments is how human communities will shape up as we move further into scarcity. We lived a tribal existence until quite recently when abundant fossil fuels allowed for high mobility, while the economic system encouraged migration.
Before the fossil-fuel age, society relied on shared norms, trust, and collective obligations, because there simply wasn’t surplus energy to build elaborate substitutes. The sharp rise in surplus energy allowed societies to externalize or mechanize many functions, essentially creating prostheses for what used to be mediated at the level of custom and norm. Surely the scaling-down of industrial civilization will bring back to the fore the matter of social cohesion and trust. And we tend to trust those with whom we have a shared culture, language, history, etc. Do you see a retrenching along more traditional ethnic/cultural lines as being a part of that process, and do we have any role in guiding that process?
My thought is that creating less cohesive and less homogenous societies right at the moment we will be needing to tap into stores of communal fabric is tremendous folly.
To survive, people will need to live in high trust socities, thus the return of the ethno-state. It sure is nice to give free stuff to billions of people in the third world, but now that the first world is under serious strain and the fat of the land is gone, I see brutal re-entrenchments coming.
Well. For an imagined future based on real trends, it's rather bracing. I've been saying to myself and others close to myself, that I'm glad I'm old-ish (65.5). No mention of AI...😄...well, that can't really be predicted can it? It is a wildcard I suppose, but in the end, does it matter, except possibly as another accelerant to bad outcomes. I hope there is hope...what else have we got at this point?
Given energy and raw material shortages, I suspect AI will no longer exist in a century, maybe sooner. Many will scoff at this, but the trends are irrefutable.
Seguramente dejará de existir cuando reviente la burbuja actual que se está creando con ella. Quizás aguante hasta 2030, pero bueno solo el tiempo nos lo confirmará. Solo una opinión.
I think you have rather hilariously overestimated what global warming will do as shown in the line “narrow habitable zones around the poles”. Even in absolute worst case scenarios the planet is not going to get hotter than the Jurassic which was a perfectly habitable biosphere over the entire planet (actually more habitable as the poles were a lovely temperate climate). I also doubt we will ever go back to using rocks if for no reason other than iron oxidizing bacteria concentrate big lumps of good iron ore quite fast (this was the main iron source for most of the post Roman period). Good article though.
Much food for thought here and that’s what I hate about dying. I will never know what really happens.
Thoughtful and much needed predictions for our future as natural resources are further depleted, top soil gives way to desertification, our 3,000 times massive human overpopulation begins to crash from population density stress, the 6th extinction proceeds to the ends of the earth, estrangement from Nature makes us increasingly psychotic and "unhinged" from reality, the increasing (sic) burning of fossil fuels speeds heat energy accumulation in the biosphere, our hydrological AC is increasingly overwhelmed, formerly sequestered pathogens explode into areas occupied by humans and domestic animals, families become evermore fragmented from one diaspora after another, intellectual functioning is ever more neglected and relegated to the "technoworld", and Freud's "thanatos" predominates the psyche in the end times. Have a blessed day and think long and hard about bringing another innocent life to bear in a dying world.
Professor Tom Murphy also looked into the long term future, with very similar predictions:
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/unsustainable-goose-chases/
Can't get the link to work in Chrome or Firefox right now. I'll try again later.
Around 1900, many physicists predicted that physics would be "solved" within 25 years. We would know everything there was to know about the subject, and it would be done as an active science.
Then along comes Einstein with a quantized explanation of the photoelectric effect. Then special relativity. Then general relativity.
I'm unwilling to count out human ingenuity just yet.
And to think, we could have just kept on with that sustainable neolithic tech all along, without all that civilizational boom and bust to wind up back where we started. Had to learn the hard way, I guess.
Imagining the future is such a fun exercise! Here's my attempt.....In 2050, The Gulf Stream, which had been slowing for decades, stops...Cuba, which had its first freezing day in recorded history in January 2026, becomes temperate while Europe freezes as the new glaciers begin to creep southward...Paris, as far north as Montreal, is virtually abandoned by 2100...99% of the world's remaining population, about 30 million, has moved into southern latitudes, where many smaller groups of farmers and hunters can survive comparably to 11,000 BCE...A tiny elite settled in bases near the poles of Mars, before rocket technology became untenable, and is struggling to survive with the assistance of alien technology...Certain alien races, which had visited Earth many times earlier in the cycle, use advanced genetic technology to transition those humans into hybrids which they allow to travel to and settle in planets many light years away from our solar system...Earth itself becomes a protected planet whose population gradually creates a civilization comparable to 17th century Europe...
It’s not the Gulf Stream that’s slowing down, but the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and other connected ocean current systems.
Which the Gulf Stream is a key part of..."Yes, scientific evidence indicates the Gulf Stream system—specifically the broader Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—has weakened by approximately 15% since the mid-20th century. It is currently at its slowest rate in over 1,000 years" per AI
Alternative: there are lots of things in this world that we cannot explain , and study of these reveals alternatives to our current energy and resource bases are possible . I think that plenty of breakthroughs have been made in science and hidden to avoid the status quo being disturbed . The obvious presence of visits from UFO's is an indicator of this . The climate has changed for millennia without our input and that will continue . We are the problem and the solution....
Well one future told. Now 999,999,999 more to go.
Intriguing!
Tonight, I showed my philosophy club 3 of the 18 videos Tom Murphy made on the topic of Metastatic Modernity. The responses were predictable. Those who were already collapse aware had supportive comments to add. A couple of people found some provocative food for thought. And the techno diehards decided that energy decline is impossible because they wouldn't like that. Of course the techno diehards are engineers, scientists, and a mathematician, so full of themselves and their lifelong contributions to tech that they are sure that magical thinking works. They forgot that Tom Murphy is an astrophysicist emeritus and that I am retired from a career in high tech. Go figure.
Peak flint decimates tribal trade as flint knappers have nothing but shards to work with.
I know I need to spend time on reading and digesting this. Probably the most important reading of the day
Yes and I actually finished reading it today. Have you read it?
Civilizational Contraction and the Long-Term Human Trajectory: Energy, Complexity, and Probabilistic Limits
Independent Researcher
Vermont, USA
January 25, 2026
For most of human history, the cosmos was a myth.
For a brief window, our window, it becomes legible.
And then the window closes, forever.
Abstract
Industrial-technological civilization has enabled unprecedented material, scientific, and cultural achievements. Prevailing narratives often assume indefinite growth or spacefaring expansion. This paper presents a STEM-grounded thesis: gradual civilizational contraction followed by eventual extinction represents the most probable long-term human trajectory. Constraints include declining energy return on investment (EROI), material and ecological limits, diminishing returns to societal complexity, declining rates of "disruptive breakthroughs", and sociopolitical fragility. Temporal Copernican reasoning, specifically J. Richard Gott’s Δt argument, further disfavors extremely long-lived or spacefaring futures. Using quantitative analysis incorporating probabilistic weighting, the probability of sustained spacefaring civilization is estimated at ~20%, while contraction leading to extinction exceeds ~80%. AGI/ASI may temporarily extend peak complexity, but cannot overcome fundamental physical and systemic constraints. Even breakthroughs in fission or fusion energy are unlikely to change this outcome. Humanity’s significance lies in its brief achievement of scientific understanding, not in survival or cosmic expansion.
Excellent essay and really quite plausible in many in my opinion. However, one thing that I almost never see addressed in these types of thought experiments is how human communities will shape up as we move further into scarcity. We lived a tribal existence until quite recently when abundant fossil fuels allowed for high mobility, while the economic system encouraged migration.
Before the fossil-fuel age, society relied on shared norms, trust, and collective obligations, because there simply wasn’t surplus energy to build elaborate substitutes. The sharp rise in surplus energy allowed societies to externalize or mechanize many functions, essentially creating prostheses for what used to be mediated at the level of custom and norm. Surely the scaling-down of industrial civilization will bring back to the fore the matter of social cohesion and trust. And we tend to trust those with whom we have a shared culture, language, history, etc. Do you see a retrenching along more traditional ethnic/cultural lines as being a part of that process, and do we have any role in guiding that process?
My thought is that creating less cohesive and less homogenous societies right at the moment we will be needing to tap into stores of communal fabric is tremendous folly.
To survive, people will need to live in high trust socities, thus the return of the ethno-state. It sure is nice to give free stuff to billions of people in the third world, but now that the first world is under serious strain and the fat of the land is gone, I see brutal re-entrenchments coming.
By design most likely. See the Cloward–Piven strategy (1966).
Well. For an imagined future based on real trends, it's rather bracing. I've been saying to myself and others close to myself, that I'm glad I'm old-ish (65.5). No mention of AI...😄...well, that can't really be predicted can it? It is a wildcard I suppose, but in the end, does it matter, except possibly as another accelerant to bad outcomes. I hope there is hope...what else have we got at this point?
Given energy and raw material shortages, I suspect AI will no longer exist in a century, maybe sooner. Many will scoff at this, but the trends are irrefutable.
Seguramente dejará de existir cuando reviente la burbuja actual que se está creando con ella. Quizás aguante hasta 2030, pero bueno solo el tiempo nos lo confirmará. Solo una opinión.
Es muy posible.
I think you have rather hilariously overestimated what global warming will do as shown in the line “narrow habitable zones around the poles”. Even in absolute worst case scenarios the planet is not going to get hotter than the Jurassic which was a perfectly habitable biosphere over the entire planet (actually more habitable as the poles were a lovely temperate climate). I also doubt we will ever go back to using rocks if for no reason other than iron oxidizing bacteria concentrate big lumps of good iron ore quite fast (this was the main iron source for most of the post Roman period). Good article though.