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Christopher Bystroff is a professor of Biology and Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy NY. He runs a laboratory that studies protein structure and design, working towards targetable fluorescent biosensors and a contraceptive vaccine. Chris teaches courses in protein structure, computational modeling of proteins, computational modeling of human population, bioinformatics and genetic engineering. In 2021 he published a paper predicting the near-term downturn of the global human population. Chris has a B.A. from Carleton College and a PhD from University of California San Diego, both degrees in chemistry. He lives in Troy, New York, with his wife Maria. They have two adult children.
Hmm ... If we fix all parameters in the model underlying the simulations, can we back out a level carbon concentration in the atmosphere that maximizes carrying capacity?
Given atmospheric CO2 is plant food, might a given model yield an "optimal" level of CO2 that is many times larger than it is now?
Anyway. There is a place for simulations, but simulations have to be kept in their place, especially when we're talking about chaotic systems. Short term forecasting is all well and good, but beyond a short term, it's all garbage.
That's the point of the "butterfly effect". (In Lorenz 1969, it was a "seagull effect.") Lorenz's point was that we may never be able to know enough about a complex system--even were the system deterministic and we were to know the rules of the system--such that phenomena of arbitrary smallness may yet set the system off on a trajectory beyond anything we could have projected.
I had the pleasure of listening to economist Ken Arrow make a similar point. He had been a weatherman during WWII. Three day forecasts might have useful, but, beyond three days, they were garbage. We'd have to update our parameters and generate new forecasts. And, 80 years later, that remains true notwithstanding the fact that we have more data and more computational capacity.
The fear of a declining human population is a great mystery to me. Without doubt, this bizarre mind-set originated within the highly-civilized, disconnected from reality business community. And, why? Because more people means more profit potential. Most likely, people who make these silly prophecies of doom have never visited 3rd World countries seething in poverty, disease and despair. The ever self-promoting charlatan Jordan Peterson comes to mind. He's forever claiming the world's extremely poor are far better off today because random statistics indicate they have an extra dollar or two per day to live on (and never-you-mind cash inflation).
Our species could maintain a robust genetic diversity with as few as 10 million people worldwide. Although, to maintain something like the agricultural-industrial based civilization we are used to today it would require about a billion human beings on Planet Earth.
The answers here are found by studying bio-evolution, ecology and paleoanthropology plus a trip or two to the 3rd World hellscapes like central Africa and India.