Economics is a philosophy for supplying parasites with an operating system that provides the most efficient means of devouring its host.

                           Trenz Pruca

 

Apocalypse Pending — Please Hold

This is an update of my 2019 post of the same title, written in a simpler time when the biggest threat to our sanity was the potential re-election of He-Who-Is-Not-My-President. That original post can be found here:
https://trenzpruca.wordpress.com/2019/07/13/todays-fractured-factoid-the-world-will-end-in-2040/

 

In 1973, MIT researchers fed a lot of early computer data into a model called World3 and asked:

“How long can industrial-era humans keep partying like we have infinite planets?”

World3 replied:

“About another 70 years.”

Which gave us a number: 2040 — the approximate “end of civilization as we know it,” absent major changes. It also flagged 2020 as the moment where things begin to wobble.

A charming idea in 2019.
Less charming in 2025.

So, let’s walk through what’s happened since — and why the model’s ghost is still tapping its watch like a disapproving librarian.

I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF “WHO SAW THIS COMING?”

The 1970s were a wild time: disco, Watergate, platform shoes, and the naïve hope that computing might solve all human problems. Into that haze came Limits to Growth, warning that:

  • Population will rise

  • Pollution will rise

  • Resources will fall

  • Industrial output will peak, then crash

  • Social systems will break under the strain

World3 was not predicting meteors or killer robots — just the math of overshoot. Endless growth on a finite planet doesn’t end with a bang. It ends like a Jenga tower: slowly, then all at once.

Their projections gave three timelines:

  1. Best case — global cooperation and sustainability

  2. Moderate case — eventually painful adjustment

  3. Business As Usual — collapse around 2040

You’ll never guess which one humanity chose.
(Hint: it wasn’t #1.)

II. “BUSINESS AS USUAL”: A PROGRESS REPORT

Since 1973, we have performed a half-century-long demonstration of How To Ignore Every Warning Sign Ever.

Population: doubled
Energy use: skyrocketed
CO₂: up-up-up
Inequality: locked-in
Political sanity: down the storm drain

We squeezed resources like they were stress balls, then complained that the stress didn’t go away. And we dumped trash into the only biosphere we have, like a teenager who thinks the laundry basket has magical powers.

The MIT model didn’t include “TikTok,” but it did predict general brain-rot as society gets overwhelmed.

On that front, we are overachieving.

III. THE “BIG CHANGE” OF 2020

World3 said the first serious tremors would hit around 2020. As in:

“Maybe try taking this seriously now?”

Cue a global pandemic.
The entire planet went into time-out.

Suddenly:

All the while, the Doomsday Clock cleared its throat.

Shock #1: Delivered on schedule.

IV. 2025: THE CLOWN CAR DRIVES ITSELF

And now we arrive at the present moment, where we are treated to Trump: The Resurrection — a sequel no one green-lit except the Electoral College and several very confused swing counties.

Here is the inconvenient truth:

Many of Trump’s 2025 decisions, while wrapped in his usual slapstick authoritarianism, perfectly align with the worst-case collapse scenario.

To be clear:
He is not intentionally collapsing civilization.
To be intentional would require reading something longer than a menu.

Nevertheless, the checklist:

Collapse Factor
MIT Pessimistic Scenario
Trump 2025 Policy
Environmental protection Remove safeguards Removes safeguards then sues anyone who mentions ecosystems Public infrastructure Maintain to prevent systemic stress Privatize to the point the word “public” is treasonous Global cooperation Strengthen Tariff war now includes allies and pineapples Political stability Critical Governs by tantrum and purges Wealth distribution Become more equitable Becomes a funnel into Mar-a-Lago

None of this requires a conspiracy.
Just a lack of impulse control.

In short:
If you wanted to accelerate systemic breakdown, you could hardly do better.

V. WHAT DOES COLLAPSE LOOK LIKE?

People picture apocalypse as:

Reality is far messier. Collapse is:

  • Chronic shortages

  • Failing infrastructure

  • Declining trust

  • Corruption as “policy innovation”

  • Increasingly stupid political choices

  • Endless fights over everything except the real problems

Collapse is not an event.
Collapse is customer service on hold for 20 years.

And we are listening to the same unbearable music.

VI. THE DEPRESSING ACCURACY OF OLD COMPUTERS

Multiple new studies comparing real-world data to World3 keep finding something unsettling:

We are still tracking Business As Usual

 

Industrial output is near peak in several regions

 

Environmental stress is accelerating

 

Quality of life is flattening or falling

Computers that crash when you hit “print” were somehow better at forecasting the future than entire governments.

Let that sink in.

VII. THE OPTIMISM-INDUCING PART (TINY BUT REAL)

Even the original authors insisted:

Collapse is not inevitable.
It is a scenario, not a destiny.

The “stabilized world” scenario — the good one — is still technically possible, requiring:

  • Massive shifts in consumption

  • Strong social safety nets

  • Smart resource management

  • Cooperation instead of cosplay nationalism

  • Politicians who understand cause and effect

So… yes, possible.
About as possible as teaching cats tax law.
But possible!

If global civilization makes better choices — soon — we may dodge the worst outcomes. Even Trump can’t ban hope. (He tried once, but the courts said hope is not a “woke ideology.”)

VIII. THE ENNUI APOCALYPSE: DEATH BY BOREDOM

In the original post, I cracked that we might all die of ennui by 2040.

Little did I know the universe would accept that as a design document.

Today:

Screens have replaced place.
And algorithms have replaced attention.

The world may not starve.
It may simply forget how to want anything real.

That’s collapse too — the quiet kind.
The slow suffocation of meaning.

IX. WHERE WE ACTUALLY STAND (SCORECARD)

Metric
Trend
Cliff Proximity
Climate stability Falling apart

Very Close Global democracy Teetering

Alarmingly Close Resource security Shrinking

Close Food systems Stressing

Maybe Too Close Political sanity Rapidly decaying

Through the floor Billionaire rocket escapes Increasing

Already launched

We’re not doomed.
We’re just stressed, reckless, and badly supervised.

Think of civilization as a 17-year-old with car keys.

X. SHOULD YOU PANIC?

Not yet.

Panic wastes energy we will need for gardening and artisanal composting later.

More useful to ask:

What can we do that doesn’t involve denial, magical thinking, or tweeting memes at each other while the heat index hits 125°F?

We know what helps:

  • Vote like the ocean is rising (it is)

  • Support resource-smart policies

  • Strengthen institutions instead of trolling them

  • Choose cooperation over grievance cosplay

  • Reward leaders who read beyond the table of contents

It’s either that, or buy canned beans and a solar-powered Wi-Fi unit for your bunker and hope the marauders are vegan.

XI. 2040: THE PROVISIONAL END OF THE WORLD

2040 is not a calendar appointment (“Apocalypse: 3:30 PM”).
It’s a risk window.

A convergence point where:

  • Environmental limits

  • Economic fragility

  • Demographic strain

  • Political idiocy

…all meet up for the worst family reunion in history.

Civilization has survived a lot.
But it has never attempted all the bad ideas at once.

Until now.

XII. CONCLUSION: CHEER UP — THERE’S STILL TIME TO SAVE EVERYTHING

The 1973 doom model is not laughing at us.
It is warning us.

Humor is how we stay sane during the warning.

All we need to avoid the 2040 cliff is:

  • Competent global leadership

  • A public not addicted to delusion

  • A functioning information ecosystem

  • Respect for science

  • And a shared understanding that planetary survival outranks billionaire whims

That’s all.
Nothing major.

If we accomplish that?
2041 will be delightful.
We’ll toast the computers and say:

“Sorry we doubted you, Grandpa Mainframe.”

If not?

Well… at least we’ll go down cracking jokes.

Because humor is cheaper than therapy.
And civilization got expensive.

NOTES & REFERENCES

  • Limits to Growth (1972–74 modeling) — Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (1972); and subsequent updates via the Club of Rome.

  • 2020 data comparisons show continued “Business As Usual” trajectory — G. Herrington, “Update to Limits to Growth,” 2020 (Stanford MAHB).

  • Long-term global risk assessments — “Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and destitution” (2024).

  • Collapse dynamics & vulnerability research — “Demographic synchrony increases the vulnerability of human societies to collapse” (2025).

  • Sustainability vs. overshoot mathematics — “Global Population and Carrying Capacity in the Anthropocene” (2025).

  • Historical collapse patterns — “The Meaning of Collapse from Past to Present” (2025).