Macrobiotic Life

The most negative scenarios come about when you study actual human behavior. The reason societies collapse is because humans evolved to seek advantage. They do not cooperate for the common good. That’s why all these suggestions for one-child families, etc. just get ignored.

Here is a quote from THERMO/GENE COLLISION: On Human Nature, Energy, and Collapse

FALLING NET ENERGY, OVERPOPULATION, AND COLLAPSE
The “collapse” of a country is caused by “too many people competing for too few resources”[16]. When a country can not supply enough resources to satisfy its members, that country becomes unstable and subject to fundamental change.

The human mind serves “fitness” – not “truth.” Since every individual is programmed to pursue personal fitness and lie about intentions, no civilization has ever been able to convince its members to cooperate enough to survive the depletion of the energy resources which gave it birth. When confronted with ever-declining resources, the preservation of social order requires more-and-more cooperation, but individuals are genetically programmed to reduce cooperation and seek advantage. This genetic legacy sets up a positive feedback loop: declining common resources cause individuals to reduce cooperation even more, which reduces common resources even faster, which leads to collapse even faster.

LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, RAPE, AND KILL
Society only directs our behavior when we perceive that it is able to reward or punish us. A “collapsed” society has no influence over our behavior. That’s why cultures disappear and people revert to more violent ways of life. Our present society began to collapse years ago because of the rising energy costs of energy.[17]

We include others in our society when we feel that it increases our fitness to do so, but we invent excuses to kick minorities out of our society when resources are insufficient. Allies can become enemies almost overnight. The collapse of Yugoslavia is an example of neighbor slaughtering neighbor.

Jay Hanson gets derided as a hopeless doomer but his research has been backed up by the likes of Garrett Hardin and Jared Diamond and books like Constant Battles: Why We Fight. If we want to avoid the worst we had better take human nature into consideration.