Friday, February 18, 2011

Limits to Growth (1) Overshoot























Overshoot;

Overshoot is a state of system that goes off the limit and start to decline.

In the book "Limit to Growth", there are three points that cause such a state; 

1. There is a growth, acceleration, rapid change. 

2. There is some form of limit or barrier, beyond which the moving system may not safely go.

3. Third, there is a delay or mistake in the perceptions and the responses that strive to keep the
system within its limits. 


These three are necessary and sufficient to produce an overshoot. 

Overshoot comes from the combination of; 
1). rapid change
2) limits to that change, and
3) errors and delays in perceiving the limits and controlling the change, 

I feel like a burnout lately, that is somewhat similar to overshoot.
Now I realize that I can apply each of three above to my situation; 
1). rapid change ;
       yes, working and being a master student  expectedly be encountering a "rapid change"
2). limits to that change; 
       now that I can't change more. 
3). errors and delays in perceiving the limits and controlling the change; 
       again yes. I took TOO MANY COURSES this semester that I cant handle a soul. 
       I am going "lunatic" here. I am losing my mind. (half joke, half serious).


"The potential consequences of this overshoot are profoundly dangerous. 
The situation is unique; 
it confronts humanity with a variety of issues never before experienced
by our species on a global scale. 

We lack the perspectives the cultural norms, the habits and the
institutions required to cope. And the damage will 
in many cases, take centuries or millennia to correct. 

But the consequences need not be catastrophic. 
Overshoot can lead to two different outcomes. 
One is a crash of some kind. 
Another is a deliberate turnaround, a correction, a careful easing down. "

* Overshoot image shown above is "randomly taken from web". 
Please do not take too much attention to those.