CH4: "Building the Temple of Growth" examines the coupling of science policy and economic "growthmanship" in the OECD through the lens of Director of Scientific Affairs Alex King. Statistical representation national R&D spending lead to the technological gap panic of the mid-60s
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CH5: "Heresy in the Temple of Growth" looks at the growing skepticism towards economic growth among King and other OECD officials which grew out of their investigations of the technological gap issue. This led to the "Problems of Modern Society" research agenda within the org.
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CH6: "Club Against Growth?" discusses a lot: King and Peccei's foundation of CoR, Hasan Ozbekhan's notion of a "World Problematique" and Forrester's methodological power grab, and the Meadow's team's construction of the World 3 model. [may split this!]
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CH7: "Computer Looks Ahead and Shudders" examines the immediate global reception of the Limits to Growth. It focuses especially on CoR's marketing campaign for the book, popular representations of computer simulation, and academic and political reaction to the book.
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CH8: "Supermodels" explores the first decade of "global modeling" which came after Limits. Discusses the modeling projects to either confirm or refute World3, paying special attention to CoR's interactive Mesarovic-Pestel (WIM) model and the socialist Latin American World Model.
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The conclusion is framed around the 20th Anniversary of LTG in 1992 and assesses the book's legacy in the era of climate-focused environmental modeling and the continuing influence of the 1970s debates over World3. Maybe I'll assess the "did they get it right?" question.
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Three key takeaways of the dissertation are:
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1. The early CoR vision as less a product of population and environmental panic, and more an outgrowth of transatlantic unease toward the short-term character of scientific and economic planning. They thought this causing the social dislocation of the late 1960s. (e.g. May 68)
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2. SD has been mischaracterized as panoptic, data-intensive apporach (probably by analogy to Forrester's SAGE work). SD was a ethnographic, data-skeptical methodology which relied on personal relationships of trust for credibility. This became problematic as it became "political"
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3. The debates over LTG and World 3 are illuminating because they took place when the authority of technical expertise and computation was rapidly shifting. A lot of the rhetorical tactics developed in the Limits debate (on both sides) have stuck with us in our debates today.
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This is a really good exercise that I should do. (Also, I would read your dissertation, FYI.)
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