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Taking Twitter a little too seriously?

Annalee Newitz suggests that civilization may collapse with a twitter, not a bang. [Link]

In other words, will maintaining ourselves in Twitter time -- constantly growing the population, constantly using resources -- kill us? Bettencourt and his colleagues say that's a very real possibility.

One outcome of their model proposes that a society in Twitter time will collapse when it uses up all its resources. The population will drop off precipitously, and as it drops our pace of life will slow exponentially. Of course, there's another way. An equally real possibility is that urban cultures go through phases of Twitter time, then slow down again for a while, essentially "resetting" the model.

jon posted this at 9:49 AM
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