Modern Human Overshoot
Behavioral overshoot: Arose 75 kyo (thousand years ago) as an expansionist form of human (e.g. EEMH) whose leading-edge r-selected culture normalized the behavior of exceeding local limits and then moving to the next region for the taking (conjecture: to controvert six million years of evolved K-culture may have taken ideology as a new to humans memetic/cultural mutation). A single pancreatic cell that transitions to metastatic behavior is in behavioral overshoot, a condition tha selects for the other forms of overshoot.
Density overshoot: 12 kyo to 23 kyo as agricultural settlements, population density exceeded evolved group size limit, e.g. 12 in Norway rats, 50 among forager-nomad humans (Dunbar’s number of 150 for humans is a maximum for a time high-stress condition, but non-viable long term — human ethology norm is in the 20–50 range, mean 28 for expansionist hunter-gatherers and 20 for pre-expansionist forager-nomads, e.g. San, Hadza). A condition explored by John B. Calhoun. Modern humans are humans of NIMH.
Ecological overshoot: when a population consumes more resources than the environment (e.g. a valley, a planet) can replenish and/or produces more waste than the environment can absorb. Exceeding carrying capacity (overshoot), degrades environmental productivity, reducing carrying capacity. Global ecological overshoot occurs when the demands made by humanity exceed what the biosphere of Earth can provide/absorb long term.
Population overshoot: There can be no global population overshoot apart from local, regional overshoot since in the absence of a global and near instantaneous transportation/distribution system, a population of 20 to 50 humans living in a valley will depend on the environmental productivity of the valley (or small island, e.g. North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands archipelago). Exceeding the carrying capacity (overshoot) by definition degrades the potential carrying capacity, worsening the condition of overshoot. The outcome is alway harmful to the species in overshoot and is always selected against (long term). Locusts have made periodic overshoot work, but few species have as over very long time periods, their risk for extinction is greater (because of the short term benefits to their species dependant on the biotic community they periodically degrade). Even if modern humans make periodic overshoot work for a time, their form will be selected against long term. What is selected for long term is the maximizing of the empower (emergy/time) of the whole system, e.g. biosphere.
Complexity overshoot: Identified by Joseph Tainter as a proximal cause of civilizational collapse. (The Collapse of Complex Societies, 1988). Best to think in terms of the collapse of overcomplex societies as all normal pre-expansionist homininan cultures where complex, complex enough, e.g. the San and Hadza.
Cognitive overshoot: A form of complexity overshoot within human brains rather than between humans.
Civilizational overshoot: An outcome where the dynamics of a form of civilization expands its resource consumption and waste production beyond environmental limits leading to decline/collapse of its socioeconomic-political system. This can manifest as overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, soil erosion/depletion, and organized conflict (war) ultimately undermining the civilization’s stability. Essentially, it’s when a civilization expands its activities to the point where it undermines its own foundation resulting in dissolution whether by being conquered (by outlaying empire builder) or decline to extinction (e.g. Malta, Indus Valley Civilization, et al.).
The Modern Techno-Industrial (MTI) form (f) of civilization is the global hegemon we are products of and serve as dependants (domesticants). Early (forager-nomads), Mid (agro-pastoralists) and Late (techno-industrial) Modern Humans are the major forms of civilization all prior exemplier empires/overcomplex societies (from chiefdoms to nation-states) that select for the same outcome: decline, fall, collapse, fade away (per historians subjective assessment) to dissolution. The current MTI manifestation of the overshoot dynamic is the first global expression of the same dynamic of civilization overshoot that includes all other forms of overshoot, i.e. the overshooting of limits (that which MTIed humans don’t/can’t believe in).
Graphic from Exploring Civilizational Overshoot and Modern Techno-Industrial Culture by Ruben Nelson, a 2020 presentation to CACOR.