I'm somewhat surprised by the article's conclusion, but will accept it, given that Scott is pretty thorough with his sourcing and analysis. Even though he says we're getting the worst outcome (something is happening, but it's not apocalyptic, so people won't notice in time to coordinate at scale), it shifted my internal doomsday countdown ~20 years to the future.

One thing I wonder though, and it's a general concern for such analyses - just how reliable are the official statistics? Given the unreliability at every level (which I sometimes personally observed) - from people reporting bogus data, data entry people faking it to make their job easier, to bogus statistical analysis and biased reporting at the top - just how much faith we can put in all of this? I get that it's the only thing we have, but I wonder if someone tried to analyze those issues.