Talk:Club of Rome

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I shall give five earth pounds to the first man who can explain, briefly, in the article, why this German-based think tank is called "The Club of Rome".-Ashley Pomeroy 12:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Though rhetorical in nature, the question certainly begs for an answer. Having conferred with various professors of history specializing in the time period in question, (yes yes, original research, but this is a talk page)I have two similar answers.
First, regardless of the current case of the Club of Rome, it was founded by Peccei, an Italian, and King, a Scot. The other four members of the inner group were French, Austrian, Swiss, and Dutch. Why not Rome? The Italian Peccei probably decided that "Club of Rome" had a better ring to it than "Club of Turin" or "Club of Edinburgh."
Second, and probably more importantly, Rome has (in modern times, at least) been associated with greatness, progressive concepts, and culture in general. Mussolini, for instance, built a rather impressive scale model of Imperial Rome, hoping to emulate it in his rule, mainly because of the eternal quality to the Roman Empire that he saw. Basically, the choice of Rome as the object was probably intended to convey an idea that the Club was a reputable association of cultured people, which it was.
Hope that was brief enough. Ourai 00:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I have seen criticism of the "Limit to Growth" saying that it made predictions that were not true. This should be included as a criticism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cs16 (talk • contribs) .

If you can provide a link to the criticism, or a citation if it's in print, be bold and add a summary of it. Tom Harrison Talk 22:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
It's not even a subjective criticism, Tom - have you read the book? They predict, for example, a world population of 7 billion by 2000, which we can prove is untrue.

It definitely should be stated that the predictions of the "Limit to Growth" were made on assumptions which proved to be wrong. It is therefore not surprisingly that the predictions were also disproved by the facts. What needs an explanation is why the credibility of the Club itself has not been affected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linda2zh (talk • contribs)

I don't particularly have a dog in this hunt, but my guess is that people regard the Club as a group attempting to apply scientific methods to address concerns about resources. Part of science is that sometimes your predictions are wrong. --Orange Mike 13:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Removing memetics category

I am removing the memetics category from this article since you learn no more about the article's contents from the category and v.v. Since so many things may be memes we should try to keep the category closely defined in order to remain useful. Hope you're okay with that. The link to meme would be enough I suggest. Facius 10:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

The criticism section leaves a lot to be desired IMO. There are definitely points in the argumentation of the Club of Rome that are open to criticism but IMO the biggest part of the criticism is directed towards the Clubs predictions and economic models not stuff such as it being an elitist club (it started as a group of scientists so who do you think they should include?) or even that it may be linked to such nonsense as the New World Order by some conspiracy theorists (for which I would like to see a quote by the way). And since when is Michael Crichton an expert on global economics and system theory?

Also to link the Club of Rome to the neo-conservativ think tank Bilderberg Group isn't exactly very fortunate either.

IMO this section needs to be cleaned up badly. Hadoriel 11:33, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it the case that if you exclude ad hominem attacks, that most of the criticism is really directed at "Limits to Growth", and not the Club of Rome? Given that "Limits to Growth" has it's own Wikipedia page, is there much of a need for a section on Criticism at all (other than perhaps to link to the LTG page)? Ericy (talk) 02:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idries Shah

I read somewhere (Lessing?) that Idries Shah was a founding member. Any further info on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.74.1 (talk) 23:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paragraph 2

States that three original members and contributors to the COR, left in 1970 because the COR adopted a "mechanistic and elitist methodology for an extrapolated future." No reference is cited. The language sounds like the POV of a contributor to the article--unless a suitable citation is produced! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapered (talk • contribs) 04:40, 14 May 2008 (UTC)