My main problem with the argument that the predictions in the Carver Findings justify Spartan-II is that the Carver Findings are on very shaky ground in terms of accuracy, and have locked the UNSC into a "solution" which is guaranteed to make the problem even worse.
First off, there's how the Carver Findings came to be: Carver did a massive survey of the Colonies and determined that major violence and unrest was a near-certainty in the Colonies, going by a variety of economic and political factors like the exploitative relationship between the Inner Colonies and the Outer ones and the difficulty of exerting tight central control from Earth across such a vast territory. This in itself makes sense.
My problem is the algorithm. Carver predicting substantial unrest in the Colonies makes sense, but he then proceeded to apparently create an algorithm which could be used to predict the development of insurrectionist violence on both a planetary and galactic scale.
This is insane. Insurgencies, civil unrest and political movements are incredibly hard to predict, since they are influenced and influence in turn a huge amount of different things, from quality of life to social mobility to the economy to culture. There are a staggering number of variables that need to be considered for doing such a long-term, sweeping prediction on even the most basic, local level, and it is impossible to find some neat mathematical model to empirically measure how these factors should be weighted or corelated numerically. Imagine this hypothetical problem: "Using a graphing calculator and this copy of A Brief History of Southeast Asia, find the percentage to two decimal places of how the five hundred year history of Chinese imperialism in Vietnam impacted the Tet Offensive, relative to other factors like increasing American war-weariness."
You can't do it. The problem is not fixed by the creation of AIs either, even smart ones: the problem is not a lack of computing power or the trickiness of the calculations, it is the fact that the data set is basically infinite and quantifying most of it would be a deeply subjective task. Halsey's suggestion of "adding more variables" doesn't work, because no matter how many variables you add it won't change the fact that most of those variables are at best massive simplifications of incredibly complex and multifaceted data, and as such could essentially mean literally anything. They are numbers completely detached from reality, and Carver merely fiddles them sufficiently to make a prediction he finds plausible, knowingly or unknowingly.
So the Carver Algorithm is likely essentially hardwired so that whatever numbers you throw into it you get "terrorism squared" or whatever. Carver then takes this algorithm and lets it run for not just a few simulated years, but for literal decades. Of course an algorithm which is shaped by Carver's negative biases is going to produce an ultimate result that is apocalyptic and extinction level.
So then why is the algorithm right, at least in the first instance of its use? The answer is simple: Carver's analysis of the deteriorating situation in the Outer Colonies, algorithm aside, is generally correct. But this is in large part due to the solution he chooses, driven by his wild speculation that these insurrections will snowball into interstellar genocide that destroys all of humanity: since letting the UEG's colonial empire go means the extinction of mankind, the only logical response is for the UNSC to strengthen Earth's control over these colonies, and expand its military to permanently garrison the Outer Colonies.
This is the exact wrong solution. It does nothing to address the root causes of the issues which are driving the unrest Carver's predicted. If anything, it directly exacerbates these root causes, and instead commits the UEG to a rigid policy where significant reform or backing down from confrontation are essentially the first step on the road to extinction. It commits the UNSC to fighting everywhere, all the time, forever, with no clear win condition aside from some vague aim of killing all the insurgents. That can't work and is utterly out of touch with the situation in the Colonies.
Is it any wonder that Carver's dire predictions of a rising insurgency were right when his proposed solution is guaranteed to militarize and radicalize any sort of attempt to loosen Earth's grip? When you follow a policy of never letting the colonies go because, in the words of Parangosky, "They're human- they're us. In a galaxy like this... You're either us, or you're the enemy." then it's no wonder that you will find enemies crawling out of the woodwork and growing increasingly violent and desperate. By emphasizing military methods and ruling out reform, the Carver Findings guarantee that the Insurrection will turn increasingly violent and out of control, because the only way the UNSC can leave according to this doctrine is by being driven out, against its will, by force.
The Carver Findings are hotly disputed for these very reason in-universe, but they are manna from heaven for the UNSC and ONI. The UNSC is struggling to justify its own size and existence after a few hundred years without any sort of major war: the Carver Findings give them a reason to exist, and guarantee that they will be given access to near-bottomless funding to sustain an eternal garrison in the Outer Colonies. Likewise, for ONI, pursuing Carver's solution is guaranteed that ONI will be given massive funding and a near-unlimited mandate to "fight terrorism". Parangosky, as the earlier quote shows, is deeply invested in Carver's apocalyptic, all-or-nothing view of the Insurrection.
Meanwhile, who is the main character who states that the Carver Findings are perfectly accurate? Halsey. A woman who has previously fallen prey to the exact same massive flaws in logic that led Carver to create the algorithm with her suggested "improvements. She is also using the Carver Findings as the bedrock of the Spartan program, a horrifying fate which is worth doing anything, even kidnapping, brainwashing and torturing children, to avert.
History provides many examples of the collapse of colonial empires. The UK losing the Empire did not spell mass starvation in the British Isles even if they were food insecure. The end of the USSR created a number of frozen conflicts, civil wars and cases of ethnic strife, but at no point threatened to wipe Eastern Europe off the map. There is no logical reason why the Outer Colonies gaining independence would ipso facto lead to humanity's extinction or even mass famine in the Inner Colonies: independent or not, the Outer Colonies produce massive amounts of surplus food and the Inner Colonies have vital resources which the Outer Colonies need: that would seem to indicate that the solution would be trade between the two groups rather than extermination.
The Carver Findings are based on an algorithm that is full of shit and endorsed by characters who have every reason to believe in them unswervingly, because they justify them doing all manner of terrible things. But they are a prediction, not a prophecy, and a deeply flawed one at that. One man's doomsaying and the deeply flawed policy it spawned do nothing to justify the Spartan II project.
