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Showing Original Post only (View all)What If A Collapse Happened And Nobody Noticed? [View all]
What If A Collapse Happened And Nobody Noticed?
Every once and awhile I'll be listening to a podcast with one or the other writers specializing on the subject of Peak Oil or collapse and the subject of timetables will come up. When will the collapse finally be here, the callers ask insistently, almost pleadingly, so that they can finally justify their investments in freeze-dried foods, water purification tablets and solid gold coins. Inevitably the guest will demur, and speak more in general terms. But I'm going to be the first pundit to go out on the limb and assign a timeline for the collapse. Spread it far and wide, and let's see just how good my predictive powers are. Are you ready? Here it is: Right now.
What do they think a collapse is supposed to look like? It seems people just cannot just cannot get past the "Zombie Apocalypse" theory of collapse. They imagine hordes of disease-ridden folks dressed in rags stumbling around and fighting over cans of petrol and stripping cans of food from shelves. That's not what collapse looks like. It never has been. In fact, there's very little evidence that a Zombie Apocalypse style collapse ever occurred in the historical record. Instead we see subtle patterns of abandonment and decay that unfold over long periods of time. Big projects stop. Population thins. Trade routes shrink and people revert to barter. Things get simpler and more local. Culture coarsens. High art stagnates. People disperse. Expectations are adjusted downward. Investments are no longer made in the future and previous investments are cannibalized just to maintain the status quo. Extend and pretend is hardly a recent invention.
And I remembered a comment I heard from Dmitry Orlov in an interview about how much of his high school class were now dead. Yet there were no headlines and there was never any official crisis or emergency. They did not die in gunfights over scraps of food like in The Road. Rather, more quotidian things like alcoholism, unemployment, suicide, homelessness, exposure, lack of medications and ordinary sicknesses like bronchitis and pneumonia took their lives. Russia's life expectancy fell dramatically. It's birth rate declined. Public health fell apart. Suicide rates went up. The population shrank. Entire towns became abandoned. In post-collapse Russia there was a slow die-off that occurred outside of the daily headlines that no one seemed to notice. They were ground down slowly by day-to-day reduction in the standard of living, a million little tragedies that, like pixels in an image, looked like nothing until the focus was pulled back.
And right now the entire continent of Europe is looking an awful lot like post-collapse Russia.
Every once and awhile I'll be listening to a podcast with one or the other writers specializing on the subject of Peak Oil or collapse and the subject of timetables will come up. When will the collapse finally be here, the callers ask insistently, almost pleadingly, so that they can finally justify their investments in freeze-dried foods, water purification tablets and solid gold coins. Inevitably the guest will demur, and speak more in general terms. But I'm going to be the first pundit to go out on the limb and assign a timeline for the collapse. Spread it far and wide, and let's see just how good my predictive powers are. Are you ready? Here it is: Right now.
What do they think a collapse is supposed to look like? It seems people just cannot just cannot get past the "Zombie Apocalypse" theory of collapse. They imagine hordes of disease-ridden folks dressed in rags stumbling around and fighting over cans of petrol and stripping cans of food from shelves. That's not what collapse looks like. It never has been. In fact, there's very little evidence that a Zombie Apocalypse style collapse ever occurred in the historical record. Instead we see subtle patterns of abandonment and decay that unfold over long periods of time. Big projects stop. Population thins. Trade routes shrink and people revert to barter. Things get simpler and more local. Culture coarsens. High art stagnates. People disperse. Expectations are adjusted downward. Investments are no longer made in the future and previous investments are cannibalized just to maintain the status quo. Extend and pretend is hardly a recent invention.
And I remembered a comment I heard from Dmitry Orlov in an interview about how much of his high school class were now dead. Yet there were no headlines and there was never any official crisis or emergency. They did not die in gunfights over scraps of food like in The Road. Rather, more quotidian things like alcoholism, unemployment, suicide, homelessness, exposure, lack of medications and ordinary sicknesses like bronchitis and pneumonia took their lives. Russia's life expectancy fell dramatically. It's birth rate declined. Public health fell apart. Suicide rates went up. The population shrank. Entire towns became abandoned. In post-collapse Russia there was a slow die-off that occurred outside of the daily headlines that no one seemed to notice. They were ground down slowly by day-to-day reduction in the standard of living, a million little tragedies that, like pixels in an image, looked like nothing until the focus was pulled back.
And right now the entire continent of Europe is looking an awful lot like post-collapse Russia.
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In all fairness.. Russian history gives Russians little incentive for cheerfulness..
Fumesucker
May 2012
#12
The birth rate in the US at least should be reflecting the aging of the baby boomers. They did not
jwirr
May 2012
#39
We are doing that - hoping when they see what we are doing they will follow. So far they think it
jwirr
May 2012
#54
It's falling as women get empowered--I think it's the opposite of collapse--it's the emergence of
diane in sf
May 2012
#56
Efficiency is but a secondary effect, the primary cause is greed and profit..
Fumesucker
May 2012
#14
Yes, in some ways, it's a privilege to be able to witness this period in human history.
bemildred
May 2012
#73
In looking for the underlying cause of greed do not underestimate fear. But I do not see greed as
jwirr
May 2012
#41
Yeah, when the infrastructure like sewage treatment and electrical grids start going.....
marmar
May 2012
#20
Is EU doing anything to preserve their health care situation that would be of importance to this
jwirr
May 2012
#42
That is what I was afraid of. I think one big problem with a collapse and government programs is
jwirr
May 2012
#55
Totally agree but I grew up in the early 40s and did not have a lot of the modern things we have
jwirr
May 2012
#43
True that. I visited an operating "pioneer village" museum a couple of years ago
GliderGuider
May 2012
#85
You are right - I actually began to realize that when I was in college and when I went home I
jwirr
May 2012
#88
And it was a time of fun and plunder. The Crusades and intrigues w/ Second Rome at Constantinople
leveymg
May 2012
#31
One of the themes of the 70s: we can chose between the castle or the tribe. Unfortunately I
jwirr
May 2012
#45
That would truly be Shock and Awe - sure to send any enemy running, screaming, pleading for mercy
leveymg
May 2012
#52
I agree. When you see it all listed out like that it really drives the point home.
GliderGuider
May 2012
#61
I heartily concur. That honesty about facing our situation head on is
coalition_unwilling
May 2012
#76