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Something tells me that if the end of the world comes, this sort of article will be a moot point. The Earth just can’t handle that many subsistence farmers and

Something tells me that if the end of the world comes, this sort of article will be a moot point. The Earth just can’t handle that many subsistence farmers and hunter/gatherer types. So most of us won’t make it. Besides that, this is a strangely American fixation. You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. China’s culture has endured the collapse of centralized authority many times over (most recently in the 19th and 20th centuries). Western Europe eventually came back from the collapse of the Roman Empire. If things really fell apart in North America, you can bet that the EU and China would figure out a deal to maintain some semblance of stability near the coasts, for the sake of protecting economic interests.

kiba 7y ago
How about we just learn skill for its own sake and hobby? You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. American sure have a strange fixation on doomsday prepping for their own family, but not on a societal level. Prepping on a societal level will likely stave off collapse of society as we know it as opposed to living through a post-apocalypse. Like, we could use a little bit of prepping for a pandemic that we're currently undergoing through instead of being unprepared every time, like investing much more in learning how to make and test vaccines quickly or keeping more masks on hand.
spectramax 7y ago
> You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. https://www.dw.com/en/doomsday-clock-suggests-the-end-is-closer-than-ever/a-52124725 https://www.dw.com/en/doomsday-clock-suggests-the-end-is-clo... Is it me or I see, sometimes regular thrashing of America - which is good if its valid - but I feel like there is some sort of deep bias by Europeans that everything is rosy up in the EU and everything America does is substandard. May be you didn't mean that but I want to mention this bias as part of the HN community as a whole. The pattern largely is: X seems to be an American issue. We never do X in Europe. It comes off as a prejudice filled opinion - I've met many europeans that come off extremely rude against Americans. Tribalism makes people less pleasant and unproductive in making arguments. We should stop doing this and talk about the issue at hand.
- neuro_image3 7y ago
  Objectively, America is a young culture - often considered adolescent, as compared to European cultures that have existed for many centuries. This youthful exuberance has its benefits but it also has more than its share of idealism, naïveté and general lack of big picture considerations. The survivalist movement is a great example of this.
  - munificent 7y ago
    > Objectively, America is a young culture This statement simply makes no sense. Americans didn't show up on the shores of New England with their minds wiped clean. American culture stretches back and builds on all of the cultures of the people who came here (or were here already). It's not any younger than any other places cultures. It may have changed faster because of greater environmental pressure — new physical environment, mixing disparate peoples together — but categorizing it as "adolescent" is simply tribalism. Putting the US down to make yourself feel better about your culture.
    - Haga 7y ago
      It started out with a germ genocide clean slate. Then declared not beeing bogged down in resources limitations loops(science came to the rescue) a virtue of its people, and the unwillingness of the Europeans to engage in exponential daydreaming decadent and worse. City on the downhill of history indeed.
    - DougN7 7y ago
      I’m not sure I agree. We are a young nation. I remember visiting some people in Switzerland and their home was older than our US history. We think 200 years is a very long time, but I don’t think Europeans and Asians have that same view.
  - chillacy 7y ago
    That assumes that there's one linear cultural progression and America is simply a younger version of Europe. I don't think that's necessarily true. It could be that America is on a different cultural arc entirely, driven by differing fundamentals (land vs population, history, economy, etc). Americans have thought similarly about Asia for awhile now, the thought being that Japan, then Singapore, then China, would adopt more American beliefs about free speech and freedom of the press. That hasn't quite happened to this day. I don't think it would ever happen unless the fundamentals change. An analogy: The snow fox tells the forest fox that red fur is a liability, and you should have white fur like me to stay safe.
secstate 7y ago
Define "came back from the collapse of the Roman Empire". We only have a few thousand years of recorded human history as a benchmark, but the "Dark Ages" weren't as dark as people think they were. They simply lacked large central authorities with state-sponsored violence used to maintain control. I would put forward that the biggest hurdle most humans have to get over, and this goes really for most modern societies, is putting preservation before perseverance. I don't intend to come off as a nihilist, but I suppose there are also very few new thoughts under the sun. The status quo is an illusion in our minds, and to even begin to place any one part of human history in an objective rank of better or worse misses the trajectory of life as we understand it. Evolution does not promise better, it promises continued existence. Climate change is a human problem, not an Earth problem. Civilization collapse is a me and you problem, not a human problem. To the extent that we put the burden of preservation on ourselves we risk missing the point of perseverance that all life around us demonstrates every day. The unique gift humans give to that equation, which no one can yet explain why we have this gift, is to bring both logic and compassion to our continued existence. Let's remember to keep logic and compassion in balance and live our lives as though we were not going to live forever.
jariel 7y ago
North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc.. Also, many North Americans descend from farmers who actually owned their land, developing very much a communitarian/entrepreneurial attitude. Also, during the cold war there was a real threat of collapse. This attitude exists to this day. While we make fun of these people like this, I don't see it as a bad thing. Reasonable precautions are good, but also, having a small number of people take 'extreme' precaution is possibly a good healthy as well.
- spectramax 7y ago
  Totally, same with Australia - they've got so much uninhabitable land and a tremendous wild life refuge - thus, we don't say "Austrlians have systemic problem with survivalist mentality". I found the GP comment glib, unthoughtful and somewhat bigoted and condescending.
- kristianc 7y ago
  > North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc.. Eh? The USA is right in the middle of the world’s most temperate climate zone, some distances are vast but there are vast tracts of very habitable and fertile land. It has non predatory neighbours at both north and south, and fish on its east and west. In the aftermath of WWII, Iowa was producing 90% of the world’s corn. Throughout its history, the United States has had a level of geographic security unparalleled by any other country in the world. It has never once faced a serious threat to its existence. The US has a geographic endowment like no other. How can you possibly call it living on the frontier?
  - jariel 7y ago
    We are talking about different things. The climate in the US is generally far more harsh than that of Europe. The Med has a beautiful, easy-going climate the whole year. There is no winter, there are no severe storms (or at least they are small ie no Hurricanes), and it's generally not brutally hot. The continent, UK has fairly mild winters and no super aggressive weather. Even the Scandinavian regions - most of their settlements are near the ocean, which makes them much milder than say, Canada. Montreal is further south than Copenhagen (actually, Montreal is the same latitude as Northern Italy!) but Montreal weathers are crushing compared to anything in Denmark. All of these European areas will have been close enough to 'civilization' for 1K years, and usually easy access to some ocean port for transport. The 'New World' was brutal. Winters are rugged, summers can be hot and balmy. Before they could plant crops they had to clear the trees. Aboriginals provided a whole set of other complications (I'm not saying this is fair, just from a certain perspective). Most of South America has it's own harsh charms as well. And the distances are vast - when you're in what is now 'Montana' a little over 100 years ago - you might as well be on the moon. There's no rivers, roads, very sparse rail - no reasonable way in. Crossing the continent was life-threatening. But from an industrial perspective, yes, you are absolutely right: much of North America is ultimately arable, there's no Habsbourg / Napoleonic Empire to throw you off, it's perfect for building an industrial agrarian society. But there's absolutely a 'rugged/independent' nature to North Americans that doesn't quite exist in Europe. The American Revolution was very different from the French Revolution. North Americans have always viewed power as a kind of expression of 'independence' whereas Europeans have always viewed it as some kind of entente between the nobility and the plebes. It's mostly historic, but there are absolutely differences that remain ... Hint: the #1 selling vehicle in the US and Canada is ... a pick-up truck! They don't even have such things in Europe, rather, these little Lorrie/van type things which individuals, for the most part, don't even drive.

kiba 7y ago

How about we just learn skill for its own sake and hobby? You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. American sure have a strange fixation on doomsday prepping for their own family, but not on a societal level. Prepping on a societal level will likely stave off collapse of society as we know it as opposed to living through a post-apocalypse. Like, we could use a little bit of prepping for a pandemic that we're currently undergoing through instead of being unprepared every time, like investing much more in learning how to make and test vaccines quickly or keeping more masks on hand.

spectramax 7y ago

> You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. https://www.dw.com/en/doomsday-clock-suggests-the-end-is-closer-than-ever/a-52124725 https://www.dw.com/en/doomsday-clock-suggests-the-end-is-clo... Is it me or I see, sometimes regular thrashing of America - which is good if its valid - but I feel like there is some sort of deep bias by Europeans that everything is rosy up in the EU and everything America does is substandard. May be you didn't mean that but I want to mention this bias as part of the HN community as a whole. The pattern largely is: X seems to be an American issue. We never do X in Europe. It comes off as a prejudice filled opinion - I've met many europeans that come off extremely rude against Americans. Tribalism makes people less pleasant and unproductive in making arguments. We should stop doing this and talk about the issue at hand.

neuro_image3 7y ago
Objectively, America is a young culture - often considered adolescent, as compared to European cultures that have existed for many centuries. This youthful exuberance has its benefits but it also has more than its share of idealism, naïveté and general lack of big picture considerations. The survivalist movement is a great example of this.
- munificent 7y ago
  > Objectively, America is a young culture This statement simply makes no sense. Americans didn't show up on the shores of New England with their minds wiped clean. American culture stretches back and builds on all of the cultures of the people who came here (or were here already). It's not any younger than any other places cultures. It may have changed faster because of greater environmental pressure — new physical environment, mixing disparate peoples together — but categorizing it as "adolescent" is simply tribalism. Putting the US down to make yourself feel better about your culture.
  - Haga 7y ago
    It started out with a germ genocide clean slate. Then declared not beeing bogged down in resources limitations loops(science came to the rescue) a virtue of its people, and the unwillingness of the Europeans to engage in exponential daydreaming decadent and worse. City on the downhill of history indeed.
  - DougN7 7y ago
    I’m not sure I agree. We are a young nation. I remember visiting some people in Switzerland and their home was older than our US history. We think 200 years is a very long time, but I don’t think Europeans and Asians have that same view.
- chillacy 7y ago
  That assumes that there's one linear cultural progression and America is simply a younger version of Europe. I don't think that's necessarily true. It could be that America is on a different cultural arc entirely, driven by differing fundamentals (land vs population, history, economy, etc). Americans have thought similarly about Asia for awhile now, the thought being that Japan, then Singapore, then China, would adopt more American beliefs about free speech and freedom of the press. That hasn't quite happened to this day. I don't think it would ever happen unless the fundamentals change. An analogy: The snow fox tells the forest fox that red fur is a liability, and you should have white fur like me to stay safe.

secstate 7y ago

Define "came back from the collapse of the Roman Empire". We only have a few thousand years of recorded human history as a benchmark, but the "Dark Ages" weren't as dark as people think they were. They simply lacked large central authorities with state-sponsored violence used to maintain control. I would put forward that the biggest hurdle most humans have to get over, and this goes really for most modern societies, is putting preservation before perseverance. I don't intend to come off as a nihilist, but I suppose there are also very few new thoughts under the sun. The status quo is an illusion in our minds, and to even begin to place any one part of human history in an objective rank of better or worse misses the trajectory of life as we understand it. Evolution does not promise better, it promises continued existence. Climate change is a human problem, not an Earth problem. Civilization collapse is a me and you problem, not a human problem. To the extent that we put the burden of preservation on ourselves we risk missing the point of perseverance that all life around us demonstrates every day. The unique gift humans give to that equation, which no one can yet explain why we have this gift, is to bring both logic and compassion to our continued existence. Let's remember to keep logic and compassion in balance and live our lives as though we were not going to live forever.

jariel 7y ago

North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc.. Also, many North Americans descend from farmers who actually owned their land, developing very much a communitarian/entrepreneurial attitude. Also, during the cold war there was a real threat of collapse. This attitude exists to this day. While we make fun of these people like this, I don't see it as a bad thing. Reasonable precautions are good, but also, having a small number of people take 'extreme' precaution is possibly a good healthy as well.

spectramax 7y ago
Totally, same with Australia - they've got so much uninhabitable land and a tremendous wild life refuge - thus, we don't say "Austrlians have systemic problem with survivalist mentality". I found the GP comment glib, unthoughtful and somewhat bigoted and condescending.
kristianc 7y ago
> North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc.. Eh? The USA is right in the middle of the world’s most temperate climate zone, some distances are vast but there are vast tracts of very habitable and fertile land. It has non predatory neighbours at both north and south, and fish on its east and west. In the aftermath of WWII, Iowa was producing 90% of the world’s corn. Throughout its history, the United States has had a level of geographic security unparalleled by any other country in the world. It has never once faced a serious threat to its existence. The US has a geographic endowment like no other. How can you possibly call it living on the frontier?
- jariel 7y ago
  We are talking about different things. The climate in the US is generally far more harsh than that of Europe. The Med has a beautiful, easy-going climate the whole year. There is no winter, there are no severe storms (or at least they are small ie no Hurricanes), and it's generally not brutally hot. The continent, UK has fairly mild winters and no super aggressive weather. Even the Scandinavian regions - most of their settlements are near the ocean, which makes them much milder than say, Canada. Montreal is further south than Copenhagen (actually, Montreal is the same latitude as Northern Italy!) but Montreal weathers are crushing compared to anything in Denmark. All of these European areas will have been close enough to 'civilization' for 1K years, and usually easy access to some ocean port for transport. The 'New World' was brutal. Winters are rugged, summers can be hot and balmy. Before they could plant crops they had to clear the trees. Aboriginals provided a whole set of other complications (I'm not saying this is fair, just from a certain perspective). Most of South America has it's own harsh charms as well. And the distances are vast - when you're in what is now 'Montana' a little over 100 years ago - you might as well be on the moon. There's no rivers, roads, very sparse rail - no reasonable way in. Crossing the continent was life-threatening. But from an industrial perspective, yes, you are absolutely right: much of North America is ultimately arable, there's no Habsbourg / Napoleonic Empire to throw you off, it's perfect for building an industrial agrarian society. But there's absolutely a 'rugged/independent' nature to North Americans that doesn't quite exist in Europe. The American Revolution was very different from the French Revolution. North Americans have always viewed power as a kind of expression of 'independence' whereas Europeans have always viewed it as some kind of entente between the nobility and the plebes. It's mostly historic, but there are absolutely differences that remain ... Hint: the #1 selling vehicle in the US and Canada is ... a pick-up truck! They don't even have such things in Europe, rather, these little Lorrie/van type things which individuals, for the most part, don't even drive.