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Societal Collapse
- themodelplumber 6y agoMan, sharing this link in January 2021 is just brutal :D It made me wonder though, who here legitimately thinks their society is nearing collapse? Which society? By which measures are you evaluating the situation? Do you feel you have any control over the collapse, or a participation mandate at any level? How much does it seem to parallel your current personal life situation? Are things similarly chaotic, or do you find yourself at peace? Just curious.
- sleepysysadmin 6y ago>It made me wonder though, who here legitimately thinks their society is nearing collapse? Which society? By which measures are you evaluating the situation? Not exactly, but I can completely see why some people think so. What's happening fundamentally is that the boomers are on the verge of retirement. The worker shortage of 2030 is set in stone and the only way to mitigate the damage is very large amounts of immigration. the problem is that housing is limited, worker shortage means housing wont be built to required capacity, and our top industries are becoming parasitic at best. This creates political pressure. Then add in the consequences, women entering the workforce has been wonderful but not for the average worker. Supply increased by demand decreased because political policy of globalism shipped jobs out of the country. Thus we have income inequality that's out of control. We also have historic lows of marriage and births. The blame is 100% in the hands of the government. you then look at the government's failure and it's a disaster. So many federal governments are functionally bankrupt and the debt is higher than ever. the government cant afford to fix their mistakes. What's the point of society? It's the humans. We have failed in this regard. Will it be collapse? Nope, but I know what's coming to prevent the collapse. the governments know how to do this each time.
- jdkee 6y agoParts of the United States resemble a failed state with endemic violence, hunger and poverty exacerbated by the pandemic. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/us/crime-poverty-pandemic-cleveland.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/us/crime-poverty-pandemic...
- thewarrior 6y agoI have been learning more about biology and the immune system. I’ve realized that genetic engineering of viruses is something far easier than making a nuclear weapon and could easily wipe out humanity. It doesn’t have to be a government some crazy cult might just do it 50 years from now and create a pathogen immune to most vaccines.
- tylerjwilk00 6y agoYou might enjoy looking at society as one large organism [1]. Many biological patterns reemerge at this scale. Imagine the pandemic government response as a large scale societal immune response. Inner city violence as a form of inflammation... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_organism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_organism
- flukus 6y agoYou don't even have to wipeout humanity, look at the financial destruction the current virus has done and consider how non-lethal it is compared to many others. For that matter, every tinpot dictator and would be terrorist in the world could easily get their hands on this virus, store it for a few years until immunity has worn off and we don't have huge stockpiles of a vaccine, then purposefully release it in a dozen major cities at once, it would spread for a couple of weeks before being noticed.
- JackMorgan 6y agoI have a friend who is convinced that we're already mid-collapse and have been for decades. He cites many of the same causes found in the link above. He says, "just look at what happens to any wild animal when there aren't enough resources or they're stressed, they start going crazy: self harm, eating young, death by refusing to eat." He sees echos of behavior patterns like a fractal, so tiny patterns of behaviors in mice emerge as patterns in larger human society. He has said that he thinks human societies are just another organism that lives, ages, and dies. He doesn't really prep or anything, just expects he and most people he knows to die in food riots sometime in his life. He doesn't even bother prepping (so he says) because such a collapse likely would come from a way that he can't expect and wouldn't likely survive anyway. He realizes there isn't enough ammo to hold off millions of starving people, and the people who survive likely would do so accidentally or through freak luck, but a new society would emerge again in a few generations to repeat the cycle again. Fun guy, my friend.
- lcall 6y agoI believe there will be collapses and very hard things, but we can be OK (for a long list of reasons). I've written more elsewhere (at my site). But really, if we try to learn and do what is right, with a clear conscience, we can be OK. (Honesty and kindness are very important, as are the principles underlying the US Constitution. And more.)
- themodelplumber 6y agoI wonder, has your friend looked into the "growth and change looks like death" folks? Barbara Marx Hubbard is a good example. She offered the example of butterfly metamorphosis, which involves a pretty stunning systemic breakdown at a very deep level.
- howlgarnish 6y agoI moved from Europe to the US as a teenager, and I remember being shocked at the evident shock, decay and poverty I saw even in what was supposed to be a large and prosperous city (New York). It took me a long time to realize that this is how America works: things that didn't work or that nobody wants are allowed to fail, and this clearing out of the underbrush is what allows new things to come forth. Contrast this with Europe, where things like unprofitable state enterprises are propped up essentially forever, sucking away capital and people that could be doing something useful instead. But this was a long, long time ago. These days I don't hold out much hope for the US or for Europe: humanity's future is in Asia.
- zymhan 6y ago> It made me wonder though, who here legitimately thinks their society is nearing collapse? Indeed, it seems passive-aggressive to just post this link without any further commentary.
- frongpik 6y agoI'll take the liberty to share some notes from unscientific sources, because I find the official sources plain boring. A civilization is generally started by great people that put grand ideals into its foundation. A sign of such founders is their borderline unbelievable holiness, that makes them a legend. During its lifespan, great minds get replaced by small minds. The typical lifespan is about a million years, but maybe this time things move a lot quicker. The latter are attracted not to the ideals, but to the earthly things, such as shiny metals and power over others. I believe we are here now. In all cases, such people eventually discover the secret of black magic (I know, many would cough here) and the dark age begins. A sign of that phase is cyclopic brutalistic architecture that worships human body (that's an important detail). We've had a glimpse into that already: nazism. We seem to be moving rapidly in that direction: powerful dictatorships are plenty, while democracies are few. Another sign of that phase is abandoning liberty and reason, because the evil (the dark side of every human) has neither, and embracing chaos and fatalism. Example: the idea that voting doesn't matter, whether it's technically true or not. The terminal stage of every big civilization is a collapse into a sort of a black hole: people are paralyzed by fear and hate, the dominating ideology is a dark cult. There's no coming back from that stage, as that kind of dark cult has real power. At this point, the civilization always gets an external "help" that wipes everything out, so the few survivors could start it over, but now at the next level.
- op03 6y agoI have multiple ant colonies in my garden and when I was younger spent a whole lot of time trying everything imaginable to get rid of them (induce collapse you could say). But with each attempt my admiration for them just kept growing. Cause these fuckers with their spec of dust sized brains keep chugging along the next day morning as if nothing at all happened. Its like every calamity is just a minor interruption to whatever they are upto. So I just use their model. My mantra over time has become - "Dont sit around appreciating the pain. Get back to work" But the caveat here is, as with the ants, you must have a goto list of things to do. When I was younger I had no idea what I wanted to do so the mantra worked terribly. But the older I have gotten the list of things to do has grown. So like the ant no matter what happens theres always something to do.
- throw0101a 6y ago> It made me wonder though, who here legitimately thinks their society is nearing collapse? Which society? By which measures are you evaluating the situation? Since you ask: * https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/ https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/ The more pratically-minded lean more towards: * https://old.reddit.com/r/preppers/ https://old.reddit.com/r/preppers/ There's a certain minimum effort that most people should probably do (even if you don't live in a earthquake zone or hurricane area) * https://www.ready.gov https://www.ready.gov * https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx https://www.getprepared.gc.ca/index-en.aspx
- lazyjeff 6y agoThere's a great podcast / Youtube series called "Fall of Civilizations" that documents some of these collapses and why they happened: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew
- neartheplain 6y agoFantastic podcast. Recent two-parter on the fall of the Aztec Empire is particularly good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JVdpWCKeM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8JVdpWCKeM
- throwaway9980 6y agoFascinating. This quote from Toynbee in the section on decay is is particularly eerie given current events in the United States: First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force - against all right and reason - a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence when it executes its acts of secession. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation - and this on the part of all the actors in the tragedy of disintegration. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands. I am certain that Trump's efforts to retain power will fail. Unfortunately he has laid the groundwork for someone competent to seize power. It feels like only a matter of time.
- wonderwonder 6y agoI think our collapse began before Trump with the advent of Machine learning. ML was then hitched to advertising and click generation. Now individuals entire view of the world are shaped by algorithms designed to keep you clicking so they feed you to an echo chamber. This is the reason for the massive chasms between the 2 political sides, Brad Parscales was just able to harness that power for Trump. If you step back and think about how almost everything you see on the internet is designed to keep you coming back for more and the way it can shape peoples world view, it is quite terrifying.
- hyperpallium2 6y agoWith reproduction below replacement rates, we are headed toward a depopulation societal collapse.
- backing 6y agoThink of immigration.
- iridium_core 6y agoImmigration or population replacement?
- backing 6y agoImmigration is the base of any country. Your may be talking about more strict immigration policies but the subject here is "societal collapse" and population reduction and I was pointing out a possibility.
- bpodgursky 6y ago"Immigration as a solution for fertility" is rooted in the assumption that the developing world stays forever poor and keeps producing surplus fresh meat for you to attract and assimilate, which is some combination of offensive, racist, and also deeply incorrect.
- leetcrew 6y agoor be more creative. think of technological advancement so rapid that a less numerous generation can still be more productive than the one that preceded it.
- backing 6y agoThat is valid, but I don't know if you can still talk of "society" about a very reduced population, it depends on the reduction factor and stops at reproduction rate zero. A probable outcome would be that another society takes over the one disappearing.
- fipar 6y agoA very interesting (though I think it’s impossible to proof or refute) read related to this: https://www.julianjaynes.org/resources/books/ooc/ https://www.julianjaynes.org/resources/books/ooc/ I learned about it while reading Dawkins’ “The God Delusion,” and since then, Jaynes and Hofstadter have been the biggest influences on my personal philosophy.
- lxe 6y agoI don't think the British Empire is a good example. It has divested/separated areas under its influence without any sort of societal collapse affecting neither the individual former piece of the Empire, nor Britain itself.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Simulacra 6y agoI don't believe society will ever truly collapse, because there's too much money involved, and too much see evaporate.
- tuatoru 6y ago"It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism." - Mark Fisher.[1] I think the next hundred years will show us how fundamental capitalism is to our society. Making a living now gets in the way of having a life (and reproducing life) for the majority of people.[2] Whether or not capitalism can survive without growth has long been debated. (See e.g. [3], [4] for recent popular-media examples.) 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fisher 2. https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2050/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2050/ Look especially at the expected trends for the major economies of the world--Europe, Japan, China, RoK, Russian Federation, USA--and upcomers--Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, and so on. 3. https://www.degrowth.info/en/2014/06/the-good-news-no-capitalism-without-growth/ https://www.degrowth.info/en/2014/06/the-good-news-no-capita... 4. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-end-of-growth-wouldnt-be-the-end-of-capitalism/273367/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-end...
- jhowell 6y agoI wonder if I am an outlier here (physically the US) and think society is not collapsing, but diversifying. Also, given the state of the environment, national debt, employment prospects for many in the generations proceding me, and civic unrest, it seems prudent that we evaluate our socioeconomic activities.
- tasogare 6y agoRoman empire didn’t collapsed, it became diversified by the Lombards, Franks and Wisigoths.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoIt's not clear to me whether your point is intended sarcastically, but for those who don't know, the Roman Empire was incredibly diverse throughout all of its history. Rome itself was a cosmopolitan urban center for centuries. Even after the split and collapse of the WRE, the east remained hugely diverse.
- imbnwa 6y agoNot so much Rome as the entire Mediterranean has swapped genes and cultures a hundredfold for thousands of years being the trade hub between Europe, West Asia, and Africa. I also feel like I'm reading a bunch of coded statements with some of these comments in here.
- AlotOfReading 6y agoHonestly, I'd rather deal with the coded language visible thus far than have to explain why Diamond's Collapse is utter garbage for the hundredth time.
- mercer 6y agoBoth are exhausting, honestly.
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- tombh 6y agoI saw an intriguing comment yesterday on here about how the Extreme Ultra Violet Lithography machines that are producing our cutting edge processors are "the greatest achievement of science and technology on the planet"[1]. I can believe it. And it's fascinating how that affects geopolitics, much as other science and technology has in the past (the printing press, nuclear energy, etc) I'm not OP, but why I think this Wikipedia article is relevant is because the more I actually learn about the world and history the more I begin to wonder whether in fact _mercenarism_ not technology is the defining trait of modern civilisation (and by extension I wonder about whether this is true for HN as a whole too). The great leaps were made by traders, rather than scientists, those willing to exploit and enslave rather than innovate and create. Of course they feed each other, think of the Marine Chronometer[2]. But if indeed mercenerism is the defining characteristic then it makes a lot more sense to think about societal collapse, because the fundamental design of the West, like many other civilisations, is based on logistical exploitation, which, unlike technological innovation, is fundamentally unsustainable. And as a hacker, to me, such a design flaw cannot be patched away. Not that I advocate surrender, but rather, how do we, as hackers, minimise the impending destruction of a failing system? I wonder if one of the first steps is to stop wasting energy on any efforts based on the idea that we can fix this? Rather how can we, if it is even possible, gracefully manage the collapse? 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25361028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25361028 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nine_zeros 6y ago"In a speech to Roman nobles, the Emperor expressed his pressing concern over the low birthrates of the Romans elite. He said that freed slaves had been granted citizenship and Roman allies given seats government to increase the power and prosperity of Rome, yet the "original stock" was not replacing themselves, leaving the task to foreigners.[66] Roman poet Ovid shared the same observation." Well well. It's truly remarkable to see how our current laws and religious texts have roots in history.
- leetcrew 6y agonote that augustus said this at the beginning of what is called the "pax romana", a ~200 year period of unprecedented stability and affluence for the empire.
- tomdell 6y agoThis led me down a Wikipedia hole where I learned about John B. Calhoun’s experiments with mice - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experiments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experi... Very interesting - once the “mouse universe” reached a high population density, it descended into violence and chaos, which was succeeded by massive behavioral changes across the entire population - male mice became introverted, ceased fighting and attempting to reproduce, and simply ate, drank, slept and groomed themselves until the population collapsed.
- koonsolo 6y agoSorry for my potential ignorance, since I have a very limited view of what's happening in Japan. But this sounds a lot like what I hear what is happening in Japan with the men.
- SimeVidas 6y ago> Yet some have not collapsed but have only gradually faded away, as in the case of the British Empire since 1918. Burn.
- chewz 6y agoLet me recommend the book - The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper (2020)- about how climate change and pandemies slowly sapped strength of Roman Empire.. From Antonine Plague to Plague of Justinian and from Roman Climate Optimum to Late Antiquity Ice Age. [2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Warm_Period [3] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Antique_Little_Ice_Age https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Antique_Little_Ice_Age [1] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34427005-the-fate-of-rome https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34427005-the-fate-of-rom...