7 ms·

well, they are already living it, westeners have the privilege to believe it's not something that is happening but something that will happen in the future and

well, they are already living it, westeners have the privilege to believe it's not something that is happening but something that will happen in the future and take distance from it framing it as a collapse after peak prosperity. Third world never had peak prosperity or at least it didn't look particularly different from their past. But they are gonna starve and migrate too even if they don't call it collapse.

ben_w 5y ago
I think you’re discussing a very different thing to the parent and grandparent comments. Yes, by the standard that counts the end of the Roman Empire as a collapse, any given nation or union of nations may still collapse and those within may starve or migrate; this still won’t look like any of the post-apocalyptic narratives that represent the loudest and most obvious examples of this topic. I expect that, much like every other community, the loudest “collapsers” are merely an embarrassing minority, and certainly I hear that the people who stockpile food and maintain a strong relationship with their neighbours roll their eyes at those who stockpile ammunition and do nothing else.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  The city of Rome went from 1 million people to 20-30 thousand. Literally 97-98 % shrinkage. If the same happened to New York, with the subway abandoned, whole neighbourhoods overgrown by poison ivy and the skyscrapers collapsing from lack of maintenance, "post-apocalyptic" would probably be a fitting word. I am not sure how you can call such a massive loss of complexity and population something else than a collapse.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    My understanding is the population estimate for 300 AD was ~1 million, declining to ~800k in 400 AD, ~500k in 450 AD and down to ~100k in 500 AD. It’s the timescale that makes it. I’m thinking Methyr Tydfel in the UK as a point of reference for similar fractional change in the first roughly century of decline, but peaking in the Industrial Age. If this happened in NYC, I’d expect (say) Queens to turn to rubble while (say) Manhattan is getting freshly built skyscrapers. Plucky adventurers with assault rifles and bows looting tinned food from a suddenly abandoned Whole Foods is more of what I expect during hurricanes than as a standard result everywhere all at one.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I think the bottom was reached around 800 AD with 20-50k people in entire Rome. Admittedly, it is not easy to estimate population development in a city like Rome that has been built several times over and people still live above the ruins. It must nevertheless been quite obvious to the early medieval inhabitants of Rome that the city used to be far bigger, far more populous and far richer.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
> Third world never had peak prosperity or at least it didn't look particularly different from their past If that's what you legitimately think of the developing world, then no wonder you believe in collapse so strongly (almost like the inverse of the "noble savage"; a fear of letting go of the "Western enlightenment" even if it comes from critics of modern Western regimes). Please, go outside and experience the world. Life has fundamentally changed for most of humanity, except for the occasional isolated remote community, over the last 50 years. I urge you to define what "peak prosperity" is and how developing nations lack it before we discuss what "collapse" is and the loss of "peak prosperity". I have lots of family in developing nations and their lives have absolutely, fundamentally changed. It's borderline insulting to imply that developing nations still live like they did in the past.
- chobeat 5y ago
  My mother grew up in southern Europe in conditions that were bordering middle-age conditions and now life there is completely different. Prosperity is always relative to the system you're immersed in and in a globalist world, your prosperity is defined by the prosperity of how people on the other side of the world live. Americans can believe they have the best living conditions in the world and same can do northern Europeans and maybe Japanese too. Let's throw in urbanized chinese middle class too. But in developing countries they don't have the privilege to believe they are in that competition. They are always a province of the empire and living in scarcity. This says nothing about the enormous changes that went on pretty much everywhere in the rural parts of every country with very few, isolated exceptions.

ben_w 5y ago

I think you’re discussing a very different thing to the parent and grandparent comments. Yes, by the standard that counts the end of the Roman Empire as a collapse, any given nation or union of nations may still collapse and those within may starve or migrate; this still won’t look like any of the post-apocalyptic narratives that represent the loudest and most obvious examples of this topic. I expect that, much like every other community, the loudest “collapsers” are merely an embarrassing minority, and certainly I hear that the people who stockpile food and maintain a strong relationship with their neighbours roll their eyes at those who stockpile ammunition and do nothing else.

inglor_cz 5y ago
The city of Rome went from 1 million people to 20-30 thousand. Literally 97-98 % shrinkage. If the same happened to New York, with the subway abandoned, whole neighbourhoods overgrown by poison ivy and the skyscrapers collapsing from lack of maintenance, "post-apocalyptic" would probably be a fitting word. I am not sure how you can call such a massive loss of complexity and population something else than a collapse.
- ben_w 5y ago
  My understanding is the population estimate for 300 AD was ~1 million, declining to ~800k in 400 AD, ~500k in 450 AD and down to ~100k in 500 AD. It’s the timescale that makes it. I’m thinking Methyr Tydfel in the UK as a point of reference for similar fractional change in the first roughly century of decline, but peaking in the Industrial Age. If this happened in NYC, I’d expect (say) Queens to turn to rubble while (say) Manhattan is getting freshly built skyscrapers. Plucky adventurers with assault rifles and bows looting tinned food from a suddenly abandoned Whole Foods is more of what I expect during hurricanes than as a standard result everywhere all at one.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    I think the bottom was reached around 800 AD with 20-50k people in entire Rome. Admittedly, it is not easy to estimate population development in a city like Rome that has been built several times over and people still live above the ruins. It must nevertheless been quite obvious to the early medieval inhabitants of Rome that the city used to be far bigger, far more populous and far richer.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

> Third world never had peak prosperity or at least it didn't look particularly different from their past If that's what you legitimately think of the developing world, then no wonder you believe in collapse so strongly (almost like the inverse of the "noble savage"; a fear of letting go of the "Western enlightenment" even if it comes from critics of modern Western regimes). Please, go outside and experience the world. Life has fundamentally changed for most of humanity, except for the occasional isolated remote community, over the last 50 years. I urge you to define what "peak prosperity" is and how developing nations lack it before we discuss what "collapse" is and the loss of "peak prosperity". I have lots of family in developing nations and their lives have absolutely, fundamentally changed. It's borderline insulting to imply that developing nations still live like they did in the past.

chobeat 5y ago
My mother grew up in southern Europe in conditions that were bordering middle-age conditions and now life there is completely different. Prosperity is always relative to the system you're immersed in and in a globalist world, your prosperity is defined by the prosperity of how people on the other side of the world live. Americans can believe they have the best living conditions in the world and same can do northern Europeans and maybe Japanese too. Let's throw in urbanized chinese middle class too. But in developing countries they don't have the privilege to believe they are in that competition. They are always a province of the empire and living in scarcity. This says nothing about the enormous changes that went on pretty much everywhere in the rural parts of every country with very few, isolated exceptions.