> Collapse takes a long time and it's a slow process. If you're talking about the roman empire, sure. But i'm guessing (disclaimer: not an anthropologist) that

> Collapse takes a long time and it's a slow process. If you're talking about the roman empire, sure. But i'm guessing (disclaimer: not an anthropologist) that some civilizations have collapsed much faster due to resource exhaustion or otherwise destroying their local environment. > You can't keep fitting more and more people on a planet the size of Earth and expect to increase energy consumption forever. The second part of the sentence is the important part, and the one it's easier to do something about. There are so many ways to reduce energy consumption globally, but they require a shift in governance to do away entirely with industrial capitalism. I believe most people would be pretty happy about it (do you really prefer having sushi once a week over having 6/7 days free time?!), except for the bourgeoisie whose entire existence and way of life is threatened. > That means less vacations, less stuff, less high end services. I agree reducing consumption is the principle idea, but i don't think "less stuff" from an end-user perspective is what really makes a difference. I believe useless stuff deployed on a wide scale (eg. CCTV, cop uniforms, office buildings, car-oriented cities and other concrete/electronics-based nonsense) is what could make a difference via policy shifts. If as a society you start only producing highly-reliable (and repairable!) goods and do away with useless junk that only serves to reinforce existing power structure, chances are we can have a pretty modern way of life without destroying our entire environment. A few days back, i posted some ideas on another threads about how to realistically start doing that from one day to the next (on a regulatory level): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29241109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29241109