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>If the world becomes the kind of place where those preparations are necessary, it's no longer the kind of world that I'd like to exist in. That's my position

>If the world becomes the kind of place where those preparations are necessary, it's no longer the kind of world that I'd like to exist in. That's my position in the case of a nuclear winter as that's fundamentally unsurvivable, so why bother right? However in the case of a total breakdown in global trade I'd be more willing to try stick it out. Looking back at the historical record the collapse of the bronze-age civilization is the closest parallel I can see to what I would imagine will happen at some point to either us or our children. The best hypothesis I've seen on what happened there is there were a bunch of inter-dependent societies that traded with each-other by importing raw materials and producing finished goods and trading with others. There's evidence of drought over an extended period which led to both famine and migrations of people in famine affected areas to other locations in search of food that also brought people into conflict with each other and some evidence of internal uprisings from social unrest. Any one of those things in isolation seems not enough to take everything out, but when all occur at once it seems it caused a breakdown in trade which was sufficient enough to reduce the complexity of the society to the point that individuals that had come to rely on that complexity weren't able to survive it going away. There is a great talk on YouTube called "Social Collapse Best Practices" given by a guy who lived through the collapse of the Soviet Union and he compares it how he thinks the US would fare in a similar situation and gives practical advice as he sees the same structural forces at play that brought about that collapse. This talk was given in 2009. I've been digging back as far into the past as I can on people giving doomsday predictions and back-testing what they say to assess accuracy, and a very clear trend emerges that everyone who focuses on the fundamentals is largely right.

jka 5y ago
Sure, I see what you're saying, and I'm fairly resilient, but I don't think it should be anyone's duty to accept widespread, severe adversity based on the mistakes of world leaders. It'd be a difficult, long grind back to normality with no guarantee of reaching a better or more equal world than today's (perhaps worse, given the way that resources were redistributed after the fall of the USSR, as I understand it). If unrest really becomes that widespread, I'm off on the road with some books, the most-reliable, widely-compatible electronics available, whatever's left of my sense of humour, and a few stories.
- throwaway6532 5y ago
  >I don't think it should be anyone's duty to accept widespread, severe adversity based on the mistakes of world leaders I think this is a worldview that's very centered on humanity and civilization as it stands today, and not reflective of the wider human experience across space and time. Adversity and conflict has historically been the norm, and "The Long Peace" is a true anomaly in world history. What we're likely to see is more a "regression to the mean", so to speak. >It'd be a difficult, long grind back to normality with no guarantee of reaching a better or more equal world than today I would posit there would be zero way back to where we are today. Ever. The easy to access hydrocarbons that were available to be exploited initially are no longer available and the ones we exploit today require tools, and techniques that would no longer be operable or reproducible given their complexity. I think that's true for an astounding amount of technology. I recently took my car for a warrant of fitness and it passed, but I was told I will need to replace the tires at some point in the near future. I was also told no tires were in stock. I assumed this was just due to Covid related shipping delays, but then I recently learned there was a rubber shortage. Digging into it I found that Thailand produces a remarkable portion of the worlds rubber. There are all sorts of these linkages in the supply chain that if one were to completely give out would lead to everything else being on a pretty limited timeline. >If unrest really becomes that widespread, I'm off on the road with some books, the most-reliable, widely-compatible electronics available, whatever's left of my sense of humour, and a few stories. Looting is the obvious thing in the short term you sort of expect to occur, so having supplies enough to put you out of the craziness of that would damp down risks there. I guess one hopes that the population density reduces to the point where pockets of people that band together stop facing immediate security threats and resources once used by people who are no longer around can be utilized by those that remain and at some point in that equation an equilibrium will be found.
  - jka 5y ago
    Could you try challenging each of your own paragraphs, to determine whether you can find alternative perspectives?
    - 5y ago

jka 5y ago

Sure, I see what you're saying, and I'm fairly resilient, but I don't think it should be anyone's duty to accept widespread, severe adversity based on the mistakes of world leaders. It'd be a difficult, long grind back to normality with no guarantee of reaching a better or more equal world than today's (perhaps worse, given the way that resources were redistributed after the fall of the USSR, as I understand it). If unrest really becomes that widespread, I'm off on the road with some books, the most-reliable, widely-compatible electronics available, whatever's left of my sense of humour, and a few stories.

throwaway6532 5y ago
>I don't think it should be anyone's duty to accept widespread, severe adversity based on the mistakes of world leaders I think this is a worldview that's very centered on humanity and civilization as it stands today, and not reflective of the wider human experience across space and time. Adversity and conflict has historically been the norm, and "The Long Peace" is a true anomaly in world history. What we're likely to see is more a "regression to the mean", so to speak. >It'd be a difficult, long grind back to normality with no guarantee of reaching a better or more equal world than today I would posit there would be zero way back to where we are today. Ever. The easy to access hydrocarbons that were available to be exploited initially are no longer available and the ones we exploit today require tools, and techniques that would no longer be operable or reproducible given their complexity. I think that's true for an astounding amount of technology. I recently took my car for a warrant of fitness and it passed, but I was told I will need to replace the tires at some point in the near future. I was also told no tires were in stock. I assumed this was just due to Covid related shipping delays, but then I recently learned there was a rubber shortage. Digging into it I found that Thailand produces a remarkable portion of the worlds rubber. There are all sorts of these linkages in the supply chain that if one were to completely give out would lead to everything else being on a pretty limited timeline. >If unrest really becomes that widespread, I'm off on the road with some books, the most-reliable, widely-compatible electronics available, whatever's left of my sense of humour, and a few stories. Looting is the obvious thing in the short term you sort of expect to occur, so having supplies enough to put you out of the craziness of that would damp down risks there. I guess one hopes that the population density reduces to the point where pockets of people that band together stop facing immediate security threats and resources once used by people who are no longer around can be utilized by those that remain and at some point in that equation an equilibrium will be found.
- jka 5y ago
  Could you try challenging each of your own paragraphs, to determine whether you can find alternative perspectives?
  - 5y ago