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Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

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Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#41

Post by TheBlight »

ncphil wrote: post #21
TheBlight wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDR's initiative didn't provide any reset. WW2 was responsible for that.

Are you really so sure of that? I'm old enough to have known a lot of people who lived through the Depression _because_ of FDR's programs. Whether the New Deal alone could have saved the country is literally academic to the tens of millions who were saved by jobs in the CWA, WPA and CCC, or the relief provided by the FSA, SSA and economic aid to businesses under the NIRA. It seems unusually cold hearted for any histo…

Yes, I'm sure.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#42

Post by vkou »

no_wizard wrote: post #24
anovikov wrote: post #13

I don't think there is any problem with inequality. Inequality may be increasing within individual countries, but it's decreasing worldwide because of decreasing inequality between countries. Similarly, i can't see a problem with East/West divide. "Eastearn" civilisations are rising only as long as they adopt Western principles. It's not as much of a disadvantage of a Western civilisation, it's simply that it's losin…

I think this ignores a few realities: 1) the largest of the economies rising in Asia, being China, is funded in large part by state subsidies to this day . That won’t last forever. Few wholly Chinese companies that weren’t in Hong Kong before China took it back over have proven they can compete without these subsidies either. 2) As a result of the above, for instance, free market isn’t really “free” and I argue this…

> 1) the largest of the economies rising in Asia, being China, is funded in large part by state subsidies to this day. That won’t last forever.

The power of a sovereign to directly tax, and indirectly inflate its currency says otherwise.

You also need to quantify what it means for the economy to 'run off state subsidies'. There are particular sectors of the economy that are subsidized in China. The rest stand on their own. Smart subsidies reduce the overall cost to the economy, by building the foundation on which the rest could be built on.

100% of a state's economy obviously can't run off subsidies. But a smaller percentage can - and when invested smartly, grows the rest of the economy. Do you have any numbers for which fields of China's economy depend on these subsidies, and which percentage of those fields those subsidies represent?

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#43

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #39
eplanit wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a US citizen, I've been wondering for almost 10 years now if we're edging towards a new civil war. In the past 5 or so, I've been worrying almost equally about the state of global affairs setting the stage for potential world war. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have been in a relatively stable world (9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan notwithstanding -- none of them world war scale), but it now feels ever les…

Replace CCP with Russia, and it's not a conspiracy theory.

Correct.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pillars-of-...

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#44

Post by thrdbndndn »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #35
BurningFrog wrote: post #26

I'm an amateur historian at best, but I'm not aware of any era that has not expected the world to end soon. The Christians have done it for 20 centuries now, as one example. During my life, it has always been a common expectation, though the expected cause has shifted a few times. My hunch is that maybe we're hard wired to expect the world to end, for some undiscovered reason. Again, I remind you of my amateur status…

I feel it’s the opposite - everyone expects things to go on as they are. At least in stable countries. We are hard wired not to expect the world to end.

Agreed.

By the way, is there any sort of memoirs from ordinary people before WW2? Like did people at the time see it coming 1 years, 5 years etc. before?

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#45

Post by dragonelite »

Sure the west is in decline, but a decline or collapse doesn't mean going back to living in caves or so. No the west will most likely experience a soviet style collapse where it will need multiple decades to recover.

I do feel that Europe will probably find its own way after the collapse and the US will go from a global hegemon to a regional super power. A collapse of the west is still decades ahead of the average state of being in the global south.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#46

Post by grecy »

mikewarot wrote: post #6

Of course we are, this too shall pass. There is a constant struggle to keep things afloat, people seem to forget that at times, especially the rent seeking class who place little to no value on infrastructure, both physical and societal. If we get another FDR style reset, things should be good for a generation or two, if not... the horrors of history will rhyme once again. Edit/Update: The New Deal provided a social…

> this too shall pass

As long as the world remains human habitable, I agree with you.

If even 10% of the landmass where humans currently live becomes uninhabitable due to the impacts of climate change like flood, heat, drought, stable society as we've know for ~50 years has little chance.

Hundreds of millions of people will have no place to live, no food, and no water. The only possible outcome would be immense upheaval, violence and another world war.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#47

Post by tartoran »

BurningFrog wrote: post #26

I'm an amateur historian at best, but I'm not aware of any era that has not expected the world to end soon. The Christians have done it for 20 centuries now, as one example. During my life, it has always been a common expectation, though the expected cause has shifted a few times. My hunch is that maybe we're hard wired to expect the world to end, for some undiscovered reason. Again, I remind you of my amateur status…

Keep in mind that in the last two centuries we’ve grown and expanded more or less exponentially. The destruction to the environment was proportional to it. Not saying we are going to self destruct, I don’t have a crystal ball to predict that, but it seems to me that right now we’re right on track towards it and the trainwreck is becoming harder and harder to avoid. Global warming and climate change is becoming more acute as years pass by and yet there are still people who think it is a hoax. If half the people around the took it seriously the other half would easily thwart their efforts by noncomplying.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#48

Post by labster »

edgyquant wrote: post #29
bluejekyll wrote: post #11

“By 476, the empire’s reach was zero.” I stopped reading right here. The Western Empire fell in 476 (for many reasons). The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) lasted until 1453. Even that isn’t a perfect way of articulating it, given the continued influence of the Catholic Church had well into the 1500’s (Luther). In some ways one could argue civilization has never ended, but paused in different areas of the wor…

Further. The empire ending didn’t mean civilization did as the Kingdom of Italy continued to exist and the empire was simply replaced with German kingdoms.

Replaced is an interesting word. Certainly the Holy Roman Empire claimed to be a successor state to Rome in the west, but in some sense Latin language and Roman culture pervades Europe. That’s why we have Kaisers and Czars who claim the power of Caesar. The United States’ civic architecture and symbols are explicit references to the Roman Republic, as it’s own bald eagle replaces the legion’s Aquila. Might as well say America replaced the Roman Empire.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#49

Post by thestu »

BurningFrog wrote: post #26

I'm an amateur historian at best, but I'm not aware of any era that has not expected the world to end soon. The Christians have done it for 20 centuries now, as one example. During my life, it has always been a common expectation, though the expected cause has shifted a few times. My hunch is that maybe we're hard wired to expect the world to end, for some undiscovered reason. Again, I remind you of my amateur status…

This is my general feeling as well. People enjoy catastrophizing, and also fail to appreciate that we as a species are actually fairly good at solving problems.

Re: Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

#50

Post by ergot_vacation »

BurningFrog wrote: post #26

I'm an amateur historian at best, but I'm not aware of any era that has not expected the world to end soon. The Christians have done it for 20 centuries now, as one example. During my life, it has always been a common expectation, though the expected cause has shifted a few times. My hunch is that maybe we're hard wired to expect the world to end, for some undiscovered reason. Again, I remind you of my amateur status…

While your point is a valid one, even from as detached a view as I can manage, the state of America doesn't seem very stable, or likely to improve. Arguably it has been on an ever-more-rapid decline since the 70s.
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