[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', '
')The US (North America) could become self-sufficient if they really wanted to, if they just cut out much of the excesses and become more like many central European countries.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')he collapse has begun.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', '
')The US (North America) could become self-sufficient if they really wanted to, if they just cut out much of the excesses and become more like many central European countries.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')
Need I say more?

[ROCKMAN]

A fair list but all those situations exist on many area now and have in other areas for many decades. So I don't think a list, no matter how extensive, doesn't tell what "collapse" means. Is it a % of the US? The world? And how spread out: we've had significant segments of all economies periodically collapse for centuries and the recover.

[Lore]

True, some of those situations have always existed, others have not, but never so much in mass at one time on a planet of 7 billion interdependent humans. None, that would have resulted in such finality on a grand scale either.

For instance, the potato famine in Ireland sent many a refugee to the US, but there is really no place now to go under similar circumstances that would welcome such an exodus. We can't run off to another planet, just because we screwed up this one. Multiply the Irish flight by many times the number, for several reasons on the list, and you get a pretty grim picture.

As far as what collapse looks like? Almost everything of any importance it seems today has at least some impact on a global level.

[truecougarblue]

I voted for fast crash when it comes, we came so close in '08 and the next time it will be that much more difficult to stop (or delay) the inevitable.

[Rune]

I voted for Carlhole, of course. I am he. It was a college nickname that was just so awful and appropriate that I liked it.

I don't think there will be a crash of civilization at all. There is no reason to think that Life will cease to be a big-time bitch though.

Its not that I believe Planet Earth to be a conscious, living organism itself. But I use that mental construct in thinking about the future of Earth's evolutionary development, achieving ever higher levels of complexity, organization and awareness, just as it has always done in the past. This, of course, at a price.

The price of it is what has been termed the "Anthropocene Era", which I think could be leading to something else above and beyond Humanity. Our high population and its ever-advancing interconnectedness is evidence of this continuing and rapidly advancing evolutionary trend.

This is my perception and my speculation about what is happening in the long term. Unlike those who believe in a future collapse of population in a yeast-like pre-determined mass-extinction, I think human numbers will decline in accordance with some new evolutionary paradigm that is impossible for us to perceive accurately in the present.

In a way, it is as if Earth's biosphere itself is growing and developing along a trajectory of advancement. And that biospheric advancement has led to the
Noosphere, which is the continued evolutionary advancement of Complex Consciousness and Awareness - towards a planetary-based awareness of the cosmos which is far, far beyond the limited abilities of even the collective Human Mind. Wow!

Shoot me if you think I'm full of shit. But this is kind of what I think. Of course, I could be totally wrong about it. I don't have any sort of faith that this will happen. And if it DOES happen, I will be long dead and will never know if my ruminations were anywhere near correct.

As this evolutionary advancement continues, our individuals lives may be impacted very negatively or they could be impacted very positively. It is not as if I am somehow reaching in my mind for a Utopic condition for all of us.

There most likely WILL be wars, there could be genocide, there could be wrenching economic changes that could prove very difficult to live through. I don't know. But Planet Earth itself seems to be on some sort of evolutionary growth path.

It makes me wonder if there are ideal evolutionary growth paths for a developing and advancing planet. Are there multiple optimum growth paths, or in the Universe, do planets in their Noospheric development tend to pick a single, most ideal evolution?

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')he collapse has begun.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')
Need I say more?

[SeaGypsy]

Are we forming the mold or is it forming us? One of the great questions

[dolanbaker]

I think that some people get too tied up with the idea that fossil fuel depletion & the rate of extraction not keeping up with demand is just about whether you can drive a big car or have to down-size to a smaller one.
Peak oil (or rather the decline after it) will affect everything, not just transport.
The amount of FF use per capita has been declining ever since the 1970s after the oil shock of 1973 encouraged people to look at not wasting energy as they used to.
In the future, there will be less for everyone and everything so we'll have to adapt our way of life to function in a lower energy world, for example it may mean that people will always need to live in the same town as where they work, JIT transport is replaced by scheduled delivery, big detached houses in the country are succeeded by cluster houses with shared heating & power systems in urban areas using only a fraction of the energy the McMansions currently do.

[ROCKMAN]

Lore - valid points. But there have been a few problems of significance. The 100 million killed during WWII probably felt a bit as if their world collapsed as well as the majority of the European pop that died from the plague.

I suspect we may have to take a similar position on "collapse" as that member of SCOTUS did regarding pornography: can't define it but we know it when we see it. LOL

[ROCKMAN]

Lore - valid points. But there have been a few problems of significance. The 100 million killed during WWII probably felt a bit as if their world collapsed as well as the majority of the European pop that died from the plague.

I suspect we may have to take a similar position on "collapse" as that member of SCOTUS did regarding pornography: can't define it but we know it when we see it. LOL

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '
')
Need I say more?

[AgentR11]

Definition Collapse: The point at which the per capita purchasing power of residents of industrialized nations, measured in bushels of grain, starts to decline. My take on this definition is that we are right at the cliff's edge, we've slipped a couple times, but caught ourselves on small outcroppings or branches; unfortunately the prospects of getting back up on the safety of the plateau have become quite remote, and the pit below us is deep, foul, and absolutely horrific in every way imaginable.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dolanbaker', 'I') think that some people get too tied up with the idea that fossil fuel depletion & the rate of extraction not keeping up with demand is just about whether you can drive a big car or have to down-size to a smaller one.
Peak oil (or rather the decline after it) will affect everything, not just transport.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')I suspect we may have to take a similar position on "collapse" as that member of SCOTUS did regarding pornography: can't define it but we know it when we see it. LOL

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', '
')You're not discussing what collapse is, just how human nature deals with it.