[dohboi]

What Newfie said.

The Ehrlich's predicted the population would explode with eventual dire consequences.

Borlaug and the 'Green Revolution' enabled that explosion to go one that most could have imagined possible, and the consequences (already dire for the billion or so who have inadequate food and the two billion or so who have inadequate clean water) will be ever more dire for ever more people with every 70 million we add every year.

If their warning had been heeded, and the main emphasis had been on reducing birth rates as rapidly as possible, and especially if we had also heeded warnings from the Club of Rome report on hyper-consumerism, we would not be in the dire straights that we in fact find ourselves.

But their warnings were not heeded at the level they should have been, and even at this late, as we see, many are still dismissing them.

Sad, the depths of our ignorance and hubris.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')The Ehrlich's predicted the population would explode with eventual dire consequences.

[Plantagenet]

You'd better reread your Tainter, because Tainter believes that societal collapses can be avoided when new "energy" is found.

In his most famous book "Collapse of Complex Societies" he states "When some new input to an economic system is brought on line, whether a technical innovation or an energy subsidy, it will often have the potential at least temporarily to raise marginal productivity" (p. 124).

Thats exactly where we are now in the global economy. New energy inputs from the technological innovation called "frakking" are becoming available, including more oil and huge amounts of new natural gas. These new energy inputs are producing local economic booms in North Dakota and other areas where frakking is being applied-----just the opposite of the collapse the Ehrlich's dystopian prophecy foresees. The knock-on effect is an increase in manufacturing due to the cheap power from NG, spreading the positive effect of the new energy into the society.

We now know the Ehrlich's predictions of mass famine in the 1970s and 1980s were wrong because they ignored the effects of new technologies on increasing food production. Time will tell if the Ehrlichs are wrong again now with their latest prediction of doom because they are ignoring the important effect of increasing energy supplies created by frakking. The next 20 years may see mass famines and societal collapse, as the Ehrlich's predict, or they may see continued global economic growth fueled by new development of shale oil and shale gas in the US and other countries. Time will tell.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '.')..sometimes we need a personal savior. Will you be mine?

[Newfie]

Well, yeah, you just keep feeding the monkeys in the cage and they will keep reproducing.

More food, more monkeys. Infinite food, infinite monkeys. Right, I got it.


So, uh, just a thought here, who is shoveling the monkey shit?

And where is it going?

[mmasters]

I used to be convinced we were going to be in a crash now but there's plenty of infrastructure to prevent it from happening in the US for at least 20 years. There's plenty of natural gas to be had and people can learn to be a lot tougher and work harder.

Accepting the inherent negativity of it all has made for a happier life for me. I learned to selectively not care for the human race as a whole and have moved on for the most part. Caring for the group is a nice thing but when it comes to survival it's every man for himself.

I think the humanitarian problems 2020 and beyond and the way the media handles it are going to make for interesting viewing in the future. But I'm guessing people will learn to be in their bubbles and not care, people can only handle so much negativity, the africa problem will become global and most will learn how not to care about it. The save the whales types will have a real problem with it all and some will probably self destruct. I'm sure civil liberties will be removed further to better shield those at the top and society will become more feudal.

The tough times will demand better leaders and hopefully this will give us a chance to make things better but we could just go the path of Rome again.

One thing's for sure with the current crop of college graduates the younger generation will largely fall to the wayside, most don't have the ambition or drive to succeed in these coming times or make something of themselves. We're probably going to have to wait 30 years to see drive and ambition return more.

Probably 2030-2040 - TSWHTF for the bottom levels of society and take out a couple layers. The US will probably remain the best place to live.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'Y')ou'd better reread your Tainter, because Tainter believes that societal collapses can be avoided when new "energy" is found.

In his most famous book "Collapse of Complex Societies" he states "When some new input to an economic system is brought on line, whether a technical innovation or an energy subsidy, it will often have the potential at least temporarily to raise marginal productivity" (p. 124).

[SamInNebraska]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')
Does anyone think the USA is going back into mass consumer mode soon?

[SamInNebraska]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')We are dancing on the edge of the cliff while juggling Fabrege' eggs wearing a blind fold.

[Cloud9]

I think we have been in the collapse for the last forty years. Peak oil raised the price of production so we shifted production to countries where the cost of energy inputs was offset by cheap labor. We shifted from a producer economy to a service economy and set up a system where we exported paper to rest of the world in exchange for real products. This has enabled the consumer economy to develop to unimaginable heights. That expansion ran into a wall in 2005. Miles driven and gas consumption tells the real story.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'Y')ou'd better reread your Tainter, because Tainter believes that societal collapses can be avoided when new "energy" is found.

In his most famous book "Collapse of Complex Societies" he states "When some new input to an economic system is brought on line, whether a technical innovation or an energy subsidy, it will often have the potential at least temporarily to raise marginal productivity" (p. 124).

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')Yes. Economic disruption and depressions or political incompetence or war or plague or terrorism or any number of things can disrupt the operation of complex modern societies. But that risk has always been there---.

I also quibble with the idea that complex societies are somehow fragile because they are so complex. In fact, the complexity in many cases provides redundancies, reserves, and resiliance because it is very hard to simultaneoulsy take down all parts of very large complex modern societies----we get a hurricane Sandy and the rest of the USA rushes to pour money into the devastated areas---we get a bankrupt Greece and the rest of the EU ponies up to help, and so on.

------------------------------

For these reasons, I just don't see the "rapid collapse" scenario happening.

[mmasters]

I don't see the US people having any trust issues with the banking system. I see total acceptance of it. They will just print more money as necessary, there wont be any shortages of it and the inflation will be spread out across the global economy.

With peak oil the economy will shrink with the US and China being the remaining powerhouses.

[Lore]

Just remember you can be wrong about the timing a thousand times, you only have to be right once. Extinction is forever, no restarts.

[Dybbuk]

This thought has been bouncing around in my head the past few days. If there's a huge die-off this century precipitated by fossil fuel depletion, maybe it won't be starvation, but rather pandemic.

It's often feared that some bioengineered pathogen could be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. It's assumed that it would only be used in the context of war or terrorism. But suppose that a die-off starts happening, and it's apparent that it will drag on for a long time. Someone might release the bio-weapon not out of malice, but actually as a humanitarian measure. They might figure that we might as well get the die-off in one fell swoop, rather than prolonging the agony, so that we can get on with rebuilding in the aftermath.

Then the big question becomes whether anything resembling modern civilization can be sustained into the aftermath. Or would we necessarily have to regress into a pre-technological state?

[SeaGypsy]

I'm with Tanada that the most likely scenario (read inevitable) is a banking collapse. The US is very inward looking when it comes to money. I doubt most Americans have the slightest idea of how the USD$ evolved to become The Reserve Currency of our planet. Without such understanding there can be no comprehension of the cause of value or it's vulnerability to faith collapse outside the USA. To my mind much is just running on inertia, belief based on experience, experience based on generations of mostly similar experience. There is an enormous global unwarranted faith in the Greenback. There is Reserve Currency Status and it's various treaties. There is the backbone of both: Oil. As oil fades, it simultaneously becomes more vital than ever to the USA and weakens the Reserve Status protection. This already being well underway, the unwarranted faith of the minions becomes the last pillar holding up the roof of the temple.

How many times will- can the world tolerate the Reserve Currency producer monetizing it's debt? Who's currency will replace the toilet paper USD? Euro in the toilet, GBP oversold, Yuan manipulated utterly, the rest relative minnows; inertia again. Inertia and brainwashing.

[Cloud9]

Half the population think dollars are produced by the U.S. Government. They think the Federal Reserve is the Treasury. The other half is buying silver eagles and the mint is out. Half the population wants gun abolition. The other half bought every thirty round magazine and AR part on the planet. They also bought up all the ammunition. The country is cleaving along urban and rural lines. Look at the voter map by counties. It is pretty obvious that the survival of the cities depends on the government. The rural areas not so much.

If J.P. Morgan implodes they implode the clearing house for SNAP cards. It is my understanding that J.P. has considerable exposure to the European crisis. I think the system is like a drunk walking the edge of the precipice. It can go on for a very long time or it can collapse in an instant. Contrary to popular belief, the outcome is much more a matter of luck than the construct of central planning.