[Tanada]

Being a history geek I will put it this way. Sure for some of the younger Generation losing the capability to text their friends 87 times a day would seem like 'total collapse' even if regular Ma Bell style phone service was still fully available. The thing is Collapse is just as much a series of events as 'Progress' is. It doesn't just stop when you get to voice phone level of 1890's technology, it keeps right on going for some time before it stabilizes. In the Western Roman Empire internal decay was well advanced by 450 AD and when the capitol of Rome was captured 476 AD being recognized as the "total collapse". However in 476 AD there was still a lot of functional infrastructure and a whole lot of skilled people who wanted to live their quiet normal lives living in what is today Italy.

It took about 400 more years before the Italians reached the absolute bottom from the heights the Roman Empire had achieved in 100 AD when they were in a semi stable large powerful Empire. They forgot how to maintain or even repair the infrastructure, let alone replace it with something new. In all fairness I would say the Empire in the west started decaying substantially right around 400 AD and kept right on decaying until around 800 AD. It was a very grim time to be alive, bands of brigands roamed the countryside and robbed travelers at will. Trade pretty much ground to a full halt because only large well armed caravans could travel and there just was not enough surplus to often support such an endeavor.

So America, your decay depending on whom you ask started right around the time of national peak oil, or perhaps a decade earlier or later. In the 1900-1950 period we went from walking at 4 mph or taking a train at around 40 mph to being able to get into a jet propelled aircraft and travel at 600 or even 800 mph. In contrast from 1950-2000 we went from most passengers flying at 500-550 mph to the elites flying at 1,200 mph in the Concorde in the late 1970's. So far in the 2000-2050 era we have lost the Concorde and every 'advance' in civil aviation has been made with the goal of packing more people into less space to harvest the 'economy of scale'. You are now 'lucky' if you can be packed into a too small seat with a too narrow aisle and fly at 500 mph along with everyone and their family at a price you can scrape together. I still think Civil Aviation will completely die as a commercial enterprise soon after World Peak because the energy needed to haul people and cargo is extremely high compared to other modes of travel. It is not just the cost of fuel, as many seem to think, it is the cost of the infrastructure that supports air travel. A fully laden Boeing 747 or Airbus A-380 causes tremendous stress on the paving of the airports. A runway or taxiway has to be able to support all the weight without cracking and preferably support a once around emergency landing if something goes wrong on takeoff.

If as I believe we started our decay loop in the USA around 1970 the Empire "fall" will be around 2045 reflecting what took place with Rome, but we won't hit our bottom until around 2500 AD.

So will we have a total collapse? Certainly, and we are already well down the road on that path. The good news for you alive in 2015, unless we have a full out nuclear war or a Carrington Event that is as bad as possible that collapse will go on grinding slowly down long after you have passed away.

[AgentR11]

Total collapse is simple to define. When grain rots in the field while the grocery store shelves are empty. If that hasn't happened, its not collapse. If it does happen, we won't be here on the forums talking about collapse.

We'll be trying to not die.

[Lore]

This is true. We have finally arrived at the maximum exploitation of all the important natural resources with no easily available substitutes, or places in which to find raw new ones.

Total collapse is the absence of any possible way to restore life sustaining support.

Absence of the Internet is an inconvenience, but Walmart trucks not making their daily deliveries to the local big box could be a real problem.

[vox_mundi]

Embrace the chaos: Predictable ecosystems may be more fragile

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen it comes to using our natural resources, human beings want to know what we're going to get. We expect clean water every time we turn on the tap; beaches free of algae and bacteria; and robust harvests of crops, fish and fuel year after year. As a result, we try to manage the use of our resources in a way that minimizes their variability.

We seek a predictable "status quo."

But a new study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says managing our environment for predictable outcomes is risky. In fact, more often than not, it backfires.

"By making things predictable in the short term, we make them unpredictable in the long term," says Steve Carpenter, director of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and lead author of the report. "We actively make things worse."

At the heart of the problem, says Carpenter, is the fact that while we can reduce variability on short time frames, "variability doesn't go away, it just goes somewhere else." And, he warns, "it has to come back."

Carpenter and his colleagues ran a series of simple computer models looking at three human endeavors: controlling nutrient pollution in lakes; maintaining cattle production on rangelands invaded by shrubs; and sustaining harvest in a fishery.

In all cases, when they tried to control variance -- by tightly controlling fish harvest, or shrubs in grasslands, for example -- unexpected outcomes occurred. Fish stocks collapsed at lower harvest levels. Grasslands were replaced by shrubs with even light pressure from cattle grazing.

The results are counterintuitive: Reduced pressure on a resource ends up being bad for business. Part of the explanation, Carpenter says, is that "the minute humans try to manage the system, they become part of the system." And our involvement may help explain some of these unintended outcomes.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/01/1511804112

[PrestonSturges]

I don't know if "civilization" will "collapse" but maybe it will just revert to a form that can be supported by our intellects. Many Americans are operating at the level of 9th century peasants, and they are intensely resentful of anyone that doesn't see that as the natural order of things. Maybe the whole idea of reading and writing is just too much, and the population needs to collapse to a level that is consistent with our mental prowess rather than our energy stockpiles.

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'd')uring ww2 governments round the world introduced rationing and that will be what happens post peak

[kiwichick]

try not to be too optimistic Cid

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'W')hen I joined this place, I was pretty much a slow-crasher even an optimist. I thought that we would power down gradually and learn to live a simpler albeit harder life. No longer. We blew our chances and are about to be kicked hard in the butt. Total collapse is just what it seems to be, in the form of migrations and continually encroaching chaos.

[dohboi]

pstarr--glad to hear that we have taken you to a deeper level of awareness--sorry that reality sucks do horribly.

dolan--we gotta talk

Specifically, when you accurately point out: "The current migrant "crisis" is a foretaste of what is to come..."

Sorry, dude, but how the f does that lead you to any kind of optimism about the future.

That's the whole freakin' point.

However optimistic (realistically or un-) you may feel about a particular locality's possibilities for surviving collapse, other areas where collapse is baked in or in progress are not gonna just collapse in place. They're gonna come knockin on your front back and side doors, and probably a few others.

As they say, 'We're gonna get the water from your house..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KulvW2TUQ

[kiwichick]

many Kiwi's used to moan about how far away New Zealand is from anywhere else

possibly more of us are seeing 1000 kms of ocean surrounding us on all sides as an asset these days

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kiwichick', 'm')any Kiwi's used to moan about how far away New Zealand is from anywhere else

possibly more of us are seeing 1000 kms of ocean surrounding us on all sides as an asset these days

[kiwichick]

@ lore

that's the plan

we shifted back from Australia last year; summers were getting too hot where we were

not too keen on the flies or the snakes either

last year New Zealand had record net migration ; approx. 50,000

there are worse places to live I think

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')As they say, 'We're gonna get the water from your house..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-KulvW2TUQ

[dohboi]

"Adam And The Ants wants their makeup back"

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I')n all fairness I would say the Empire in the west started decaying substantially right around 400 AD and kept right on decaying until around 800 AD. It was a very grim time to be alive, bands of brigands roamed the countryside and robbed travelers at will. Trade pretty much ground to a full halt because only large well armed caravans could travel and there just was not enough surplus to often support such an endeavor.