[asg70]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'N')ot quite. Many millions and into the billions barely live better than their distant ancestors. 2 billion plus without sanitation, Over a billion lacking in electricity, same for potable water. 3 billion living on less than 2 dollars a day, 1 billion on less than 1 dollar a day.
And then at the social instability unleashed by the ethos of greed and corresponding envy. Not to mention the wholesale enslavement and genocide of peoples by the European powers and the US.
Which brings us to the modern age of a few people having unimaginable wealth and about 20% of the worlds population relative wealth and the other 80% living impoverished, stunted lives of grinding poverty with little access to adequate healthcare, education or upward mobility

[onlooker]

In our arrogance we have run out of good options

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'I')n our arrogance we have run out of good options

[onlooker]

Adam, your ideas of success and not failing is seriously short sighted and narrow. Billions have been left out of the Capitalism "successes"
And we are busily knocking down/off the legs of our collective chair by continuing to overpopulate the Earth and employ ways of living that degrade and deplete our planet and its resources. So your "belief" in our success is just that - a misguided opinion

[Peak_Yeast]

The question is what future situations that warrents the definition of a collapse.

80% of our agriculture is used to produce meat. In a situation where food becomes a problem this is an easy way out - and it will be used, of course.

Extreme amounts of energy are used for tourism, useless entertainment and a lot of other easily removed items. That could easily happen.

Yes there will be a lot of companies that has to disappear, but it could actually be a boon for the real and important parts of the economy to get rid of all this wasteful behavior.

IOW: I see two collapse scenarios:

1. Where we continuously adjust downwards our consumption while the governments enforce the above measures - staircase model.
2. TPTB in one country or another doesnt accept the austerity and starts waging wars. - Fast collapse.

Now - if they start wars they have to be a totally other type of war than what is waged today. - These wars, actually has to remove a lot of people and not just blast infrastructure AND it is simply not feasible to use ½ million US$ per kill - like in Iraq & Afghanistan. We are talking a whole new ballpark of evil here. Budget killing at mass scale.

All those new advanced weapons will be of no use except right at the beginning of war between two leading nations.

I see both options as possible, but given the level of evil needed to use war - I find it likely the staircase model will be used until some world leader goes amok.

Another thing for the staircase model is the extreme implementation of surveillance and crowd control that is happening. This should ease the problems with the population in the rich countries.

[onlooker]

Peak they're is alot of ways we can collapse economically and environmentally. And quite probably they will overlap. Converging factors

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('onlooker', 'A')dam, your ideas of success and not failing is seriously short sighted and narrow.

[EdwinSm]

Recently, it seems to me, that there has been an uptick in the number of posts trying to dish the idea of collapse. So I was interested in an article published by the BBC (sorry not zerohedge ) entitled Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?
In the article is this definition of Collapse, which is interesting as under it a civilization does not have to go all the way back to the stone age for it to be a collapse, nor do they need to be totally wiped out.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ollapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.

Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses: were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists.

[Newfie]

Ed,

Y those definitions we are surely on the way. Clearly the USA is no longer a nation of laws, if it ever was. But also the EU is turning slowly in the same direction.

If anything is different this time it will because we have a much more global economy and the collapse may be global.

[Ibon]

Just always remember that collapse is deeply entwined with correction....

Even if your death is part of that collapse you do not go in vain, you are contributing to the correction.

That doesn't mean to passively accept the collapse, fight like the devil to survive but at that moment that you are backed into the corner of overshoot and disease, famine or war takes you out, in those last seconds before you succumb to eternity feel the deep joy that you are being part of the correction.

[Newfie]

I’ll have to take your word on that one.

As for me, if I’m in a prolonged alcatatonic state with no hope of recovery, turn off the respirator. Wait 10 seconds and turn it back on, see if that helps.

[KaiserJeep]

FWIW, I do not believe in a collapse scenario, either from Fossil Fuels depletion, or from Climate Change.

With FF, the only fuel near peak is petroleum, because of the truly piggish way we have been consuming it. Even after the cost of petroleum spirals into the range where it is too expensive to burn, there will be decades of increasingly expensive petroleum consumption for essential plastics and medicines and pesticides and other petrochemical applications. IMHO, oil is already too expensive and too precious to burn for fuel - and by the time that knowledge is widespread, things will be an order of magnitude worse.

But waiting in the wings behind oil are tar sands and shales. Then there are decades of fracked natural gas. Then (as much as I hate the thought of it) there is at least a century of coal remaining, all of which will be burned. Even if in the next 2/3 decades the USA and the other Western countries were to transition energy production entirely from FF to greener forms of energy, we have such an appetite for cheap consumer goods that we are already selling coal and food to China and the Third World manufacturers.

As for Climate Change: We are not stopping the burning of FF's until they are too rare to use. The cessation of the FF burning which grows at least 3/4ths of the food that 7.8 Billion humans need is too great a price to pay. Face facts - that is what will happen. The entirely debateable impact of burning FF's will be very well understood as we live through it. Note I said LIVE. We are not dinosaurs or other dumb beasts to be killed by CC, we are technological humans. I don't know about the rest of you, but I am planning on my own electric power production, a super-efficient residence, and doubling up on the heat pumps that condition my living spaces. I plan to survive and to leave a comfortable, completely self-sufficient and durable homestead for my descendants to survive in as well.

In the end, all FF's everywhere get burned, even if you end up shoveling coal into the HVAC system that keeps CC at bay.

If the rest of you cannot make similar arrangements - meaning your best guess of what it takes to survive for you and your loved ones in the place you want to live - well, that's gonna be an example of evolution in action. Right now, survival and the ability to accumulate wealth and to acquire land and most of all, to remain out of debt, those are the survival skills needed. Later on, it may be how well you can tinker with your essential tech and keep it going.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'A')s for Climate Change: We are not stopping the burning of FF's until they are too rare to use. The cessation of the FF burning which grows at least 3/4ths of the food that 7.8 Billion humans need is too great a price to pay.

[KaiserJeep]

The key word you used was "progressively". I believe it was Tanada who pointed out that a snail could escape SLR. As for marching refugees, what ever do youu suppose a Wall is all about, anyways?

I simply do not believe that any Muslim country has a nuclear weapon - yet. The reliable indication that they do have such will be Tel Aviv flashing into vapor. But only if the USA backs down to Iran, or the Mossad stops defending Israeli interests.

I would point out that civilization has NEVER collapsed, world-wide. That doesn't make it impossible, only extremely unlikely.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EdwinSm', 'R')ecently, it seems to me, that there has been an uptick in the number of posts trying to dish the idea of collapse. So I was interested in an article published by the BBC (sorry not zerohedge ) entitled Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?

[KaiserJeep]

....dish can also be a verb, as in "to dish dinner" (meaning to serve). There is also the slang verb form "dish" without an object, meaning to gossip, as in "she agreed to dish about her ex".

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')I simply do not believe that any Muslim country has a nuclear weapon - yet.

[jedrider]

Yep, all those countries have plenty of Muslims.

It is simply that mankind wants to be in control,

when in fact, we are just on the guest list of Earth, for now.

We can make ourselves uninvited even sooner with all those total destruction weapons.

[KaiserJeep]

Still, only one of those nuclear countries has Islam as a state religion, and last time I looked, Pakistan had more Sufis than Wahhabists. They were however, tilting in the wrong direction, going more orthodox and less secular.

Realisticly, two countries on the list could destroy the planet, the USA and Russia. Both are under the influence of greedy Plutocrats who are not likely to sanction the end of the world.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'S')till, only one of those nuclear countries has Islam as a state religion, and last time I looked, Pakistan had more Sufis than Wahhabists. They were however, tilting in the wrong direction, going more orthodox and less secular.

Realisticly, two countries on the list could destroy the planet, the USA and Russia. Both are under the influence of greedy Plutocrats who are not likely to sanction the end of the world.