by PenultimateManStanding » Wed 01 Feb 2006, 11:30:57
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'I') voted for 2010, but I think it will be later than that. Possibly much later. Sadly, I think the most likely outcome is a "catabolic collapse." It may last centuries, as we slowly turn all our resources and capital to waste. Burning poorer and poorer fuel each year, creating more and more pollution, running out of water and topsoil, etc. More and more people falling out of the middle class every day. But the very wealthy will do alright for awhile, in their walled compounds run on solar, wind, nuclear, etc.
You may be right, but I do think that the nature of our society, "civilization on steroids" is such that it could fall apart rapidly, practically overnight. I.e., we aren't like previous civilizations that went into slow decline, because our complexity is lightyears beyond anything ever seen before and it absolutely must work to an extremely high degree of efficiency or it won't work at all.