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Will The United States Collapse Due To An Internal Societal Meltdown?
Are we witnessing the beginning of the end for the United States of America? All great nations eventually fall, and the United States is not going to be any exception.
Many of those that write about the decline of our once great country tend to focus on external threats, and there are certainly many that could be talked about. But perhaps even more ominous is the internal societal meltdown that we see happening all around us. According to Real Clear Politics, recent surveys show that 67 percent of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track, and only 26 percent of Americans believe that it is headed in the right direction. So even though we are tremendously divided as to what the solutions are, the vast majority of us can see that something is deeply, deeply wrong with America.
Personally, I spend a lot of time writing about our economic problems. We have piled up the largest mountain of debt in the history of the planet, last year the middle class became a minority for the first time in our history, and 47 percent of all Americans couldn’t even pay an unexpected $400 emergency room bill without borrowing the money or selling something. But I don’t want to focus on economics in this article.
Neither do I plan to focus on our political problems. The fact that somewhere around half the country plans to vote for Hillary Clinton in November shows just how far gone we are as a nation. And the Republican Party is essentially just a watered-down version of the Democrats at this point. On average, Congress has just a 14.5 percent approval rating, and yet we keep sending the same corrupt politicians back to Washington D.C. time after time.
What in the world is wrong with us?
Physically we are a giant mess too. According to USA Today, the obesity rate in the United States has more than doubled over the past 25 years, and the OECD has found that the U.S. has the most overweight population in the entire industrialized world by a wide margin.
But our physical problems are not going to be the focus of this article either.
Instead, I want to focus on what is going on inside our heads and inside our hearts. I want to focus on our mental, emotional and spiritual problems.
Alvin Conway of The Extinction Protocol has been chronicling global disasters for years, and he has just posted an insightful piece in which he comments on the growing social decay that we see all around us…
According to Covenant Eyes, an internet search group, 1 out of 5 mobile searches on the internet involves pornography. Illegal drugs continue to be both manufactured and transported into the U.S. with no apparent way of halting or stopping the flow. In the US alone, more than 15 million people abuse prescription drugs, more than the combined number of people who reportedly abuse cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants and heroin. If the war against drugs can’t be won, what luck will we ever have winning the war on terror? Does anyone remember who won Lyndon B. Johnson’s famed war on poverty? Regardless, let’s throw some more taxpayers’ money at an issues that money along can’t fix.
Later in his article, Conway goes on to link this social decay with the spiritual decline of our nation…
According to Pew Forum, the number of people who claim to be religious in America is declining as the country becomes more and more secular. “Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%.” The U.S. is beginning to look more and more like ancient Rome before it collapsed.
I agree with Conway. America is starting to look more and more like the Roman Empire just before it collapsed.
A nation is only as strong as its population, and right now we are quite a disaster. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the suicide rate in the United States has spiked to the highest level in almost 30 years. The following is an excerpt from a Washington Post article entitled “U.S. suicide rate has risen sharply in the 21st century“…
The U.S. suicide rate has increased sharply since the turn of the century, led by an even greater rise among middle-aged white people, particularly women, according to federal data released Friday.
Last decade’s severe recession, more drug addiction, “gray divorce,” increased social isolation, and even the rise of the Internet and social media may have contributed to the growth in suicide, according to a variety of people who study the issue.
That same article goes on to say that the suicide rate in this country increased by a whopping 24 percent from 1999 to 2014.
Is that a sign of a healthy nation?
At this point things have gotten so bad that even 70 percent of our pastors are battling depression. The following was authored by respected journalist Jennifer LeClaire…
There is no lack of statistics about pastors and depression, burnout, health, low pay, spirituality, relationships and longevity—and none of them are good. According to the Schaeffer Institute, 70 percent of pastors constantly fight depression, and 71 percent are burned out. Meanwhile, 72 percent of pastors say they only study the Bible when they are preparing for sermons; 80 percent believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families; and 70 percent say they don’t have a close friend.
The Schaeffer Institute also reports that 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates will leave the ministry within five years.
We are a deeply, deeply unhappy nation, and we have been trained to turn to pills as the solution.
According to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 59 percent of all U.S. adults are on at least one prescription drug at this point, and 15 percent of all U.S. adults are on at least five prescription drugs.
Those are absolutely astounding numbers to me. We are the most drugged up nation on the face of the planet, and yet we just keep on getting less happy.
Here are some more selected numbers from a previous article that back up that claim…
–Back in 1987, 61.1 percent of all Americans reported being happy at work. Today, 52.3 percent of all Americans say that they are unhappy at work.
–A different survey found that 70 percent of all Americans do not “feel engaged or inspired at their jobs”.
–One survey of 50-year-old men in the U.S. found that only 12 percent of them said that they were “very happy”.
–The number of Americans diagnosed with depression increases by about 20 percent each year.
–According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans take antidepressants.
–Doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year.
–The rate of antidepressant use among middle aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole. It is hard to believe, but right now one out of every four women in their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.
–Compared to children in Europe, children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
–In America today, there are 60 million people that abuse alcohol and there are 22 million people that use illegal drugs.
–America has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
–America has the highest divorce rate in the world by a wide margin.
–America has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
–100 years ago, 4.52 people were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of 2.59 people.
We are more isolated, more lonely and more miserable than we have ever been before.
But does that mean that we are on the verge of collapsing as a nation?
Just like during the days of the Roman Empire, most Americans cannot even conceive of a time when America will be no more. And yet we can all see that the foundations are being constantly chipped away at.
Will we be able to survive once our foundations are totally gone?
93 Comments on "Will The United States Collapse Due To An Internal Societal Meltdown?"
Davy on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:12 am
Have at it anti-mericants. I will wait to reply until you all comment so I can clarify and balance the extremism.
joe on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:43 am
The article merely documents modern living Davy. Its very stupid you might even imagine there is a such thing as an ‘American’.
There are so many types of ‘America’ from Hispanic to Zulu to Rastafarian, to greedy 1%er, etc (even a Trump and a Bush)
You yourself recognise that modern living wont go on intact forever. America will change, for all intents and purposes it will end, as must its military superiority, it would be foolish to think things last forever, right?
joe on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:52 am
I’ll Do you one better Davy. I’ll show you what a thinker from nearly 150 years ago understood what the future would be.
“Under the conditions of modern factory production, by contrast, the average worker is not much more than a replaceable cog in a gigantic and impersonal production apparatus. Where armies of hired operatives perform monotonous and closely supervised tasks, workers have essentially lost control over the process of production, over the products which they produce, and over the relationships they have with each other. As a consequence they have become estranged from their very human nature,”
In a services driven economy like ours where automation has largly replaced factory work, people are defined by how much service they give and how many and paid regressively.
The lawyer as a few clients but is paid massively but the cashier serves thousands a week and is paid little, both meet everyday but they are totally separated humans.
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 7:03 am
Our history has been a lock step march towards total control and centralization. This is a natural consequence of urbanization and industrialization. This has been our history for more than three centuries. Here at the end of growth we are seeing those trends reverse. This is disquieting for a population that has convinced itself that progress is inevitable. The only glue holding the failing façade in place is the federal check book. The only thing keeping those checks from bouncing is our wavering faith in a bankrupt system. Those of us who have read The Death of Money know how exponential money creation ends.
So, what comes next? At the end of money and a failed federal system, the majority of the people will still be here. Within that population will reside all the avarice and virtue that has existed in our species since the beginning of time. Most people are decent people. They want to treat people fairly and they want to be treated fairly. Yes, warlords will arise. Gangs will proliferate and they will no doubt dominate large swaths of urban centers. Many decent people will no doubt do despicable things to survive. There is no limit to what an honorable man will do to feed his children. Still, within the larger population there resides the memory of the American Dream, a hope for a better future and a demand for a rule of law. Would be tyrants will run up against the most well-armed population that has ever existed. The would be rapist is going to run up on a Lady Smith. Gangs will be hunted like any other predator.
We will shed a good portion of our population. Life expectancies will drop. Those of us sustained by maintenance drugs will go first. Those of us with self-destructive behaviors will weed ourselves out. A good many of the psychopaths will reveal themselves and be either summarily shot or lynched. The dust will settle.
Life will go on. Technology will continue. There are back yard machinists, glass makers, foundry men, soap makers and TV repairmen all across this nation. Somebody will be making wine. Somebody will have a grist mill. Somebody will be refining oil. Somewhere, the lights will stay on.
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 7:06 am
A picture of the real America painted in easy to understand words. Only the most oblivious or those deep in denial cannot see the country falling apart at ever increasing speed. I don’t have to read about it to know. I pop into the Police State every year to visit family and friends and the changes are obvious, even blatant.
The clock is ticking on the day of America and it is nearing midnight.
Those who will trade freedom for security will have neither. So be it.
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 7:21 am
Cloud9, didn’t you read the drug addiction part or the poor health part or the suicide part? What makes you think that humans are going to change overnight when conditions get really bad? Those gangs are going to spread to the countryside when the urban resources are gone. They will have the power to take what they want, including your daughter. Optimism? That and singing “Kum ba yah” will get you nothing but dead. If you think the old Mad Max movies were fiction, you may be in for a surprise. The gangs are already in America and armed and experienced killers. The Us government says there are over 30,000 of them with over 3,000,000 members already operating in America today, and the number is growing.
And well armed? Do you have any idea what it would take to protect even your house from a determined gang who will be even better armed from the guns stores or maybe the National Guard armory? Do you think your neighbors are going to leave their homes and family to come to your aid. Do you know how to stand watch 24/7/365 without at least 6-8 other gun able, militarily trained adults to stand watch? Do you have resources to feed and cloth that army? Do you know how to protect your family from a camouflaged sniper 1/2 mile away with a scope? The gun owners who expect to protect their loved ones and resources with guns need to think again. A gun is an invitation to be the first one killed when you meet a determined foe.
Another person deep in denial. Your last sentence says it all.
Kenz300 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 7:40 am
The top 1% want it all….. and the RepubliCON party will give it to them………..
What do RepubliCONS believe…….. depends who is paying….. follow the money……. fossil fuels….. oil, coal natural gas…, nuclear, NRA………the top 1%
Are RepubliCONS the real EVIL DOERS………..they want to end Social Security, Medicare and access to contraception…….
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:02 am
Mak, I live in a small town here in central Florida. A friend of mine has four operational WW II fighter planes. Next to him is a guy with a cnc machine that can mill a cylinder head for a stearman out of a lump of aluminum or any other thing you can imagine. I myself have a small foundry and machine shop. I manufacture my own bullets. Four miles from my home is a gun powder mill. In the town a few miles away is an ammunition manufacturing faculty that turns out millions of rounds a year. I have the capacity to turn out machine guns, mortars and grenade launchers should the balloon go up. I have demilled examples in my gun collection. I am particularly fond of the Carl Gustav submachine gun and the British Bren Gun. Several thousand just within my local area are deer and hog hunters. Some of them have night vision and suppressors. Many of them have enough guns and ammunition to field and infantry squad. Some of them can arm a light infantry company. All of them have scoped rifles capable of dealing with targets several hundred yards out. Many of them have AR’s. Several people I know have functioning machine guns. One has a canon. If you doubt it, you can order a canon from Dixie Gun Works.
For mobility, we have airboats and swamp buggies.
More than all of that, there is a communal mentality amongst us crackers. Our families are huge. We have ties to this area that go back generations. We have discussed these things and we have plans on how to deal with the horde. So, if your Bloods and Crips show up, we will study their intentions. If their plan is to rape and pillage, it will be a turkey shoot.
Davy on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:11 am
Joe, I know you don’t understand my meaning. I am not discounting this article although it is extreme generalization of a very big place. Facts are facts and if you cherry pick enough you have your agenda message. My point is the anti-mericants are unable to look in the mirror. They do not acknowledge a world beyond the borders of the US. So, Joe, you are not telling me anything new and maybe you should reflect on yourself while you are at it.
I am not sure you are American. I seen you use the European date format one time. You have never acknowledged where you are from. England maybe? Lots of anti-mericants there. If I am wrong forgive me but until people own where and who they are here I have less respect for them.
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:17 am
The article forgot to mention the legalized pot smokers, on engineered weed that has so much PCB in it that the damage shows up on brain scans.
Religious article, thinks losing faith in God is bad, but actually it is good. Are we supposed to keep talking to the floor before meals, to solve our problems? We all need the sky daddy watching our every move, ready to hit our ass with a lightning bolt if we notice the pretty woman.
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:38 am
Well, good luck. You also have one of the worse states in America for crime and so near sea level. lol. If the ice on Greenland melts, Florida will be a few small islands. My step bro lives there also, and my daughter. That only says that they are denying the future also. Their choice. I don’t worry about them. If you think guns are the answer…
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:39 am
Well, good luck Cloud9…
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:39 am
Go Speed. Right on! ^_^
paulo1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 8:44 am
Everyone who once had the silver spoon is getting poorer, not just Americans. As Globalization unfolds I have to ask, “What, you thought Nike and Apple just wanted to help the 3rd world”? As for becoming more secular, “Don’t you think it is time to end the fascination with a desert religion whose creation myth is no more relevent than any other indigenous explanation of why we are here”?
Oh shoot, I forgot…we are here on this lovely planet to consume and purchase….I forgot for a moment.
Don’t worry, The Donald has the answer!!:-)
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 9:03 am
Good luck to you as well Mak. We live on the ridge. We all know how to swim. I personally do not expect to make it to the other side. I am old and drug dependent. I have a year’s supply. Beyond that I am toast. Global warming may float us. An ice age may drop the oceans. I am sure the folks living in Pompeii had great plans for the future. The world ended for them but it was not the end of the species. None of us know how this will play out. I know that I am not unique and that the world is full of people who can repair things and make things. Any of us can be taken unaware, but there are still people living on Easter Island.
penury on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 9:19 am
Well those are some of the most obvious symptoms of the disease that has infected the world. I admit to being american-centric but this is where I live. Davy appears to think reality is anti-americann but in my opinion if you cannot identify the problem you cannot cure it. listing the problems of this country are a limitless task. So lets just agree that along with the rest of the world we is toast.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 9:28 am
A gun crazy culture, rampant mental illness, toxic political discourse; what could possibly go wrong?
As ‘merika has transitioned from global dominance to preeminence it has not coped well. Future transitions to poverty and famine will not be managed well. Just as Europe sees migrants from MENA America will soon see waves of desperate migrants from Central America. Mexico will soon fail as a state and become increasingly a nomans land-narco gang state.
GregT on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 9:43 am
“Have at it anti-mericants. I will wait to reply until you all comment so I can clarify and balance the extremism.”
How about clarifying and balancing the ‘extremism’ in the article Davy, instead of waiting to pounce on anyone who comments just so that you can label them as ‘anti-americants’.
The author is an American BTW, and is telling it as he sees it. If more US citizens were able to look in the mirror, as opposed to calling out everyone else, then perhaps change would be possible. It is the hopelessly indocrinated such as yourself that will make sure that change will never happen. Pat yourself on the back for a job well done Davy. Hoorah!
GregT on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 10:17 am
“Davy appears to think reality is anti-americann but in my opinion if you cannot identify the problem you cannot cure it.”
Exactly my point Penury. America has had the distinction of being the world’s foremost ‘super-power’ for some time now. With that power comes responsibility. There is nothing responsible about a majority that allows their nation to be systematically destroyed by small groups of corrupt and power-mongering individuals. Patriots hold their institutions accountable, they don’t make excuses for them, and they certainly do not support them when they have gone astray. The time for change was many decades ago. Now it is too late, short of a violent and bloody revolution.
joe on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 11:28 am
Davy, you seem to equate all your positions as being pro-American. I would argue that being pro-American means being realistic. America has put all its global power plays into 3 countries, Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea. America owns Europe so it doesn’t count. It then forms its policies in relation to what it thinks is best for those nations, at the expense of an almost third world country it says is its biggest global threat.
ITS NOT 1979 ANYMORE!!!!
As for American people. I have one answer. KAITLIN JENNER.
steveo on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 11:32 am
Cloud, that was an interesting little dissertation on the fire power and manufacturing capacity of your community.
But to be more realistic, are you ready for a supply chain break down? How is that factory going make ammunition once the power grid goes unreliable? Do you have 2 acres per person setup for sustainable farming? How about seeds? Do you have enough non-perishable food to last until your first crop? Do you have horses or oxen to plow with?
You might be able to trade bullets for food in the beginning, but even if you’re planning on enslaving your less well armed neighbors to grow food, if you don’t have the seeds and the ability, you’re screwed as the city dwellers.
Apneaman on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 11:50 am
Cloud9, you’re insight on “wavering faith” says it all. Faith and fumes. All ape systems are faith based. The most recent example of mass loss of faith in the system that lead to it’s demise is communism. It went out with a whimper. When the people finally said fuck you, the state’s muscle just shrugged their shoulders. They had lost it too.
No need to worry about too many roving gangs. If it gets to that point where order has broken down, no one will be manning their posts at the nuclear power plants and they will quickly go into melt down. Would you? Leave the wife and kids at home? While the psychos run wild? It will be hundreds of times worse than Fukushima and Chernobyl. They still had the weight of industrial civilization doing damage control. Many people died containing those melt downs and many many billions were spent and it’s still on going. I try not to think about that when watching the walking dead lest it ruin it for me. If the authorities do manage to hold it together enough to prevent that from happening, then they will be the biggest threat to people. Look at how the police are funding themselves now with asset forfeiture and a whole slew of fines and fees and blackmailing. Regardless of ones opinion on race in the US, take a good look at how they milked the people of Ferguson. Those people had a legitimate beef and it’s happening all over. Even in prisons. As tax revenues decline they will keep coming up with new ways to collect. If the state is still up and running no gang or militia, no matter how well armed, has any defence for armed drones in the sky you can’t even see or a Apache helicopter with a M230 Chain gun and hellfire missiles. Just need to make a few examples and word will spread. Imagine a few laps around a militia camp or fortified town of resisters from AC-130 ship raining hell from above. The A-10 Warthog is mighty impressive too. The state is already the enemy of the American people. But they would never fire on unarmed civilians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NCLfhmWvJ8
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 11:57 am
I think we will be alright, drugs have been prevalent in this country for a long time, as have guns. The only difference is the hopelessness that is currently being experienced by a large portion of the population for one reason or another.
Go speed racer, they’re putting endocrine disruptors in the weed? Or is that a typo that was meant to say THC?
Cloud9 I can relate to your feelings about your area. My family has been in the same area for generations. When shit hits the fan I will hunt and farm the same land that my great-grandparents did. I will find much more pride and joy in this than my current Globalization BAU tied job.
Steveo, 2 acres per person is an overstatement IMHO, not by a huge amount, I have scene some sourses say about 1.25 and even less if all vegetarian. Especially where he specified that hunting would be a portion of the food, I imagine swamps are fairly fertile for meat. If hogs are prevalent hunting will probably be a must in order to preserve your crops anyway. Also it is tough to plow 2 acres with animal power because then you will need many more to feed that critter, a couple of big goats may be the best option, because then at least they have a diversified diet. Or just double digging, 2 acres would be a bitch, but in the scheme of life and death it is nothing. Especially compared to the 10 chords of firewood per family that were needed to be cut by hand just a few generations ago in northern rural parts of the country.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 11:59 am
I mean we will be alright in the sense of…we will make it to large scale global warming destruction era then everybodys screwed, so we have at least a couple months, maybe even a few years…wooo
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:16 pm
Apneaman that is an interesting thought, if enough of the staff were to show up to the plant, that may be one of the safer places to go (assuming some grid function or long term cooling power from something, large renewable farm near plant with some big tesla battery packs, just in case? you would think this type of safety feature would be standard now).. A huge if obviously, but if I am a nuclear engineer living downwind of my plant and shit goes down, I am going down to the plant, family and gun in tow, maybe some beans and rice, because better to try to survive in a moderately secure area than wait for the silent radiation death to come get you while you are trying to navigate your way out of the contamination area.
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:21 pm
Unfortunately the scenario I just described is not the case and has a very small chance of becoming it, but I cannot see the logic in it not being a priority for both employees of the plant and people in the area to come up with some sort of real long term mitigation plan. I wont even mention the regulatory agencys that should be looking at these problems, because they are useless.
peakyeast on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:30 pm
The most anti-american I have seen – is the american government itself.
Pointing out the discrepancy between what USA stands for and what it actually is seems to be anti-american to some patriotic americans.
Apneaman on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:30 pm
Practical, nuclear power, like so many of the other parts of the system are interdependent. Things can only deteriorate so far before the dominoes start falling. Who can say for sure the when? That it will is a certainty. Maybe not in the US at first, but it will happen. 450 plants and bunch of spent fuel pools. Tic tock
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:36 pm
I cant wrap my head around the fact that they have not figured out to harden these systems with a micro grid with huge amounts of energy storage, and sea walls adequate to deal with a few decades of sea level rise and stronger storms. I know that if everything falls apart the plants are screwed within a few decades even in a best case scenario, but I do not think it would take much effort to prevent Fukushima style failures, and people should be on trial for being so criminally neglectful. It would make a decent worldwide jobs program, nevermind building new plants, make the old ones at least slightly more resilient, instead they put the effort into burying the danger.
Apneaman on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:37 pm
“PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.”
“PATRIOTISM, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first.”
Ambrose Bierce – The Devil’s Dictionary
http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/?p=#!
“
Plantagenet on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:52 pm
Hang in there Cloud9. Spring is coming and the living is easy. Relax and enjoy yourself. Its the last days of the late great American empire—-get yourself a beer and enjoy the show.
Cheers!
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 12:59 pm
Stevo concern over breaking supply chains is the one thing that will take me out within a year of collapse. When the captopril runs out I’m going down with a stroke. I have an agreement with the mother of my two future grandsonsinlaw to put a bullet in the back of my head when that occurs. She just has to do it without my son seeing her do it.
For the group, I’ve had a conversation with a chemist buddy of mine and asked him to put together a plan for what is needed to manufacture fulminate locally. He assures me that a lot of interesting things can be done with nitric acid. Powder is not a problem. The local fertilizer plant has tons of sulfur. Potassium nitrate can be extracted from night soil. Charcoal is easily manufactured. The Confederacy never ran out of gun powder. 308, 30/06 and 303 British will all run on black powder. If we run out of sulfur a substitute can be manufactured using sugar, iron oxide and potassium nitrate.
As for grid issues much of the ammunition making in the local area is produced on hand presses. I have a Dillan and Lyman press. The facility the town over could easily be run on generators. The generators themselves could be fueled by wood gas. A few miles north is a whole complex that runs on steam. The manufacture of fire arms and ammunition is definitely doable in an intermittent grid world. You might want to check out the Darra Gunsmiths. http://tribune.com.pk/story/458310/the-legendary-gunsmiths-of-darra-adam-khel/
We have considerable cattle and agriculture. Will we live large in a total collapse? No, we won’t, but we can survive even if we have to run to the swamp and eat frogs and cattails.
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:09 pm
Thanks Plant, you do the same. Most of the things we are afraid of never happen.
HARM on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:20 pm
Nice reference, Apneaman! Did a paper on Bierce back in high school –great thinker.
Hawkcreek on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:22 pm
It is obvious it will end in civil war. The elite will have the red side convinced that the blue side is responsible for all the bad things happening, and the killing will begin.
Nothing really changes.
HARM on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:24 pm
If the U.S. collapses due to internal economic or social pressures, it will likely fracture across culture war lines, similar to what happened during the last Civil War. Americans are also more likely to gravitate towards a fascist “strong man” populist on the right (like Trump) than a left-socialist (like Bernie).
But… that seems very unlikely, as long as cheap beer, cheap gas, cheap junk food, ESPN and Internet are available to the masses.
Hawkcreek on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:33 pm
Should have mentioned that I agree with Cloud9. We will lose a lot of people, and go through a lot of hardship, but the knowledge gained and distributed from the past 300 years will not be lost. There won’t be another Dark Age. It will be a few dark decades. After we get rid of the current crop of parasites (government and their corporate cronies), we will move on.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 1:48 pm
Nation States tend to fail when the elites fight over diminishing resources. KSA is a great example. The House of Saud is composed of four clans comprising about 15,000 people (men). About 2000 of them have wealth and power. The current king of KSA is from the Sudairi clan. The House of Saud will fracture along clan lines as the diminishing resources fail to provide wealth and power for 2000 people.
The USA will face conflict among elites as decreased wealth resources are available. The political class has fractured from Dems vs Repubs into Tea Party and Occupy, various militia movements, B Sanders left leaning elements etc etc. Not long ago it was a two political camps. Now there are many and they are fractured. Other conflicts will erupt along lines such as north-south, black-white, rich-poor, etc etc. Many ‘merikans are living day to day and paycheck to paycheck; currently 3 meals away from total anarchy. Once the food riots start it’ll be a rapid slide down the development index.
HARM on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 2:28 pm
“The House of Saud will fracture along clan lines as the diminishing resources fail to provide wealth and power for 2000 people.”
Umm… the KSA today can afford to buy unlimited F-16s, cruise missiles and pave their military bases with marble. Marble floors. On a military base. Not to mention putting close to 20 million citizens on the dole. And subsidizing gas prices at ~40 cents/gallon. Not to mention financing a tribal war in Yemen. Not to mention sponsoring thousands of hate-spewing Madrassas all over the world, partly bankrolling Al-Queda, ISIS, and Boko Haram.
The day may come when the KSA’s oil revenues fail to provide for the 2,000 elites, but… that day is clearly very far, far away.
Apneaman on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 2:41 pm
“The Schaeffer Institute also reports that 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates will leave the ministry within five years.”
Has little to do with collapse, been going on for awhile.
Nothing challenges peoples faith more than going to seminary school. I have heard many claim that what they learned there was what started the process to their agnosticism and/or atheism. Many things taught in seminary are never spoken of to the congregation.
Bart Ehrman & Jesus, Interrupted
Bart Ehrman takes you on a journey to the ancient world and the forgery battles that have raged through the centuries. Ehrman contends in the lecture that the New Testament is riddled with contradictions about the life of Jesus and his significance. He provides compelling evidence that early Christianity was a collection of competing schools of thought and that the central doctrines we know today were the inventions of theologians living several centuries after Christ.
Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Education: Princeton Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKxJc-huEA
PracticalMaina on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 2:44 pm
Unlimited f-16s maybe, but what about those pricey f-22s? Maybe if we could sell them a few dozen of those the MIC would be less desperate to get proxy wars going with Iran and Russia. Marble floors are nice, but can they afford to battle 130F heat? Can they afford to desalinate enough water to produce significant food? They need to spend big in the near term or their seasonal power demands are really going to kick their ass this summer in this low oil price environment.
george on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 3:04 pm
This summer will be very interesting.
Plantagenet on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 3:29 pm
I agree with George. There will be a heck of a show the summer—the elections in the USA, summer fighting season in Afghanistan, the Syrian-Russian offensive against the US-backed Free Syrian Army, a million more Muslim refugees flooding into Europe along with more ISIS terror attacks, more global warming and more drought, maybe a stock market selloff and more QE from the FED, and China, North Korea and Russia trying to see how far they can push while wimpy Obama is still in the White House
It will all be very interesting indeed.
Cheers!
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 3:37 pm
KSA will continue to have sufficient resources but none the less they will be diminishing and the elites will fight over them. Or perhaps they’ll all hold hands, sing campfire songs and share them. But I doubt it. The House of Saud will soon go from a couple thousand wealthy and powerful to several hundred. Nobody will volunteer to give up a dime. It is the greed of the elite not the size of the resource that defines the conflict. KSA will have no savings in 5 years at the rate they’re burning cash. Think of it as operating expenses. Then they get to live on sales and what they can borrow. The House of Saud is already fracturing and will continue to do so.
http://youtu.be/hh8isVX3H9w
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 4:09 pm
And further more
http://www.juancole.com/2016/04/reinventing-saudi-arabia-after-oil-the-princes-2-trillion-gamble.html
Stay tuned. KSA oil exports will decrease this summer as domestic oil consumption increases to cope with air conditioning demand.
The USA will continue to fracture politically and economically. Once the food riots get going it’ll be a fractured nation indeed.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 4:14 pm
http://euanmearns.com/can-opec-freeze-production-or-is-it-already-frozen/
We’re past peak. Perhaps we’ll set a new peak or match the previous peak but I doubt it.
Cloud9 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 4:46 pm
For those of you contemplating the devolution of the United States into civil war, this is a fascinating article written by Matthew Bracken on the subject. This article is well worth your time to read it. http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2010/07/bracken-cw2-cube-mapping-meta-terrain.html
I have walked the major battle fields of the Civil War and studied it for years. That eventuality would be the most horrible of our potential futures.
Azurean on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:53 pm
This is true, we are stagnating demographically, but ironically, the physical isolation caused by the whole point of discussion of this site will come in and save us; as we are over here n North America, the only real potential adversary would be emanating from Latin America and the security issues that arise from migration due to what would be described as “foreign” influences.
As for the fate of Europe, they sort of sealed their fate by allowing their borders to be opened to the Muslim world; so its only *really* a matter of time before an abrupt conflict erupts between the locals and the newcomers over some probably bullshit cultural “misunderstanding” caused by the migrants.
So, “We” (if our political organization can be described as such) will just keep chugging along, oblivious and sheltered from events transpiring in the old world, much like the Native Americans were to the Mongolian Conquests and Crusades.
Survivalist on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:54 pm
I agree about food riots bringing down regimes. Keep your eye on the food price. People steal before they starve.
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
makati1 on Wed, 27th Apr 2016 6:57 pm
Cloud9, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on some points. We are both near the end of our story and have a lot of living experience to draw on for our view of the world. You chose Florida, I chose the Philippines. We both grew up in a different America. One that was close to what it is supposed to be, a free people in a land of natural wealth and opportunity. We allowed it to rot into what it is today. Too bad.