My country is extremely dependent on the US, and we tend to do whatever the US tells us in trade relations. Russia was a huge trading partner for us, especially for energy but of course we jumped on board with sanctions when we were told to. Things are already pretty grim this year. Electricity costs have almost doubled across my country, outside one area that has maintained their nuclear power plants, and we have had over 20,000 people hospitalized for heat stroke this summer. Annually we have over 1000 people die to heat stroke, mostly among eldery who didn't want to use A/C at home to save money.
I actually saw some people suggesting that people dying from heatstroke would help with the "aging population epidemic". Absolute ghouls.
On one hand, the US collapsing would probably mean we collapse too, but longterm if we still somehow exist we would probably be better off decoupled.
The collapse is happening in real time in the global north. For the past 10 years living standards have slowly been dwindling, in some places faster than other.
Lol wtf bro.. Didn't know so many countries are dependent on cheap Russian gas.
Well, makes sense, they're very close. We don't really have the real estate to provide many other types of power, and with most of the country decomissioning their nuclear plants we are extremely reliant on outside sources.
I heard you guys are transitioning to Canadian LNG by the end of this year
That is the plan, some Japanese companies (I think Mitsubishi) own a large stake in Canadian LNG.
We're also building more and more coal plants to replace nuclear power, which don't even get me started on.
Probably a lot less 'go juice' would be available after the first couple weeks/months. That's why riding a bike is extra cool, you're training for the collapse.
A massive reduction in motor vehicle traffic would be lovely. Literally the only thing I don't love about biking is the constant presence of cars and car noise.
Is this a thing in that story? Not familiar with the films, I only know go juice from Rimworld. Never realised it was a reference.
I think this slang was used in Water World. Not sure if that was original though, maybe just the most recognizable usage.
I'm honestly not sure. Americans have been very infantilized. Many are very lazy and in poor health. I'm increasingly worried about how incompetent a lot of people I meet are.
I think the true rot of capitalism will show itself soon: collapsing buildings, infrastructure, etc. Hopefully the anger can be directed back at the ruling class, but many Americans have never even heard a true critique of capitalism.
I think the true rot of capitalism will show itself soon: collapsing buildings, infrastructure, etc.
Edit: this is already occuring, but I think the scale will continue.
US collapse is going to be slow. We're going to dwindle into corrupt fiefdoms led by various wealthy families and individuals. These people will be in various overt states of war and treaty, just like olden times. As it becomes more obvious we are nothing like the liberal ideal of America, they will further entrench themselves in patriotic and nationalist decoherence. Some will perform a ritual where they dress up as the Founders and pretend to be them, warping history around their present. Some will turn to Lincoln, JFK, Obama as the focus of their nationalist emanation. These strange outbursts of black comedy will be punctuated by bouts of violence. Domestic terrorist attacks, organized crime.
We'll slowly become a reflection of our projections against the global south. A third-world country with world-leading poverty and a corrupt government funded by foreign capitalists trying to keep The American Project going long enough to finally defeat communism.
There wasn't much pushback the last time we used nukes, and most Americans will defend those uses of nukes as necessary when they weren't. Given the fate of the black lives matter movement and the average American's position on the US's brinkmanship with Russia via the war in Ukraine, I am not optimistic about domestic resistance to a nuclear yankee reich.
nuclear yankee reich. However, I think this is an extreme scenario, since there would be substantial domestic pushback.
🤔
I think a lot of them will try to go all "mad max" then realise how much effort that is, and how much it sucks to not have clean drinking water and food and will just give up on the whole thing and wait for someone else to come and fix everything.
That's roughly my view, too. Westerners are taught idealism and liberal individualism. It only works at a certain stage of development. It certainly doesn't work when material reality falls on your head.
There are people who think they could go back to medieval times and make something in the woods to kick start their own merchant empire and eventually become an aristocrat. In reality, they'd be beheaded before they bulk bought their first gander of geese.
Depending on how things go in a collapse situation, relying on organised exploitation isn't going to go very well. Not without state-backed violence. Especially when it might have to rely on organising westerners to do jobs they've been conditioned to think are beneath them. Without food because there isn't a state to prevent famines or out wildfires, etc.
It's not just the US. Westerners in general have zero comprehension of the fact that they have an average of up to seven servants/slaves each to support their lifestyle. Of course, impoverished westerners don't get the same benefit; which means it'll be those workers who organise to protect themselves from a weakened bourgeois class that tries to force hundreds of millions of working westerners back into coal mines and building with asbestos fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, without schooling for their kids, and with severely limited food. Ain't gonna work.
The vanguard will emerge out of the first signs of rubble and that will be that. (I'm in an optimistic mood today.)
All of them except the really old Sunburnt white guys that barely drink water, have 2-3 guns each and would gladly look for an opportunity to both use their gun and get free gasoline for their truck that weighs more than a house lol
I listened to the Fall of Rome podcast a while back, and there's a fascinating episode discussing what happened to Britain when supply chains started collapsing. Much like modern countries today, Rome relied on the economies of scale. Commodity production was centralized in different provinces, and then they would be exported across the empire. When the trade routes started breaking down due to lack of security and other problems, some provinces ended up being largely cut off from the rest of the empire and experienced rapid decline. British provinces in particular were hit hard and ended up regressing to subsistence farming within decades as their exports and imports collapsed.
While modern US empire is very different from Rome in many respects, I'd argue that supply chain risks are even higher than they were in Rome. Very few parts of the US can be said to be self sufficient, and millions of people living in large population centres rely on goods being shipped to them from across the world. What's worse is that the whole economy is organized around just in time supply chains with little to no local inventory. We saw how a single ship getting stuck in the Suez canal was a catastrophic event, this gives a bit of a preview of what can be expected on a much larger scale.
Probably not but something similar perhaps. Also, it will take decades to get there. The banks and oligarchs will buy up the local police forced and for their own little fiefdoms. They would then send them out to loot and pillage resources from the workers. Cities will be a hellscape. Most farmers will be killed and their land will go to the families and friend of the cops that show the most loyalty to their masters. There will be lots of fighting and killing. Most of these "preper" types will get killed in their bunkers and looted. Unless they are also part of the oligarchy and/or cops that serve the oligarchy. Normal people will either wind up as serfs, slaves, or dead.
The big issue is, is there electricity? Things will stay civilized for a lot longer if we have it. If it goes out for a month 10-20% of the population is gone depending on the season. Cities will crumble and chaos will ensue. Rural areas will quickly get overrun as people trying to flee.
There was a report released by the Pentagon some years ago that showed just how ill equipped the US power grid is. All it would take is the destruction of 13 specific sub stations and the US power grid could be shut down for 18 months. In that time it's estimated 80% of the population would be gone. Not saying this will happen just showing the importance of electricity to todays people. If you can't survive without it, learn how to. When it goes, you got maybe a week before things start to get violent as the less equipped become desperate, fight with those that are better off, and not long before stuff starts to cascade. I won't even go into the exodus of people fleeing cities. Those in rural areas think they are safe and will just farm their land but what happens when thousands from the city start to flee every day?
I do not doubt the ultra rich would use a situation like this to wipe out the population in certain areas intentionally. Keep the power for themselves. Cut it off to the rest, and use the cops as their enforcers.
mad max with shitton of automatic weapons, explosives and high caliber rifles
I'm curious if there are any historians who can chime in on what "imperial collapse" looks like on a week to week, month to month basis.
Because all "collapses" take a certain amount of time. Even those rich idiots and their unfortunate victims down near the Titanic took a few milliseconds. (Too soon?)
What "USA" is collapsing in this conjecture? All governments - federal, state, county, city - simultaneously? Or just the feds? Or the feds and some domino effect?
What precipitates the "collapse" is important, too. Disease? Economy? Social upheaval? Natural disaster? War (are we the aggressor or defender)?
After Jan 6th and with the prosecutions and convictions and jail sentences for the perpetrators, I think as long as Trump isn't elected President, we're actually protected from a "social upheaval" collapse for a good long while now.
I don't think there's a war on the horizon that would collapse is, either. No matter how much the pro war people (on the right and left for different reasons) want one, I don't see Xi deciding to provoke one, and Putin has blown his wad already (I think by now all of his nuclear guys would refuse a launch order - her missed his chance when all the hot blood was running 12 months ago).
Economic? Maybe. I can pretty confidently predict that the billionaires think if they were deposed from their stranglehold on American government we'd devolve into a thunderdome situation. I don't think so. People like Bernie have a plan in their back pocket for when We The People actually take charge. It would be messy for a while. We would probably overcorrect in some unfortunate ways. But when everything settled out, if we eat the rich, all of us (probably including them) would be better off. So a "Happy Hank" instead of a "Mad Max" situation.
I think disease or natural disaster are most likely, but they'll probably be very spotty and leave some government in place that might be able to re establish order.
Sanders plan if the people took power would be to work agaisnt them. He’s a dirty capitalist, same as the rest
I mean we’re not getting to Mad Max 2 Road Warrior level shit until the climate crisis fucks us all up, until then we’re slowly sliding over to Mad Max 1 territory. Speaking of, I really liked the Mad Max video game from several years ago, a lot of grinding but it was worthwhile
Doubful. That shit takes energy and organizing, definitely things that are not the USA'ian way.
Maybe some lesser repeat of "Y2K" panic. A few very loud voices skew public opinion about what is happening, some flashy news clips of some panicked people, and after a few months it will all level out. The end result will just be more people realizing that they were poor all along but only thought they weren't because their shoes were newer or slightly more expensive than those they viewed as "the poors".
