i. I heard Thom Hartmann mention "societies usually last only 250 years or 10 generations, on average" [0]. This would put the epicenter of US'es collapse at roughly 2026 if it were to go that way. Here's another article on previous one [1].
ii. America: The Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges (2018, book)
iii. Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought (2019)
increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later [~75 years]. This would mean 2035 ± 5 would be the estimated date that the US would crumble.
iv. Many, many mass shootings - a desperate act of omnicide and suicide don't happen in an ascending civilization
v. Vulture capitalism's billionaires, massive wealth transfers, privatizing public commons and selling them off, coupled with a regulatory and political capture of the seat of power and useless mass media leads nowhere good.
I think many people MUST step forward, shake off the propaganda and their false beliefs, and demand a reorganization of the status quo before chaos takes over. We need people to first quit pretending that there is no problem and break through their Upton Sinclair-cognitive dissonance against actually doing something.
0.
The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (PDF, 1977) by Sir John
There's very (or perhaps none) substance to this article. It's essentially a repetitive rant from someone who would prefer to live in western Europe.
America won't fail as long as it has a strong economy. No one knows how long that will last, but it's currently true, and there are no convincing signs it will see a depression anytime soon. Britain is similar, except their economy (much like the rest of Europe) hasn't seen much growth since the last recession.
This is strongly worded but there's very little rigour or argumentation. Take paragraph near the end:
> You can see how a society dies — with horrific, brutal clarity — in the self-destruction of America and Britain. The hate-filled vitriol of Trumpism, the barely-hidden hate of Brexit. Why wouldn’t people who have grown suddenly poor hate everyone else? Why wouldn’t they blame anyone and everyone they can — from Mexicans to Muslims to Europeans — for their own decline? The truth, as always, is harder. America and Britain’s collapse is nobody’s fault — nobody’s — but their own.
The first sentence, the paragraph sentence that anchors the paragraph, is bold and promises much, but what is then offered? Non-specific references to the "hate" of Trumpism and Brexit, and then 3 rhetorical questions.
I don't really disagree that the situation is dire, but I am unimpressed with this think-piece. There are no references in this, despite making some quite strong claims.
I could pull this apart virtually sentence by sentence as it's so flawed. For example, right at the start:
> 'Anglo-American society is now the world’s preeminent example of willful self-destruction. It’s jaw-dropping folly and stupidity is breathtaking to the rest of the world.'
Yet strangely, both US and UK are still more attractive destinations for inward investment than the EU, and strangely, people from all over the world still in mass numbers want to visit and migrate to each - including large numbers from the author's ancestral home, Pakistan.
> the only two rich societies in the world with falling life expectancies, incomes, savings, happiness, trust — every single social indicator you can imagine — are America and Britain.
Ignoring chronic economic problems in the EU, mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc.
I won't bother continuing. Embarrassingly poor piece.
> If your definition of a "good" society is one that attracts more outside investment than other "bad" societies, then yes, you are correct.
Oh please - if it were the EU that was winning on this particular metric the author would have put it absolutely front and centre. And the supposedly dystopian, degenerate hellhole that is the UK is apparently so preferable to France for a significant number of migrants that they'll risk crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world, in the dark, in an inflatable dinghy to get here.
I'm quite happy to be convinced by a well argued piece, but the article is a long way from that. Quite apart from anything else, even if the author wants to motivate change his 'analysis' (if you can call it that) is stunningly reductionist to the point of worthlessness. There isn't one 'Europe', and the EU is not Europe. And there isn't one America. Take southern Italy for example - decades of terrible economic performance, utterly resistant to measures aimed at improvement. Is that "good"?
Nevermind his qualifications thus far - the author would benefit from taking first year undergrad Geography.
I'm an immigrant from the south of europe that lives in the UK - I did not have to cross any shipping lane in the dark. What's reductionist is your definition of immigration (and immigrants) to the uk to be what you described and that of a winner-takes-all society where there's only one way to describe winning, vague economic performance of the unbridled kind that the US lives in, and the uk can't wait to jump into, head first.
There's more to "society" than average wages and startup capital.
> I'm an immigrant from the south of europe that lives in the UK - I did not have to cross any shipping lane in the dark. What's reductionist is your definition of immigration (and immigrants) to the uk to be what you described and that of a winner-takes-all society where there's only one way to describe winning, vague economic performance of the unbridled kind that the US lives in, and the uk can't wait to jump into, head first.
> There's more to "society" than average wages and startup capital.
You are misunderstanding, or perhaps deliberately misrepresenting me, and I'm not going to bother to refute your inaccuracies.
Apart from that, again: I'm quite happy to be convinced by a well argued article, but this article is laughable, histrionic caricature. 'Europe' as a single entity? That'll be the homogenous undifferentiable Europe of for example the Netherlands and Albania. Or Liechtenstein and Poland. Or Finland and Russia (oh wait a minute, is Russia in Europe or not?). Do you not see the problem here? To contend that there is a single Europe with similar policies is disingenuous. Or is the author pulling the old trick of conflating Europe and the EU? Despite the latter's colonialist ambitions, the two are not yet the same. And even if we only look at the EU, it is riven with contradictions and inconsistencies to the degree that attempting to assert the existence of a single European model is open to challenge.
The same issue exists with the UK and US. There is not one US but several - some areas are thriving, others are dying. And to lump the UK in with the US is laughable - the UK's most rightwing parties are generally held to be to the left of the US's most leftwing parties. And the author seems to completely ignore the other anglosphere nations i.e. Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Perhaps because they do not meet his moronic simplification that Europe = good, US/UK = bad?
If Europe is so awesome, ask the generation that have had their life chances destroyed by EU policies what they think about it - and why millions of them are flocking to the beastly awful UK.
How people react to this article says more about them than about the article.
If finding your country has elected an out-and-out con man to its highest office, and has actually rising infant mortality and falling life expectancy, doesn't have you deeply worried about its future, you really are not paying attention.
Can the US be saved? Opinions vary. But the chorus of opinions that there is nothing to save does not inspire confidence in the prospect of a turnaround.
14 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 43.9 ms ] threadi. I heard Thom Hartmann mention "societies usually last only 250 years or 10 generations, on average" [0]. This would put the epicenter of US'es collapse at roughly 2026 if it were to go that way. Here's another article on previous one [1].
ii. America: The Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges (2018, book)
iii. Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important than You Ever Thought (2019)
https://www.kirkdurston.com/blog/unwin
increased sexual freedom always led to the collapse of a culture three generations later [~75 years]. This would mean 2035 ± 5 would be the estimated date that the US would crumble.
iv. Many, many mass shootings - a desperate act of omnicide and suicide don't happen in an ascending civilization
v. Vulture capitalism's billionaires, massive wealth transfers, privatizing public commons and selling them off, coupled with a regulatory and political capture of the seat of power and useless mass media leads nowhere good.
I think many people MUST step forward, shake off the propaganda and their false beliefs, and demand a reorganization of the status quo before chaos takes over. We need people to first quit pretending that there is no problem and break through their Upton Sinclair-cognitive dissonance against actually doing something.
0. The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (PDF, 1977) by Sir John
http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
1. Empires — The Rise & Fall by Renegade Inc. (2016) https://link.medium.com/iYeIqeMVl2
America won't fail as long as it has a strong economy. No one knows how long that will last, but it's currently true, and there are no convincing signs it will see a depression anytime soon. Britain is similar, except their economy (much like the rest of Europe) hasn't seen much growth since the last recession.
> You can see how a society dies — with horrific, brutal clarity — in the self-destruction of America and Britain. The hate-filled vitriol of Trumpism, the barely-hidden hate of Brexit. Why wouldn’t people who have grown suddenly poor hate everyone else? Why wouldn’t they blame anyone and everyone they can — from Mexicans to Muslims to Europeans — for their own decline? The truth, as always, is harder. America and Britain’s collapse is nobody’s fault — nobody’s — but their own.
The first sentence, the paragraph sentence that anchors the paragraph, is bold and promises much, but what is then offered? Non-specific references to the "hate" of Trumpism and Brexit, and then 3 rhetorical questions.
I don't really disagree that the situation is dire, but I am unimpressed with this think-piece. There are no references in this, despite making some quite strong claims.
> 'Anglo-American society is now the world’s preeminent example of willful self-destruction. It’s jaw-dropping folly and stupidity is breathtaking to the rest of the world.'
Yet strangely, both US and UK are still more attractive destinations for inward investment than the EU, and strangely, people from all over the world still in mass numbers want to visit and migrate to each - including large numbers from the author's ancestral home, Pakistan.
> the only two rich societies in the world with falling life expectancies, incomes, savings, happiness, trust — every single social indicator you can imagine — are America and Britain.
Ignoring chronic economic problems in the EU, mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc.
I won't bother continuing. Embarrassingly poor piece.
Oh please - if it were the EU that was winning on this particular metric the author would have put it absolutely front and centre. And the supposedly dystopian, degenerate hellhole that is the UK is apparently so preferable to France for a significant number of migrants that they'll risk crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world, in the dark, in an inflatable dinghy to get here.
I'm quite happy to be convinced by a well argued piece, but the article is a long way from that. Quite apart from anything else, even if the author wants to motivate change his 'analysis' (if you can call it that) is stunningly reductionist to the point of worthlessness. There isn't one 'Europe', and the EU is not Europe. And there isn't one America. Take southern Italy for example - decades of terrible economic performance, utterly resistant to measures aimed at improvement. Is that "good"?
Nevermind his qualifications thus far - the author would benefit from taking first year undergrad Geography.
There's more to "society" than average wages and startup capital.
> There's more to "society" than average wages and startup capital.
You are misunderstanding, or perhaps deliberately misrepresenting me, and I'm not going to bother to refute your inaccuracies.
Apart from that, again: I'm quite happy to be convinced by a well argued article, but this article is laughable, histrionic caricature. 'Europe' as a single entity? That'll be the homogenous undifferentiable Europe of for example the Netherlands and Albania. Or Liechtenstein and Poland. Or Finland and Russia (oh wait a minute, is Russia in Europe or not?). Do you not see the problem here? To contend that there is a single Europe with similar policies is disingenuous. Or is the author pulling the old trick of conflating Europe and the EU? Despite the latter's colonialist ambitions, the two are not yet the same. And even if we only look at the EU, it is riven with contradictions and inconsistencies to the degree that attempting to assert the existence of a single European model is open to challenge.
The same issue exists with the UK and US. There is not one US but several - some areas are thriving, others are dying. And to lump the UK in with the US is laughable - the UK's most rightwing parties are generally held to be to the left of the US's most leftwing parties. And the author seems to completely ignore the other anglosphere nations i.e. Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Perhaps because they do not meet his moronic simplification that Europe = good, US/UK = bad?
If Europe is so awesome, ask the generation that have had their life chances destroyed by EU policies what they think about it - and why millions of them are flocking to the beastly awful UK.
Now you're just trolling.
If finding your country has elected an out-and-out con man to its highest office, and has actually rising infant mortality and falling life expectancy, doesn't have you deeply worried about its future, you really are not paying attention.
Can the US be saved? Opinions vary. But the chorus of opinions that there is nothing to save does not inspire confidence in the prospect of a turnaround.