The Inevitable Societal Collapse of the USA and How to Prepare and Cope

Originally Posted by Helloween

They all jumped ship for many reasons that aren't widely known, but i say it's cause money was still in fossil fuels.

Anyone who is even remotely interested in energy storage and usage can easily point to the following chart as that reason "[not] widely known." (apologies for the transparency. I can't be arsed to fix that.)


Our most effective, mass-producible artificial energy storage method to date (EEStor's low-leakage capacitor system) has ~1/15 the energy output by weight as diesel in the most efficient diesel engines (%70 energy lost to heat, and assuming perfect electric motors).
That essentially means that you can travel 15 times as far on one pound of diesel fuel than you can with all the energy contained on a one pound capacitor.

The answer to The Mystery of The Electric Car need not require these guys:



As for the subject at hand, it seems to me that Olrov's predictions are rather schizophrenic. The crux of his argument is that fossil fuels dry up and become an unfeasible source of energy for our society. Assuming we give that to him, he suggests that there will be a mass migration of people out to rural locales so that families can remain self-sustainable. He then proceeds to make the argument for a mass migration of people from the suburbs to urban centers.

Also Dull, Liberal thinkers have been waging war on the suburbs for a long time now. Revolutionary Road is just one of a long list of petty, fairy tale anti-suburban diatribes for the purposes of generating artificial opponents to rage against. Olrov doesn't impress me with his eager incorporation of this.

As a whole, I find his predictions to be needlessly dire, and entirely dependent upon a number of erroneous assumptions, particularly about the rigidity of Western society.

Thankfully we have a rather free press that enables us to be aware of the world around us, and empowers us to adapt to the constant changes in the world, economically speaking. American society has been very capable in gauging these sorts of trends and riding with them, if not on top of them.
The same could not be said for the pre-fall Soviet Union. For the greater part of a half century, the USSR allowed nothing but state controlled propaganda and news, which left its citizens mostly in the dark as to the condition of their economy and government. When Gorbachev instituted glasnost, the press wrested itself from state control. The revelations that resulted from this openness destroyed the confidence the people had in their state and controlling party. I suspect the Russian people were left rather disoriented after this.
It certainly did not help that the Soviet economy was developed to centrally control the distribution of goods and services. Gorbachev attempted to counter the Soviet economy's lack of adaptability by decentralizing it, but it was too little too late, and just gave an inroad for the satellite states to avoid paying taxes to Russia.

By contrast, the generation of value and the distribution of goods and services are intrinsically intertwined in the American system. That system is also not as dependent on the purse-strings of the American government as the USSR was.

Finally, if I am interpreting him correctly, Olrov's predictions assume that American society will live in denial and strive to maintain the current status quo until that indeterminate point in the future when it will become completely untenable, and society as we know it will disintegrate. This is just silly in a nation where we have a press that is more than eager to dish out day-to-day dire predictions. Already there are many companies picking up on the predicted changes in the world and are developing more "sustainable" means of living, ranging from power-sipping consumer electronics, to modular energy efficient homes, to even hydroponic skyscrapers. Not to mention the drastic uptick in solar panel sales and waste-energy harvesting methods such as electricity-generating automotive shock absorbers or vibrational generators.
The similarities that Olrov loves to draw between the American system as it is now, and the pre-collapse USSR I feel are shallow at best, and misleading at worst.

There may very well be a significant change in global economies in the coming decades, but I doubt the change will be nigh-apocalyptic, forcing us all into small agrarian tribes.

I sure hope my history is accurate

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by VitaminZinc

The South might try to succeed again. Well, not the whole South. Just localized groups of idiots.

Actually, the only state that has even the remotest chance of seceding from the union would be New Hampshire, what with the Free State Project established there.

The south has a much greater sense of ownership over the the Union than they did in the Civil War era, and are as likely to secede from the U.S. now as California was under Bush.


As for the limey, I would strongly suggest it be a point not to build your position on flimsy stereotypes.

Markets are already anticipating the "game changers." From my point of view as an electronics engineer, I have noticed an almost seismic shift in the direction that the industry has taken in the last 5-10 years. Manufacturers and suppliers have been anticipating huge changes in the cost of raw materials and energy, and are feverishly developing methods to compensate for these changes. I think it is fairly safe to say that the electronics industry isn't an isolated incident of such foresight.

American consumers are "resistant to change" only to the extent that they can afford to do so. When the game changes, the behaviors will follow suit, though most likely with some bitching. But I would hardly call that the makings of a national destabilization.

And your last point is just absurd. I can't imagine any nation or society would deal with a "catastrophic collapse" well, seeing as how it would be cata-fucking-strophic.

There's nowhere I can't reach.