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Thread: Collapse

  1. #61
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    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    I hear ya, but this may not be so simple as it seems. Like the sucking down whirlpool that develops when a large ocean going vessel goes under, what happens when a "large ocean going vessel" like the United States goes under?
    That is a pretty interesting question. Both JHK and Dmitry Orlov gave considerable though to this, both in books and essays, as have I. One school of thought is that collapse tends to happen in isolation. When one part of the world, as in an empire, collapses, it benefits its rivals, who move in and suck up the remaining resources, including human intellectual capital. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, Byzantium actually benefited, as it absorbed some of the Leftover territories and a massive wave of well-educated refugees who headed east caused a veritable cultural and scientific Renaissance.


    Speaking of the Renaissance, that flowering of Western thought was caused by the collapse of Byzantium, as it was overrun by the Turks. The massive influx of refugees, especially artists and scholars to Venice, Genoa, Florence and other Italian city states, was the main impetus behind it and arguably our modern Western Civilisation.

    We also benefit from the collapse of Syria and Lebanon in this way, just think about Steve Jobs, who was the children of Lebanese immigrants.

    Then there was the collapse of the Soviet Union, from which arguably the rest of the world benefited, especially with a huge influx of highly trained Russian scientists and engineers, again, to the West and to a lesser extent China, India and Iran.

    However, these isolated collapses seem kind of quaint and outdated in our globally connected just-in-time planetary economy. A small disruption, like Brexit, or Trump's trade wars, can cause serious disruption. Another Financial crisis, where letters of credit (which Global Trade depends on) and various financial insurance schemes (such as Collateralised Debt Obligations) become worthless and are no longer honoured, can end the Global economy in a blink of an eye. We came very close with Lehman Brothers, but the underlying issues weren't solved and another round of Financial collapse would probably end the global economy as we know it. It would reorganise spontaneously on a regional and local level, but the global economy would come to an end.

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    Why the rise of tribalization is a bad sign:
    https://euobserver.com/news/142856

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    This guy is no fool, that's for sure...

    Also, Europe found peace but it started to backslide with Putin...he is more the centerpoint of current history than anyone. Trump, of course, is accelerating the process.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Collapse - implies that something or someone will tumble, fall, lose their standing in society. When I think about the paradigm in which we live I think of it (sometimes) as a purely fiscal paradigm. Then I think of the money and follow the trail. The only people who gain from the rise of a fiscal paradigm - are - those who will gain money. The rest of us do the best we can with what we have or don't have ....

    Then my thinking goes Lateral and Critical and Divergent. When the collapse comes, is it we who have lived with modest finances who will survive and rise out of the ashes???? The collapse will come and it is only a matter of time. The politics being discussed within this fabulous thread are but one aspect of the 'whole' and when the politics can no longer be maintained it will start to crumble.

    Much Peace - As we all keep looking for answers to our questions - Amanda

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    This guy is no fool, that's for sure...

    Also, Europe found peace but it started to backslide with Putin...he is more the centerpoint of current history than anyone. Trump, of course, is accelerating the process.
    Putin is weaker than you think. Russia is not the Soviet Union, or the Russian Empire, which spanned half the globe from the Canadian border to the Borders of Germany, Austria and Sweden. It is currently a much weaker country with an economy considerably smaller than Italy's. Its real existential threat comes from China, despite the apparently cordial relations between the two. Russia used to own Manchuria, which is now part of China. The Chinese clearly have their eyes on Siberia and have already managed to take control of most of Central Asia, at Russia's expense. During Soviet Times, the SU had more divisions stationed at the Chinese Border than in Europe and border clashes were constant. Siberia is emptying out of Russians, but close to a million Chinese are moving there every year. Vladivostok is a stone's Throw away from the Chinese border, but half a world away from Moscow, connected to it by a single railway line, with the Journey taking over a week.


    The sanctions are also hurting the Russian economy, despite the brave face Putin's putting on (sorry for the pun). More and more Russians are unhappy with the way he's running the economy and for the first time during his tenure, there were protests against him, due to austerity measures. The Russian economy should be riding high right now, but his foreign policy adventures are isolating the country and making it less prosperous and increasingly an international Pariah. That is probably something that will also happen with Trump, eventually, but it may take some time.

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    Quote Originally posted by Amanda View Post
    Collapse - implies that something or someone will tumble, fall, lose their standing in society. When I think about the paradigm in which we live I think of it (sometimes) as a purely fiscal paradigm. Then I think of the money and follow the trail. The only people who gain from the rise of a fiscal paradigm - are - those who will gain money. The rest of us do the best we can with what we have or don't have ....

    Then my thinking goes Lateral and Critical and Divergent. When the collapse comes, is it we who have lived with modest finances who will survive and rise out of the ashes???? The collapse will come and it is only a matter of time. The politics being discussed within this fabulous thread are but one aspect of the 'whole' and when the politics can no longer be maintained it will start to crumble.

    Much Peace - As we all keep looking for answers to our questions - Amanda
    That is certainly an interesting question. I did grow up during the collapse of Communism and saw first hand what that meant. I don't think that people who are already struggling and are in poverty will do particularly well in a collapse. In fact, I think they will be one of the first ones to go. If it's a geographically isolated collapse, those that are light on their feet, have the skills and connections to emigrate, will survive best. There is a reason we see so many migrants these days. It is because most third world countries are already collapsing and the ones with a bit of gumption, get-go and funds are already on the move to find a better life for themselves.

    Of those that stay behind, again, those with the right connections and access to resources are the ones most likely to do well. A post-collapse economy is a haven for smugglers, criminals, pimps, prostitutes and all sort of "entrepreneurs" who are handy with a gun and a baseball bat. Death rates are astronomical in any case, not least due to alcoholism and suicide. Women do best in a collapse, middle-aged men with established careers the worst. They are the most likely to drink themselves to death or flung themselves off a Wall Street Skyscraper when their world and their ephemeral success turns to dust. Youth and the flexibility that comes with it is a huge advantage.


    Dmitry Orlov wrote about this Topic very extensively, if I can dig up some of his old essays I will post them here.

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    Trump is pointing the finger a lot at China. Perhaps you have pointed to some of the reasons, Chris. Trump's buddy is in trouble with China so he's raising the alarm.

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    He's doing more than just pointing fingers.


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    I'll let fellow Hungarian George Friedman explain why Russia is so vulnerable from the other side as well, in European Russia. It faces similar problems in the Far East, but the real issue Russia has right now is that it has lost its usual Western buffer states that used to protect it from European Invasion (whether the invading power was Germany, France, the UK or Poland, it always came from the same direction.) That is why Putin is so desperate to regain control of the Ukraine and the Baltics.


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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Putin is weaker than you think. Russia is not the Soviet Union, or the Russian Empire, which spanned half the globe from the Canadian border to the Borders of Germany, Austria and Sweden. It is currently a much weaker country with an economy considerably smaller than Italy's. Its real existential threat comes from China, despite the apparently cordial relations between the two. Russia used to own Manchuria, which is now part of China. The Chinese clearly have their eyes on Siberia and have already managed to take control of most of Central Asia, at Russia's expense. During Soviet Times, the SU had more divisions stationed at the Chinese Border than in Europe and border clashes were constant. Siberia is emptying out of Russians, but close to a million Chinese are moving there every year. Vladivostok is a stone's Throw away from the Chinese border, but half a world away from Moscow, connected to it by a single railway line, with the Journey taking over a week.


    The sanctions are also hurting the Russian economy, despite the brave face Putin's putting on (sorry for the pun). More and more Russians are unhappy with the way he's running the economy and for the first time during his tenure, there were protests against him, due to austerity measures. The Russian economy should be riding high right now, but his foreign policy adventures are isolating the country and making it less prosperous and increasingly an international Pariah. That is probably something that will also happen with Trump, eventually, but it may take some time.
    all true, I suppose...it isn't about strength, it's about persona, propaganda, and the willingness to run roughshod over any sovereign nation that he perceives as weaker than him. He started in his own territory and has continued to undermine (to the best of his ability) anything that runs contrary to his vision of renewed empire.

    The best thing that could happen to the world is to recognize that he is a scumbag, like all the other scumbags that aspire to the same goal.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    all true, I suppose...it isn't about strength, it's about persona, propaganda, and the willingness to run roughshod over any sovereign nation that he perceives as weaker than him. He started in his own territory and has continued to undermine (to the best of his ability) anything that runs contrary to his vision of renewed empire.

    The best thing that could happen to the world is to recognize that he is a scumbag, like all the other scumbags that aspire to the same goal.
    I think most people already know that. He is a ruthless Mafia Don and a an ex-KGB agent at the same time, not exactly a heart-warming combination. A lot of people like him because of his overt religiosity, but that's nothing new, all Tsars that went before him fancied themselves as "defenders of the faith", that is defenders of Christians from Islamic harassment and conquest. The alt-right really like him because he talks and looks tough and is an unabashed white christian supremacist. I guess he is the ideal a lot of these people aspire to.

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    I think many people, especially certain kind of men like these authoritarian male leaders because they seem to be the macho types with charisma. People would like to be seemingly powerful like that for some reason. I can't see why there would be anything admirable about people like that yet that is how human psychology works with the masses. The opposite of that is seen as weak, dishonest and unadmirable. Strong figures and leaders are wanted, even if they have fundamentally flawed personalities. Charisma lures people.

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    http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nati...-monster-mash/

    Another essay from JHK, about the collapsing political landscape in the US. As an outsider, it seems to me that the Left is imploding, just as it has in Hungary over the last decade, albeit for different reasons. I agree with Kunstler that the political Left has been far too obsessed with blaming white people as a whole for all manner of problems and white men in particular. That is not to say that there isn't some truth to that, after all, almost all of the people running the world are white men, yet most white men aren't running the world and that is an important distinction to make. I feel that the left keeps losing elections all over the western world, because of their self-hatred. This self-hatred is rather bizarre considering the towering achievements of said civilisation, despite all its admitted failings.


    The Monster Mash


    The sad reality is that last week’s Pittsburgh synagogue massacre is only the latest float in the long-running parade of ghastly homicidal spectacles rolling across this land and will be just as forgotten in one week as was last year’s Las Vegas Mandalay Bay slaughter of 58 concert-goers plus over 800 wounded and injured, a US record for non-military acts of violence. The Pittsburgh shootings elbowed the mass pipe bomber, Cesar Sayoc, out of the news cycle — but then Sayoc didn’t manage to actually hurt any of the high-profile figures he targeted with his mailings. What I wonder — and what the news media has so far failed to report — is just how incompetent a bomb-maker Sayoc was. Fake news meets fake bombs.

    One of the strange side effects of an epic American political hysteria is this strange ADD-like inability of the public to focus on anything for more than a few moments, even the most arresting atrocities. The hysteria itself is too compelling, like the actions of a human limbic system driving the collective public psyche from fight to flight on the wild horses of pure emotion. Reason has been discarded by the wayside just as a super-drunk person will shed his clothing even on a freezing night. Total culture war now beats a path toward all-out civil war, with the looming mid-term election as a fulcrum of history.

    The country is not “divided,” it’s sliced-and diced like a victim in one of the Halloween bloodbath movies now so beloved by movie audiences that they must be regularly updated. It’s hardly a stretch to say that the US public sees its collective self as a throng of zombies lurching across the ruined landscape in search of a dwindling supply of brains, and they even seem to take a certain comfort in that endeavor, as though the zombies were performing a meritorious public service ridding the nation of as many brains as possible.

    The Democratic Party could not be more in tune with this monster mash of collapse politics. The party has been living in a haunted house of its own construction for much of this century, and methodically adding to its roster of resident blood beasts month by month in an orgy of monster creation. They remind me of the chanting and stomping “natives” in any of the long line of King Kong movies, summoning the giant ape to the gate of their Great Wall so as to scare off the party of feckless white adventurers from faraway Hollywood. Only in this edition of the story, King Kong is the Golden Golem of Greatness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and it annoys him greatly to be summoned by these tiny savages beating their drums. Of course, America-the Horror-Movie doesn’t add up as a coherent narrative. And so the nation sinks into bloody incoherence.

    The Democratic Party war on white people and their dastardly privilege has been the theme all year long, with its flanking movement against white men especially and super-especially the hetero-normative white male villains who rape and oppress everybody else. Anyway, that’s the strategy du jour. I’m not persuaded that it’s going to work so well in the coming election. The party could not have issued a clearer message than “white men not welcome here.” Very well, then, they’ll vote somewhere else for somebody else. And if it happens that the Dems don’t prevail, and don’t manage to get their hands on the machinery of congress — then what?

    For one thing, a lot of people get indicted, especially former top officers from various glades of the Intel swamp. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given the numbers of them already called before grand juries and fingered by inspectors general. But it may be shocking how high up the indictments go, and how serious the charges may be: sedition… treason…?

    These midterm election may bring the moment when the Democratic Party finally blows up, at least enough to sweep away the current coterie of desperate idiots running it. It’s time to shove the crybabies offstage and allow a few clear-eyed adults to take the room, including men, yes even white men. And let all the shrieking, clamoring, marginal freaks return to the margins, where they belong.

    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    I think many people, especially certain kind of men like these authoritarian male leaders because they seem to be the macho types with charisma. People would like to be seemingly powerful like that for some reason. I can't see why there would be anything admirable about people like that yet that is how human psychology works with the masses. The opposite of that is seen as weak, dishonest and unadmirable. Strong figures and leaders are wanted, even if they have fundamentally flawed personalities. Charisma lures people.
    It's biological. Chimpanzees in particular, but most mammals as well are like that. They want to be led by a strong man, literally.

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    One of the strange side effects of an epic American political hysteria is this strange ADD-like inability of the public to focus on anything for more than a few moments, even the most arresting atrocities. The hysteria itself is too compelling, like the actions of a human limbic system driving the collective public psyche from fight to flight on the wild horses of pure emotion.
    Pretty good description. Although in my opinion it's not a side effect, it's a direct effect, and it has a name: Trauma based mind control.

    The subject is still in the process of being shattered and broken down, yet it lurches to and fro as one.
    The unexamined life is not worth living.

    Socrates

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    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    Pretty good description. Although in my opinion it's not a side effect, it's a direct effect, and it has a name: Trauma based mind control.

    The subject is still in the process of being shattered and broken down, yet it lurches to and fro as one.
    Not sure if this is the result of a deliberate process. It could very well be the natural result of entropy. All complex systems seem to get into trouble and break down after a while, without any outside help. There is also a periodic breakdown or convulsion in all societies, I guess this is the fourth turning concept. I feel that some societies, the US and UK in particular are going through just such a process, but others as well, such as Italy and Brazil.

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