[camdenlock]

This site pops up on here from time to time, and I can’t escape the fact that it’s driven entirely by the coolness factor of scavenging for parts and making them work.

And it is cool.

But the underlying arguments he makes about imminent collapse are baffling. Imminent collapse due to our oil supply drying up? That’s been an erroneous prediction made for like a century, because we are apparently really bad at predicting what the economics of oil extraction will be in the near future. As it turns out, finding and extracting oil becomes way cheaper, and different categories of extraction tech emerge. The lights stay on, and more people write about the NEXT energy collapse which is totally going to happen.

Also, am I missing something, or does he really not even consider nuclear power? It just seems like such an odd hyperbolic and ungrounded argument overall.

[wffurr]

One of the links in the “why” article gets into more detail and specifically mentions nuclear power: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/

There’s also more on the whole phenomenon here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/deep-adaptation-...

And lots and lots more collapse literature out there if you care to dig into it.

On the one hand, predictions of doom have so far been beaten by technological advancements. On the other hand, we do live on a finite world. On the gripping hand, it’s quite disconcerting to think how rapidly our civilizations and individual lifestyles have changed compared to the vast sweep of human history and prehistory.

[analyte123]

I love the project too, but even if we’re at peak oil (demand) there are still dozens of unexplored or barely touched shale basins around the world. Peak gas is a long way off. And oil & gas infrastructure doesn’t just “rot away” in a year or two due to a pandemic, or it would have already rotted due to the periodic busts that crash the rig count just as much.

It’s interesting how people’s reasons for the impending doom differ with their political leaning. Left leaning people will say we’re running out of resources and soon to be inundated with melted ice caps because we’re too individualistic. Right leaning people say we’re going to turn into Idiocracy because of poor breeding and easy living because there’s too much welfare and immigration.

[Wowfunhappy]

It's tricky though, right, because these sorts of societal collapses do happen! We've seen them many times throughout history.

I think the pure numbers indicate that the next one probably won't happen in my lifetime (good), but I do think it will happen! What makes us think our society is special?

[skissane]

> What makes us think our society is special?

What is “our society”? A particular country or group of countries, or global society?

Certainly any country or even group of countries could go downhill. But, historically, usually when one country is in decline, somewhere else on the globe another is rising. For global society as a whole to collapse, across all countries and continents - that would be something that has never happened before. I don’t even know if we can put a probability on it - how do you determine the probability of something happening if it has never happened before?

[6510]

Everything is very tightly connected now. Products and food are produced very far away and does an impressive bit of traveling during assembly. It's a supper efficient approach but not very robust. It is hard to get an idea of the knowledge hidden/locked in proprietary property but one can expect it to be truly advanced. It would take decades to replicate for other companies.

[tonyedgecombe]

One of the things that has surprised me about the pandemic is how well these systems have held up. There are shortages of some goods, PPE in particular but on the whole our systems have continued working. We haven't been raiding our neighbours for food, if anything it's been the opposite.

[Wowfunhappy]

In the grand scheme of history, the pandemic just isn't that bad. You can imagine a scenario—a much deadlier disease, or a war—in which we lost 5% of the world's population.

[ncmncm]

Collapse by 2030 is entirely possible under unsurprising circumstances. I rate it as near 50% likelihood, increasing rapidly after:

As climate disruption increases, crop failures in tropical and subtropical countries result in mass migration, first to cities and then toward wealthy temperate countries.

Temperate countries react by electing fascist governments to repel refugees. Fascist governments start wars (as they do), which spiral and disrupt international trade. Trade failure triggers economic crises, which exacerbate wars, ultimately leading to nuclear weapons exchange, and collapse.

Reason to believe: already starting, with no remedial action visible or planned.

[cbozeman]

Looking forward to coming back here in 10 years...

[ncmncm]

I hope you are right. But I don't see anything happening to inspire confidence.