Social Collapse

[padren]

I don't expect there to be any grand social collapses, and alarmists tend to errantly and constantly spot them on the horizon, whether caused by oil shortages or no good teenagers.

 

Still, I don't expect nuclear weapons to be used in any major world city, but it is a threat.

 

 

Since social issues came up in another thread as a threat, it got me thinking and I think its worth a topic. Basically, modern civilization seems to be a strange mix of exceptionally adaptive intelligent individuals and at the same time a volitile act of mental focus that spans dozens of generations. We have many institutions in this country that are simply fixtures - part of its stable nature, such as the pentagon. At the same time, that is an institution that is younger than a number of people that have worked there. I am not pointing it out as something evil or anything - just as an example of what we think of as a standard fixture in the country, when its actually an example of the dynamic and changing nature of the country.

 

 

I am curious what people think are the greatest social threats, including examination of how those threats either damaged past societies, or how they've been hyped as harbringers of doom and gloom since generations past.

 

 

Considering the nature of the world, the strength of asian markets, the growing islamic cultural divide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, etc, how would the US fair if we experienced another Great Depression?

 

Is something like that even possible now, and if so, are we at risk? How long will our soaring deficit and national debt continue, how will that be resolved, given it will have to be someday?

 

Will Grand Theft Auto lead to teens killing each other off in numbers as large as they did back when 2livecrew was making them evil?

[gcol]

Considering the nature of the world, the strength of asian markets, the growing islamic cultural divide, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, etc, how would the US fair if we experienced another Great Depression?

 

Is something like that even possible now, and if so, are we at risk? How long will our soaring deficit and national debt continue, how will that be resolved, given it will have to be someday?

 

 

It is surely a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will burn itself out and fall into decline. Not if, but when, and the question will be how it manages that decline and repositions itself when it is no longer king of the hill.

 

If handled gracefuly and with long term preparation, the decline may not be socially catastrophic, but history is not favourable to that outcome.

[sunspot]

The next major pertubation may actually lead to something progressive. The next logical move for humanity is one world, one culture. If we are one big moderately happy family, it becomes easier to deal with things that threaten the common peace. As long as we have to maintain social differentiation between countries, the breeding grounds of discontent remain fertile. As a family problem, the breeding gounds will change due to the overlap. This will alter the nature of the discontent.

[JustStuit]

The next major pertubation may actually lead to something progressive. The next logical move for humanity is one world, one culture. If we are one big moderately happy family, it becomes easier to deal with things that threaten the common peace. As long as we have to maintain social differentiation between countries, the breeding grounds of discontent remain fertile. As a family problem, the breeding gounds will change due to the overlap. This will alter the nature of the discontent.

This would be nice but it would never happen and wouldn't last. People will still have different opinions on religion, how the government should work, and financial situations. There would be different factions formed and eventually end up as different nations again. Many cultures cannot be squashed into one and expect progressive results (short of brainwashing.)

[Edtharan]

The next major pertubation may actually lead to something progressive. The next logical move for humanity is one world, one culture.

I would call a One World One Cultrue as social collapse, as what has happend to all the other cultures, they must have colapsed under the domination of this "One Culture".

 

I think a One World Multiple Cultures would be the next step.

 

For this to occure I think people will have to give up their Simplex (not simplistic) and Multiplex world views and take the Complex world view (not complicated). The Simplex world view is that everyone must see the world as they do (and if they claim that they don't then they are either lieing or ignorant. The Multiplex world view is that your world view is the right one, but others can hold a different one so long as they don't stop you from holding yours.

 

A Complex world view is that an individual can accept multiple world views and all have equal validity.

 

I think the greatest threat to society is that of the Simplex world view. This kind of thinking inevitably will lead to war and totalarian regimes. The Multiplex world view will still lead to war, but it will be less likely to lead to a totalarian regeme (but it still will occure, it just will eventually be replaced).

[KLB]

One small part of social collapse I see is a general loss of civility in public discourse and a general loss of social manners. Examples would be people leaving cell phones on in movies, cutting each other off in traffic, any political discussion turning into a Fox News style personal attacks, parents yelling, screaming and assaulting others at little league games, people shooting kids because they walk across their well manicured lawn (http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=state&id=4011091) or shooting kids model planes out of the sky (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060325/ap_on_fe_st/model_plane_shooting). The best example of this is most forums or comment threads at the end of any political article at Yahoo News.

 

The rudeness we see in forum discussion spills into every day life and it just seems people get ruder every day. Children saying sir and ma'am may seem quaint to others here in northern states, but there is something to be said for social courtesies and manners and it just seems the loss of these things is a sign of a breaking down of other social mores.

[pink_trike]

The greatest threat is the convergence of threats that are emerging from the human realm and the natural world:

 

Global temperature increase

Melting ice caps

Increasing intensity and frequency of hurricanes, blizzards, tornados, heat

Increasing volcanic activity/ potential super volcano eruption

Unraveling ecosystem, rapid species die-off

Potential global famine

Potential global flu outbreak and other pandemics

Dying oceans.

Fragile global economy dependent on a finite resource.

Proliferation of hand guns, chemical weapons, automatic weapons

Deteriorating power grids and water delivery systems

Water shortages

Religious/political fanaticism

Potential nuclear war

Potential asteroid/comet impact hazard

 

We have a deteriorating, extremely fragile global infrastructure that supports an overpopulated, volatile civilization...particularly in Western urban/industialized countries. Food delivery and health care delivery systems are particularly vulnerable. Some of the individual items on the list above are enough to collapse the global economy. Any combination of several may have the potential to do the same. Some on the list will trigger others on the list in chain reactions. If the Yellowstone super volcano blows again the U.S. will be a third world country overnight.

 

Whoo hoo! Humans are the superior species! Not.

[Jim]

Will Grand Theft Auto lead to teens killing each other off in numbers as large as they did back when 2livecrew was making them evil?

 

Of course the news out of Seattle gives everyone reason to pause; however, I do not think people are worse today than they once were. After talking to my father and my late grandmother there was something very much lacking in the good ol days. My dad told me there was a girl everyone in the small rural town knew was probably being sexually abused by her father yet no one acted. But, oh yes, they were civil on the surface. Public discourse was not necessarily any better in those days.

 

The glorification of criminals is nothing new. Google the phrase "Jesse James" and you get over 5 million hits today as a result of the press glorifying a villain in the late 19th century. Take a look at this site and you'll see that they do not even name James' first victim. He died doing his job and is nameless while the James brothers are legend.

 

There is a basic urge to think of the past as a better time. I do not believe this is at all the case while undeniably the ability of nut cases to feed their own internal fantasy world has taken a quantum leap. People also live closer together and have more lethal technology available to them when they do go postal. That trend will only increase.

 

We have less chance of knowing in 2006 what the next 50 years will bring than did the inhabitants of 1906. We just don't know what's going to happen.

 

Carpe diem.

[bascule]

I think save for existential risk society will not collapse. Unstable elements of our infrastructure are naturally replaced as they begin to fail. Society is held together by everyone's collective interest in keeping society together, and while we have this attitude now about how apathy will lead to our own destruction, people will be much less apathetic if, say, they lose electrical power and their teevee stops working, can't afford enough oil to drive places, the beer dries up, etc.

 

Basically, the system has to noticibly begin to break before any real collective effort will arise to repair it.

[pink_trike]

Basically, the system has to noticibly begin to break before any real collective effort will arise to repair it.

 

The infrastructure has already noticably begun to break. The problem is twofold:

 

1. Even though it is noticably breaking, not enough people are noticing.

 

2. There isn't enough money to repair failing infrastructure elements.

[Edtharan]

Will Grand Theft Auto lead to teens killing each other off in numbers as large as they did back when 2livecrew was making them evil?

This is just as false todat as the claim made yeas ago that if all people learned to read it would lead to social colapse. People ten to want simple explainations of complex events, so it is natural for them to seize somehting new that they don't underrstand and make that the object of villification. It will not be the computer games (or the music of the Beatles as was claimed) that will cause these problems, it is as was stated, the apethy, ingorance and closed thinking (part of what I called simplex thinking) that will lead to these problems.

 

Mostly these problems will occure on a small scale (another advantage of a Complex/Multicultural environment). And if as was suggested that a One WOrld One Culture prevaled, then I would be seriously worried about a total colapse of the human race. But as we curently have many cultures in the world, as one falls, others will rise to take it's place. There might be setbacks (like the darkages) but humanity will continue.

 

But this is taking the long view and accepting that our curent scocieties are only transitory (which they are, regardless of what we would like).

[Pangloss]

The greatest threat the world faces today is over-reaction to all the "great threats" that it faces.

[pcs]

It is surely a foregone conclusion that the U.S. will burn itself out and fall into decline. Not if, but when, and the question will be how it manages that decline and repositions itself when it is no longer king of the hill.

 

Why would that be a foregone conclusion?

[Steph]

Why would that be a foregone conclusion?

 

uhm, everything that goes up goes down? you have delusions if you think the US can somehow keep the top spot for all eternity.

[Sisyphus]

The greatest threat the world faces today is over-reaction to all the "great threats" that it faces.

 

That has some truth to it, but ultimately I think you're being too flippant. Nazism and Fascism were basically huge overreactions to perceived social threats. But they were also, in essence, social movements, and turned out to be quite dangerous indeed. The Nazis brutally subjugated their own people, it's true, but were only able to do so because the culture embraced them with open arms. So what happened? How did an entire nation (or enough of a nation to effectively be an entire nation) go insane in a few years? What the **** happened? Nothing more than a proud, aggressive culture reduced to humiliation and economic depression, and looking for hope, pride, and someone to blame. Hardly a unique circumstance, I think, and far from the only runaway social trend that could be hugely destructive.

 

The most dangerous social shifts, I think, are after some other catastrophe has occured. When the Western Roman Empire was overrun, Europe was in anarchy. The culture was fragmented and confused, its intellectual community effectively silenced. And how do the people react? By fully embracing a particular form of Christianity that is utterly destructive. They have nothing, and so the shunning of material things is appealing, although it completely stifles progress and sets back the knowledge the ancients had by millenia. Further, they want guidance from anywhere they can get it, the only two places left being thuggish warlords, to whom they happily submit, and the church, which becomes stupefyingly oppressive. What follows are the aptly named Dark Ages.

 

If a setback that huge were to happen again, there might well be no recovery. Why? Because we live in a global culture, and while the Dark Ages were limited to Europe, and there were still flourishing civilizations in the Muslim world, China, etc., there wouldn't be any this time. The rennaissance in Europe was caused largely by influeence from the Middle East. Further, we've used up most of the easily available natural resources. Not much of a problem for us, since as we use more resources, we also find more ways to harvest them, and develop high-tech renewables. But it would be a huge problem for, say, a pre-industrial society. The Industrial Revolution might only be able to happen once. Or, at the very least, it would be much harder. An imminent threat? I doubt it. But a few hundred years down the line? Certainly. I consider it the most likely end to our civilization.

 

Now why do I think this sort of thing is an issue today? Well, look at the United States. We too are a proud, aggressive culture, and have become used to winning. Further, statistics reveal a startling ignorance among the populace, and a growing trend of anti-intellectual rhetoric both anecdotally in my personal life, and what I see in politicians. Reactionary ideas like "intelligent design" seek to undermine science on its own terms, we're constantly menaced by a vague and (or so we're told) utterly unsympathetic enemy in what has been dubbed the "Long War" in a particularly Orwellian flair, the President affects a silly drawl and can't (or pretends he can't, which is worse) string together a coherent sentence, and the so-called "megachurches" draw huge congregations by essentially offering to run people's lives for them. Now, all of these things will in all probability fizzle out on their own, as temporary trends. And, of course, this is mostly just America, not the whole world. But how big of a spark would there have to be to ignite something horrible? We live in dangerous times, I think.

[padren]

I think save for existential risk society will not collapse. Unstable elements of our infrastructure are naturally replaced as they begin to fail. Society is held together by everyone's collective interest in keeping society together' date=' and while we have this attitude now about how apathy will lead to our own destruction, people will be much less apathetic if, say, they lose electrical power and their teevee stops working, can't afford enough oil to drive places, the beer dries up, etc.

 

Basically, the system has to noticibly begin to break before any real collective effort will arise to repair it.[/quote']

 

While I think the self-repair factor is a large one, I have to ask why you feel the system is more foolproof now than it was during days of previous societies that did not stop their decline?

 

 

There are a number of examples throughout history of social self-destruction. I think the roman empire is one good example, and you mentioned the Mayans in another thread (I think the Mayans) collapsed due to over farming or something to that effect.

 

You could consider the direction nations like Japan and Germany took into WWII as ultimately self-destructive attempts at self-repair. They are both thriving now, but they were utterly defeated and were at the mercy for the most part, of their victors.

 

 

Also, just to be clear, when I say social collapse, I mean not mean limited to the scale of all of humanity, but things including the scale of the collapse of the roman empire and the great depression as well, though I am curious how something like the great depression now would effect us geopolitically.

 

 

The greatest threat the world faces today is over-reaction to all the "great threats" that it faces.

 

I have to agree with that largely, which is why the war on terror bugs me so much. I hate how we elevated a group of thugs to the status of our Nation's Might Opponent. It may be The Holy War of The End of Times for them, but for us, its setting our foot down and twisting our heel back and forth.

 

I am guessing you said that party tongue in cheek, considering the irony of saying that over-reaction to threats is the greatest threat, which in itself is an over-reaction to a threat.

 

That has some truth to it' date=' but ultimately I think you're being too flippant. Nazism and Fascism were basically huge overreactions to perceived social threats. [/quote']

 

I have to agree with most of your post, and there were people who called our own concerns about the growing of fascism a dangerous over-reaction, when ultimately the threat itself overshadowed anything an over-reaction could threaten.

 

Regarding the second elements of your post, I am personally rather concerned about the modern American political climate. I haven't studied it in depth, but it would be interesting to have a neutral assesment of constrasting current vs the politics during the 50s and McCarthyism, and why we ended up in a better time after that. Did that trend inherently fail, or did we get lucky thanks to the efforts of key individuals of the time?

[pcs]

uhm, everything that goes up goes down? you have delusions if you think the US can somehow keep the top spot for all eternity.

 

So the argument for this cycle theory boils down to a truism? Not very scientific.

[bascule]

The infrastructure has already noticably begun to break.

 

You clearly missed the point of my post. The infrastructure has broken innumerable times throughout history, but evolves around its own deficiencies. Saying the infrastructure has "begun to break" ignores how many times it has broken throughout history.

 

The problem is twofold:

 

1. Even though it is noticably breaking, not enough people are noticing.

 

This is the traditional "Not enough people notice until it's too late!" response, and it ignores the ability of the system to rapidly adapt to changing conditions, instead assuming temporary setbacks are irrepairable. It's the typical platform from which the alarmist operates.

 

2. There isn't enough money to repair failing infrastructure elements.

 

And here you're ignoring the power of innovation and accelerating change to modernize failing legacy components of our infrastructure.

[Sisyphus]

So the argument for this cycle theory boils down to a truism? Not very scientific.

 

Do you believe the United States of America will dominate the human race until the end of the universe?

[Jim]

Do you believe the United States of America will dominate the human race until the end of the universe?

 

I'm not PCS but I do think that countries that allow economic freedoms (or harnass greed as a certain billionare once said) will succesfully compete over the long term over those that do not. This assumes that it all doesn't dissolve into a puddle of grey goo.

[Sisyphus]

How does that address the question?

[Jim]

The greatest threat is the convergence of threats that are emerging from the human realm and the natural world:

 

Global temperature increase

Melting ice caps

Increasing intensity and frequency of hurricanes' date=' blizzards, tornados, heat

Increasing volcanic activity/ potential super volcano eruption

Unraveling ecosystem, rapid species die-off

Potential global famine

Potential global flu outbreak and other pandemics

Dying oceans.

Fragile global economy dependent on a finite resource.

Proliferation of hand guns, chemical weapons, automatic weapons

Deteriorating power grids and water delivery systems

Water shortages

Religious/political fanaticism

Potential nuclear war

Potential asteroid/comet impact hazard

[/quote']

 

Let's see. You've covered astrophysics, economics, electromechanical engineering as it applies to the nation's power system, environmental issues, geologic trends, cultural studies and... have I missed anything?

 

Is it possible that you're expertise is stretched a bit thin?

[pink_trike]

You clearly missed the point of my post.

 

Basically, the system has to noticibly begin to break before any real collective effort will arise to repair it.

 

Unstable elements of our infrastructure are naturally replaced as they begin to fail.

 

I'm assuming that the above two quotes summarize the point of your post.

 

The infrastructure has broken innumerable times throughout history, but evolves around its own deficiencies. Saying the infrastructure has "begun to break" ignores how many times it has broken throughout history.

 

 

Sorry, I'm not following your logic. How does saying that the infrastructure has "begun to break" ignore how many times it has broken in the past? Saying that the infrastructure has "begun to break" is simply an acknowledgment that breaking is taking place...it doesn't ignore or contradict history.

 

This is the traditional "Not enough people notice until it's too late!" response, and it ignores the ability of the system to rapidly adapt to changing conditions, instead assuming temporary setbacks are irrepairable. It's the typical platform from which the alarmist operates.

 

In the case of an isolated threat or relatively few unrelated minor threats, you are correct...systems adapt, often quite rapidly. However, we're experiencing a unique convergence of threats from both the human realm and the natural world that have the potential for devastating disruption of our complexly interdependent global society. I think we can't just assume that the system can rapidly adapt to multiple changing conditions on so many fronts...we don't know because have insufficient experience with such broad interdependent complexity. This is entirely uncharted territory. An awareness that the potential for catastrophic convergence exists is not "alarmist".

 

And here you're ignoring the power of innovation and accelerating change to modernize failing legacy components of our infrastructure.

 

I'm not ignoring these things (and wonder how you arrived at that conclusion), but I'm also aware that they are not to be assumed. I'm looking at a different scenario, that of catastrophic convergence...a possibility which has the potential to inhibit innovation and prevent the modernization of failing components.

 

A simple, realistic example of possible convergence is the potential for global flu pandemic, global economic collapse, rapid escalation of global terrorist activity, combined with a continued increase in frequency and intensity of weather anomalies such as drought, heat, swarm tornados, hurricanes and blizzards, which in convergence could potentially result in many millions of death, food shortage/deprivation, severely stressed health care delivery systems, potential mass urban evacuation, and disintegration of social order, even if these events were to take place over a period of 5-10 years.

 

An article in Forbes magazine (not an alarmist rag) last year addressed the relationship between flu pandemic and global economy. Refering to the next global flu pandemic, the author of the article states "It is likely to kill many millions of people, sicken a quarter of the world's population and send the global economy into a tailspin."

 

Martin Meltzer, health economist at the CDC (a conservative fellow, not an alarmist by any stretch of the imagination) is quoted as saying:

 

"The influenza tsunami is coming. It is hard to say that the probability of it occurring is anything other than 100%". The only real questions, he says, are how soon and how bad. Even a relatively mild strain would kill up to 207,000 Americans (versus 36,000 flu deaths in a typical year), hospitalize another half-million and rack up $70 billion to $166 billion in direct medical and lost productivity costs, Meltzer calculates."

 

He's speaking about the United States economy only. In densely populated Asia, the economic toll will be staggering. The ramifications for our fragile global economy are unknown. Its also important to know that his estimates are based on the mortality rate of previous flu pandemics. Avian flu to date has a chilling mortality rate of nearly double (72%) at this point.

 

The article goes on to quote Klaus Stöhr, head of the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Program:

 

"It will go around the globe, and nothing will stop it,"

 

I wouldn't describe WHO as an alarmist organization.

 

For us to adapt to this very real _single_ threat we would need to immunize and educate all 6.4 billion people on the planet, but only 300-500 million flu shot doses could be produced a year (for a single strain pandemic). Innovation and modernization adaptive mechanisms are quickly needed for this single threat, but first there needs to be sufficient awareness (notably lacking at this point) that the existing flu prevention infrastructures have already begin to break, (meaning that they are failing to keep up education efforts and routine flu shot annual supply and demand), and there needs to be quite a large amount of capital allocated at a time when capital is in severe short supply.

 

A global flu epidemic would spawn many related threats. Food delivery systems could be slowed or even stopped simply from the impact of the flu on the labor force. The average large grocery store in urban areas stocks enough food for slightly less than 2 weeks, barring hoarding. The effect of a global pandemic on oil prices is unknown, especially if terrorism were to increase simultaneously (pre modern history tells us that this is a fairly normal pattern). The resulting rise in oil prices, combined with a decimated labor pool would send food prices skyrocketing for whatever available food there is. The effect of this alone on social order in large urban centers with multimillion population levels is unpredictable. But probably not good.

 

Add devastating weather to the mix (crop failure), and factor in a $8.2 trillion dollar federal deficit in the U.S.

 

There is nothing far-fetched or alarmist about this scenario. What's more alarming than considering the potential for catastrophic convergence is the general unwillingness for people to consider its possibility. My guess is that considering this 21st century phenomena violates people's delusional sense of order and safety, and their idea that there will always be a government entity to turn to for solutions to whatever may arise. If nothing else, Katrina should have awakened us from that dream.

 

Convergence is now a central part of life in our 21st urban world. We need to get used to.

[pink_trike]

Let's see. You've covered astrophysics' date=' economics, electromechanical engineering as it applies to the nation's power system, environmental issues, geologic trends, cultural studies and... have I missed anything?

 

Is it possible that you're expertise is stretched a bit thin? [/quote']

 

I'm aware that generalism is frowned upon in the scientific world, but surely not here too?

 

I may not write well, I invented devil's advocacy, and my sense humor is dry, twisted, and often undetectable...but my educational background, resume, publication record, work history, and life experiences support my generalist view and interests.

 

Just pedal faster...

[Yggdrasil]

You might find Jared Diamond's book Collapse an interesting read as it addresses the questions in the OP. Basically, in the book, Diamond analyzes the collapse of several technologically advanced societies (the Mayas, Easter Islanders, the Polynesian societies on Pitcarin and Henderson Island, Nordic Greenland) and argues that the reason for their collapse was an overexploitation of natural resources. Sometimes these problems with natural resources are precipitated by external circumstance (e.g. loss of trading partners, wars, or climate change), but ultimately the societies collapsed because they failed to take steps to manage their resources in a sustainable manner.

 

Of course, these issues are very relevant to global society today, and Diamond devotes a significant portion of the book analyzing the sittuation today. So from Diamond's point of view, environmental collapse may be the greatest threat to modern global civilization.

 

I'd also add another threat to the list. While a global flu pandemic seems somewhat unlikely to be such a doomsday scenario, I think some diseases may greatly change the way our society operates. But these diseases aren't the viruses like AIDS and bird flu. I think bacteria may threaten our society. Fifty years ago, medical professionals believed bacterial disease would no longer be a problem because of the advent of antibiotics. However, antibiotic resistance bacteria are becomming increasingly common. While people used to just develop a new antibiotic everytime bacteria become resistant, the bacteria are beginning to win the race. Indeed, there are strains of bacteria which have resistance to all known antibiotics.

 

The proliferation of these bacteria to a large portion of the population would greatly affect modern medicine. Many of our current treatments, including all types of surgery, are dependent on antibiotics in order to be successful. If doctors can no longer use antibiotics because all bacteria are resistant to them, medicine could possibly be reverted back to how it was at the beginning of the 20th century.