Nasa-funded study: industrial civilization headed for 'irreversible collapse'

[The Brain]

You're so hasty.

"You so hasty!"

[Habbaku]

I use an ointment for that.

[Queequeg]

Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.

Elements typically don't disappear.

Well then wouldn't a lot of the salvage be steel or some other allow that could not be used with relatively crude metallurgic techniques? 

[The Brain]

Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.

Elements typically don't disappear.

Well then wouldn't a lot of the salvage be steel or some other allow that could not be used with relatively crude metallurgic techniques?

I don't see a significant problem.

[Eddie Teach]

I think it's easier to simply say that the Soviet Union, as political, social and economic entity collapsed.

Yet politics, society and economic activity still exist in the region. The Soviet Union as an entity is not equivalent to Russian civilization, which hasn't collapsed.

[Siege]

DOOM!!!

A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

So, is this how a commie conspiracy theory looks like?
I raise you the blaze:



What Two Words Do Those 'Seeking to Increase Tyranny and Totalitarianism' Tend to Use?

Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians said Thursday that there are two words often used by those "seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism."

Speaking with guest host Stu Burguiere on the Glenn Beck Program, Lapin explained: "For those seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism, fairness and equality is a great thing to work people up about, because you essentially get a population — particularly a docile population — to agree to almost anything in the name of equality and fairness."


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/20/what-two-words-do-those-seeking-to-increase-tyranny-and-totalitarianism-tend-to-use/

[Razgovory]

I think it's easier to simply say that the Soviet Union, as political, social and economic entity collapsed.

Yet politics, society and economic activity still exist in the region. The Soviet Union as an entity is not equivalent to Russian civilization, which hasn't collapsed.

I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace.  Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either.  When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated.  There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.

[Razgovory]

What Two Words Do Those 'Seeking to Increase Tyranny and Totalitarianism' Tend to Use?

Freedom and Liberty.

[Valmy]

Speaking with guest host Stu Burguiere on the Glenn Beck Program, Lapin explained: "For those seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism, fairness and equality is a great thing to work people up about, because you essentially get a population — particularly a docile population — to agree to almost anything in the name of equality and fairness."

That is sort of a platitude, you can get a population to agree to all sorts of things in the name of lots of things.  I would have thought security, fear of foreign danger is good tool.

Of course we are talking about the Glenn Beck program and the guy is pretty insane and not particularly bright.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace.  Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either.  When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated.  There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.

I think the fall of Rome* was actually worse on the provinces than Italy. Italy was retaken by Byzantium, Britain and France remained "barbarian" until the barbarians civilized themselves. Point is, there was an actual fall and it took centuries to recover. Russia in the 90s is not at all comparable, in many if not most ways it improved. Governments collapse all the time, but they rarely take society with them.

*locally, not the actual fall in Rome.

[Josquius]

On the one hand NASA would say this wouldn't they.
On the other we are on a bit of a countdown timer to get off Earth. We only have one shot.

[Agelastus]

I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace.  Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either.  When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated.  There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.

I think the fall of Rome* was actually worse on the provinces than Italy. Italy was retaken by Byzantium, Britain and France remained "barbarian" until the barbarians civilized themselves. Point is, there was an actual fall and it took centuries to recover. Russia in the 90s is not at all comparable, in many if not most ways it improved. Governments collapse all the time, but they rarely take society with them.

*locally, not the actual fall in Rome.

Italy's re-conquest by Byzantium (the Eastern Empire) was its fall; the region was devastated by twenty years of back-and-forth warfare and left open to the Lombards by the end.

[The Minsky Moment]

There is some evidence of population decline in the Late Empire, and it seems clear that by the 600s, populations are a lot lower than they were during the imperial period.  But exactly why, how and when that decline occurs is tricky to entangle and a simple connection to late 5th century regime change isn't so clear.  As for literacy, it does decline but from a rather low base.  Very few people were literate in Roman Gaul, Britain and Spain to begin with.

One clear impact is on long-distance trade - the mass requisitions of grain from Africa cease as does the mass production and export of pottery.
Trade does continue but more focused on portable, high value goods: precious metals, amber, furs, slaves.

[mongers]

Judging by this forum, YES. 

[Eddie Teach]

Judging by this forum, YES. 

Civilization as a whole includes sufficient females to allow replenishment.