How long until the collapse?

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The decline probably peaks in the next 70 years, 120 at most. It took almost 300 years for the collapse of the Western Empire to reach its lowest. We'll probably crash harder and faster than they did (the bigger they are and all that) but I don't think it will be as spectacularly fast as people here think.
Oh it'll be a lot faster than that. Difference between us and Rome is the rate of change. Roman society evolved and changed much slower than modern society. We successfully wrecked the majority of the population on a neurological level in less than a decade. Rome never achieved anything like that. As for what this future consists of. Well this is something I've been thinking about for about a year now. It's certainly not a Communist Utopia, I can tell you that much. I think what you're going to see is a collapse of industrial production as resources are quickly depleted. AI as a technology will fail to deliver its' various promises and will be rejected (at least by those who aren't completely subservient to tech). You can expect to see a massive religious/spiritual revival in the near future which will be a driver of this new system. This new system will likely consist of various intentional communities that will turn into more self contained economic units which will form into trading networks with each other. Not too dissimilar from the dark ages. Things like housing, food, and certain other necessities will likely be given to you by these communities, so there are some upsides. Although I imagine the quality will depend on what group you belong to. Globalisation will be reversed and everyone will experience a poorer, but more satisfying life. As for when this happens? I'm going to say that we're nearing the end of the beginning stage of the death of Capitalist society. The mid phase will begin within the decade and it will be when you start to see these break away societies beginning to thrive.
 

s0ren

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Oh it'll be a lot faster than that. Difference between us and Rome is the rate of change. Roman society evolved and changed much slower than modern society. We successfully wrecked the majority of the population on a neurological level in less than a decade. Rome never achieved anything like that.
That's not the point. Even if the central authority loses legitimacy and power over time, we're not going to wake up one day and have the American government or other western liberal democracies suddenly cease operations -- baring any major events like a solar flare or a nuclear war. Collapse is typically a slow burn, read the articles I linked about collapse in Sri Lanka. People have the incentive to keep civil society together for a while, even when its not fully functioning. The collapse of western libereal democracies will look like the continue decaying of public institutions, non-compliance with laws like shoplifting, and so forth but continuously getting worse over the long run. Presumably these problems as they exist now will be temporarily tackled, some strongman will make incremental improvements or freeze decay for a short while, but the chart will consistently go down over the long-run. Reaching rock bottom won't happen overnight, fracturing will occur before then even.
 
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TRXTR

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No collapse. Slow second worldization of everything. Depression, mental illness and softcore poverty. Some new types of people that can resist the decline and have good lives in spite of it all will appear.

2072 will make 2022 look like 1972. No real collapse, just a second world country and a depressing one instead of a fun one. Pollution, health problems and all that. Lots of fit and happy people will still exist in many places, but there will be sick looking people everywhere. Welfare will be necessary to prevent war, as there won't be enough jobs. Lots of people that can still find a job in the future will have servants. People will consider it good to have a servant for the sake of providing the poor with low-end jobs, like it is in poor countries. People will do stuff like make cabinets or clothes for money as well as do online work. Part time work plus welfare. Many people will take advantage of the free time and have lots of fun, most will just get depressed.

The best thing about the future might be that people no longer starve to death in almost any country. Starvation-level poverty will disappear as civilization continues to advance and spread in some ways.

No idea what 150 years is but that is what 50 years from now will be if things keep going in this direction.

This sounds very likely, and the real "soymeat and fauxtatoes" of what a real cyberpunk world would consist of: high tech and low life, a degraded and tired society of which the latent infrastructure might even be left to crumble down and be replaced by the hardiest of the remaining plant life, the rise and spider-webbing growth of megacity sprawls and their indentured corpo-inmates and the lest-seen shadowrunners juxtaposed against the garden-techie homesteading off-gridders and mad-max larping offroaders who refuse to bow to the urbanite lifestyle requirements living outside the city walls in the outskirts of decaying boomer-towns of the flyover states, now rife with go-gangs, designer drugs and abandoned train tunnel concerts (bumfights rescheduled to Tuesdays), along with rumors of bands of werewolf hunting rednecks, among other paranormal paraphernalia.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8

Sometimes I think of this slow collapse as almost a "letting go" of all that we don't need to live good and decent lives, aided by a sort of pre-apocalyptic stop-sign mentality and the cultivation of a natural common sense, unburdening our global supply chain and our global energy needs. This reminds me of the world talked about in the manga/anime Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. This could be what one of our planet's "happy ending" timelines might be like, for the near and far-reaching futures within us all.
yokohama kaidashi kikou.jpg
 
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ch4zzyklon

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It depends on what we may call as a collapse. If by collapse we are talking about societal collapse, then in my opinion we are in a slow decline since at least 30 years ago and it doesn't show any sign of stopping. We are going to become more used to seeing commodities dissapear one by one, and racial and class conflicts will become more and more common. The only way to truly restart our whole society is if we have a drastic event that affects the world and throws us back to ancient times in terms of technological advance, like a solar flare that fries most electronics. People will turn against each other and it will be a blood bath, but from all the bloodshed we can rebuild better, remembering the mistakes of the past. Until then, we will be trapped on this ride were everything will become even harder for the average person, and pharmaceutical prescriptions will be the norm even in the younger generations. We will see in a generation or two the true consequences of globalization and the internet on life, for better or worse.
 
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In 1 year, 2 months, 3 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes and 9 seconds
 
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wazp

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daily reminder that if societal collapse seems too far away for our own good you can always make it happen by a c c c e l e r a t i n g
 
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Andy Kaufman

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I don't think it will come. So far humanity has been "failing forwards". Empires "collapsed" before but the requirements for a collapse changed with globalisation. A country might collapse and the ripple might be felt around the world depending on which country it was but the rest of the world will still be standing, albeit going through some tough times.
Chances that everything everywhere collapses and we get Mad Max tier apocalypse are slim in my eyes. I think every generation thinks themselves to be the protagonists of history. "Surely in MY lifetime world changing (or ending?) events must happen!" but statistically speaking, nothing really special happens in most generations. Maybe it's this pre-WWI mood. Everyone is sick of the peace and wants something to happen really bad.
 
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punishedgnome

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My corner of the world has gone through catastrophic economic collapse multiple times, once in my lifetime. When I was 8-years-old the unemployment rate ballooned to over 20% and around 20% of the population left. When my grandfather was in his 20s, the government went bankrupt and voted itself out of existence. You'll be fine as long as there's not an environmental disaster that kills all the plants and animals like a nuclear war or something. Just don't live in a densely populated area.
 
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ev13wt

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It will always save itself in the very last minute.
It's what humans do.
Netflix and fuck until we REALLY have to get off the couch.
 
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