How long does the USA have anyway?

i'm just saying there have always been reasons -- good reasons -- to assume "the end is near"

Yeah, I definitely take that point, and sometimes I cringe at myself as I elaborate on very scenarios of collapse, because I know what it looks like. I realize there's a continuum of terrifying predictions of the future running all the way from the Bible to Ragnarök, McCarthyism to the Singularity.

I'd argue that the most important threats that we face right now are different in two key ways. The first is the nature of the problems themselves, and the second is humanity can respond.

1) The thing about our current batch of crises is that they're not so much "threats" as they are systemic processes driven by feedback loops, and in many cases the damage is irreversible. I don't want to go down the well-worn, lonely road to tl;dr so I'll just say that it took millions of years to build up the stock of fossil fuels that we've managed to greatly deplete in about 250 years, post-Industrial Revolution, and the remaining stocks are those with much lower quality and in much harder to reach locations (e.g., 18,000 feet below sea level in the gulf of Mexico) Similarly, an inch of topsoil takes up to 500 years to produce, yet we're depleting it ten times faster than that rate. We're losing species at 1,000-10,000 the pace of "natural rate" of extinction, and of course, those species can't come back.

Even if we miraculously stopped our GHG emissions today, atmospheric GHG concentrations will continue to rise for another 30 years, due to the time lag between actual GHG emissions and their uptake into the atmosphere. And then there are the feedback loops that we are likely very close to activating: the albedo effect (melting ice leads to more sun being absorbed in the land leads to increased rate of warming leads to melting ice leads to...), methane in permafrost (methane is a GHG almost 20 times more potent than CO2, with much of it stored in permafrost. As temperatures increase, the "perma"frost releases more and more methane, which contributes to greater warming, which melts more permafrost, which leads to...). Finally, on climate alone, NOAA's research shows that the worst effects of climate change are irreversible for at least 1000 years.

2) The threats that you mentioned (Great Depression, Nazis, nuclear strikes) were all very tangible, short-term threats. The developing economic/resource/environmental crises certainly will manifest themselves in extremely tangible ways if shit hits the fan, but broadly, they're quite abstract problems (I'm speaking now from the perspective of a U.S. citizen, obviously), an effect that is multiplied by the natural human tendency to discount according to time and distance. Imagine any natural disaster, say a flood. If the flood occurs on your land, in the present, it's a big fucking problem and you respond NOW. If the flood occurs four counties away and doesn't affect you directly, it's still a problem but you're much less likely to respond. Same with a state away, and particularly across the ocean. Similarly, if you know there will be a flood on your land but it won't occur for 10 years, you'll still be alarmed, but not nearly the amount of panic as if it was going to happen tomorrow. If the flood is 1 in a 100 chance over the next century, your alarm bells are relatively quiet.

The trouble with the resource and environmental problems are that they require a WWII-type of massive, coordinated response, but that by the time a galvanizing "Pearl Harbor" type of event occurs, it is likely that it will be too late to mitigate the worst impacts.

I don't want to go down the well-worn, lonely road to tl;

oops
http://i39.tinypic.com/ekl1zl.jpg

Also, typos galore. Especially the second paragraph, which should read "The first is the nature of the problems themselves, and the second is the difficulties that humanity faces in responding."

I guess my pessimism also comes from the thought that the problems I'm worried about aren't isolated problems that play out in one country or continent. When Rome fell (whichever date you want to use), no one in North America noticed. Globalization, for better or worse, has led to a world that is radically different than before. Intuitively, you'd think that globalization would have greatly increased humanity's resilience to crises, in the same way that a rope made up of many individual strands is resilient. But an economic crisis in one country creates shockwaves across the rest of the world. A catastrophically misguided U.S. mandate to increase corn fucking ethanol production causes food riots in Mexico, Indonesia, Haiti and more than a dozen other poor countries. And, of course, nature doesn't really care about political boundaries when it comes to increasing atmospheric concentrations of GHGs.

Intermittent access to ILX.

take away anything else, but if I'm prevented from visiting the one place where anyone understands what "challops" or "RIP D0m" means, then fuck it

ZS relentlessly OTM here

11-25 years, tops.

Z_S is otm, but the power of inertia will carry the carcass forward longer than you might suspect. The various forms of weakness that he identifies are generally delivered as a steady degradation or erosion. Such problems lend themselves to a series of patches and workarounds that leave the system weaker and poorer, but still functioning after a fashion.

Under those sorts of circumstances, governments still have a value, in that the patches and workarounds require a social organization capable of marshalling forces. Despotisms of varying shades of efficiency are a more likely outcome than a sweeping away of social forms.

The coup de grace to the USA as a nation, when it comes, is likely to look like an acute event, against the backdrop of chronic crises. Apart from such a swift fall, the USA could stick around in one form or another for a few centuries more. And if the subsidence is gradual enough, with no massive car crash, it could still have some recognizabnle life in it for as much as 600 or 800 years.

The coup de grace to the USA as a nation, when it comes, is likely to look like an acute event, against the backdrop of chronic crises.

I agree, but I'd add that a unique aspect of our modern chronic crises is that some of them are making acute "disaster" events more likely.

It's another feedback loop.

When you are operating from a platform of 7 billion beings, it's amazing how many you can lose each year and still muddle along to the next year.

If the disasters are on the order of a global population loss of a few million per year (as opposed to the even larger yearly gains we are seeing now), I think the social structures can absorb quite a few consecutive years of that. I'd say annual losses in the range of 50 to 100 million would probably push things into chaos within a relatively short time. Say, five to seven years. (Obv I'm just guessing here.)

I am kind of disturbed by the millenarian underpinnings of this question.

Heh, yeah. It's disturbing to me that a large part of my life has been directed by a negative reaction to my dad's constant evangelical End is Nigh dinnertime rants, and then I too grow up and rant that the End is Nigh, although for (I believe, at least) much more logical reasons.

If you like, we can stipulate the Jewish, Islamic or Chinese calendar. I don't think this thread has its roots in any kind of Christian religious fatalism. It's more a sense that the natural system, upon which the economic system rests, has been degraded to the extent that the economic system, despite its superficial prosperity, has become a house built on shifting sands.

Y'all are high. There's no reasonable way for the US to partition itself in order to collapse in the near future. Our enormous military has no regional fealty and throws individuals from around the country together, preventing units from uniting for one side or group. No states or regions are self-sufficient economically to allow separation.

The only way the US ceases to exist is unprecedented human catastrophe that destroys every bit of economic, military and political unity we have.

The future is a long decline toward parity with the rest of the world and maybe an authoritarian govt replacing democracy.

I am kind of disturbed by the millenarian underpinnings of this question.

thank you

it could still have some recognizabnle life in it for as much as 600 or 800 years.

oh i dunno, how long did uqbar and tlon last for?

Aimless, millenarianism isn't explicitly xtian – it's just END IS NIGH shit of any stripe . And why every group of humans has always thought they were on the edge of it, almost like a sick desire for everything to crash and burn, has always baffled me. Sometimes that apprehension has been right, but mostly it just makes for a lot of undue anxiety.

y'all are forgetting

http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/Independence%20Day.jpg

the world will exist until I die

xposty, with revisions

Within the doomsayers I tend to be among the optimistic ones. I do see plenty of cause for concern that we've grown too fast and built too shoddily and nature will impose a retrenchment on us willy-nilly.

Change is a constant. Progress is not. The END isn't nigh. Everything ends, and anyway no one can tell a start from an end from a middle. We're always in the middle of things.

I believe strongly in the resiliance of life and the utility of intelligence as a survival strategy. Life on earth is undoubtedely undergoing a large-scale extinction event at our hands. Humans may have to pass through a stormy period of economic regression. But the dust will settle and humans will still be around and the earth will be habitable, if less diverse. Culture will reorganize itself. Life will go on. Even in the midst of the shit-in-the-fan, there will be the same ordinary causes for joy and laughter. People are like that.

puff puff post otm, you guys are mainly visions

ok i'm gonna come in as mr. sunshine here

http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news2001/18563/teletubbies-sun.jpg

because i think there is some serious underestimation going on of the value of diversity and a continual replenishing of perspectives and inputs in the u.s. economy and culture. a lot of the concerns in this thread are justified and will have real effects, and i'm not saying (or desiring) that the era of american global dominance is going to continue. but as one major player in what the wonks call a multi-polar world, i think the u.s. will continue to have a lot of advantages. because all of the hoo-ha about an open society and the free flow of ideas and a flexible economy is actually true to some degree. the irony of course is that those strengths are exactly what the nativist dipshits in arizona and elsewhere are trying to constrain. but history says nativist dipshits are fighting a losing battle.

so, i don't know. i think the united states has a good long run ahead of it.

I'm pretty sure that mr. sunshine pic is really not helping whatever words you typed under it

just...just helping you post

i wanted an animated gif with the whole creepy little baby-sun laugh, but my internet skills weren't up to finding one.

I assumed this question was about how much longer the US would be recognized as the premiere superpower in the world. I think this will probably happen in the next 25-50 years, with China/India becoming probably the next superpower dyad. Maybe this will take longer. It will be difficult for a lot of Americans to swallow their pride and realize they aren't actually exceptional and our position in the world is governed more by random chance than innate greatness or destiny.

That or the pine beetles just eat everything in 10 years and the whole world is fucked, as per Z_S's line of thought.

I eagerly anticipate the day my fellow citizens choke on their own humble pie!

I have no idea how india is factoring into this superpower talk

India has a lot of manpower and a lot of resources and is a rising star that is rapidly shedding all of its constraining social structures and what not.

I don't really know shit about much but I was under the impression that the country's basic infrastructure is horrible

the last time I was there I drve for like 5 hrs down a one lane highway with traffic coming both ways

the rule of thumb was you pulled your car over to the side as fast as you could if you thought that the headlights of the car (or semi truck) coming towards you gave you the impression that it was bigger than your vehicle

The USA period of dominance was built on economic strength. It has since shifted the basis of its dominance to a military and financial power, with no real economic gains since the Nixon administration and a real economic regression since the computer industry moved offshore. Our infrastructure is aging fast and being upgraded only piecemeal.

How long we retain sole superpower status will depend on how long before our inherent economic limitations hollow out our military. Our financial power is busily imploding even now. Iraq and Afghanistan are busy showing the world just what our military can and can't do. We can blow up shit and we probably have the best officer corps we've ever had, but we're still struggling with containing these small scale insurrections.

It's important to note prior to Iraq and immediately post-9/11 the US had an outpouring of support from countries around the world, even people now considered by many to be our worst enemies.

i don't see any reason for the country to partition itself, and for all its issues the usa is likely to be the leading military power in the world for some time to come.

as economic growth slows, inequality heightens, and climate/resource issues make an impact, a different form of government seems possible. but i suspect that any future regime would maintain the current name if for no other reason than to seem legitimate. so it'll be quite a while, if not necessarily in quite the same format.

x-post Hmm, maybe the question should be, what was the last developed nation to devolve into chaos, not counting those coming off years of dictatorship (i.e. Hussein/Tito). USA's democracy is its greatest safety net, in that should any real shit go down, we'd likely all vote to take it out on someone else before things got too bad.

Admittedly, the most likely culprit that could affect the country's stability would be a huge natural (or nuclear, I guess) disaster in a major population center, but per the more immediate x-post above, the support the country would get from the rest of the world would help keep things together. People may grumble, but general good will toward America is pretty pervasive.

I have wondered how the current crop of malcontents would weather the assassination of the President, however, or handle the power vacuum that would result. Are the current nutjobs mostly hobbyists who would step down the rhetoric, or would they properly rage and explode? Probably the former.

tipsy is right. as far as our "economic limitations," i'm sure we have plenty -- most advanced countries do. but there have never been guarantees of future economic success. one of the defining characteristics of american economic strength has been our ability to adapt and innovate. i was just reading about this recently (i want to say a friedman article, but i'm not 100% sure -- i'll try to locate and link it). those characteristics aren't going away. indeed, i think that as environmental issues become more pressing, the US is well-positioned to emerge as a leader in the new economy (e.g., smart cars and green technology).

and while a large and expanding population does mean a greater need for jobs that won't likely be from the same sectors as in the past (and may not be from any sector, if the doomsayers are right), but it also indicates a tremendous capacity for work and output in the nation.

finally, while ZS is certainly right about the environmental and resource issues, those are global concerns, not just US concerns. as the world goes, so may go the US, but i didn't understand that to be the gist of the thread topic.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I say another 101-200 years. The election of Barack Obama has shown an increasingly ugly side of America that we need to address before it really gets out of hand.

― micheline, Sunday, May 2, 2010 12:39 PM (1 week ago)

say what huh now?

went w/forever, largely because i agree w/abbott here and that doomsday soothsaying is for people that have too much goddamn time on their hands, go build a table or plant some crops or something

9/11 was an inside job google ron paul

I scanned the thread and only 3 people mentioned climate change/global warming/environmental issues which should be the #1 cause of world disasters and USA's eventual poverty. There's always potential for WWIII but that is more likely to happen after severe damages from climate change and extreme lack of water in particular; and WWIII or large scale terrorist attacks wouldn't take out all of USA.

I'm going with 'America Will Never Die' because the answer is definitely > 200 years

xp 9/11 was an inside job is still a valid theory in my book

would love to read that book, frankly

http://373virtualpta.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/the_lorax1.jpg

I voted "will never die"

Although the North American Union might happen too. Who knows

I definitely sympathize with those who repulsed by the doomsayers, because it's uncomfortable to think about, although I do think that the worst response to clear threats is to plug your ears and pretend it's not happening.

But I don't understand how anyone would ever put "will never die". How many civilizations make it even 500 years without being ruined at least once or twice?

lorax, who did 9/11?

Personally, I believe it was Zorgon the lake god

lorax, who did 9/11?
― iatee

whoever wanted to? my reasoning for it maybe being an inside job has more to do with the weird physics of how the second building fell down

not that I paid much attention to this, but was it ever ruled out that the plane that hit the pentagon was shot down?

maybe the conspiracy theory is that the guberment knew about the attacks and did nothing [/off topic]

http://coreofcorruption.net/images/Tshirt_black.jpg

otm

We're untouchable thanks to the F-35 Joint Task Tactical Advanced Strike Fighter

xp that sounds folksy and good but doesn't make sense

ill put it another way

all the riots and murders happening in the us right now, all of which have increased, will only occupy a small part in the history of the us as a superpower

as the us becomes more average, ie as its influence on the world diminishes, it may stabilize into an average developed western country

one way to measure this i think is to see how well the us performs in areas such as education and middle class wages, where it is already comparable to other western countries, ie not number one anymore

turmoil doesnt last long

straight/flat lines appear stable but are usually lower than where you were before

― F♯ A♯ (∞)

is this one of those "moral arc of the universe" things?

haha newp

us collapse will follow environmental collapse. i think it's likely we see significant political splintering / new borders in the next 50 years.

as an empire it's probably already over but as a world power / civilizational force i see no reason why it can't continue in one form or another for a long time to come. plenty of resources, decent institutions, separated by two oceans from much of the turbulent world.

imo environmental collapse is most likely to occur as a kind of slow sagging over the decades. it will place enormous pressures on existing social and political structures, but the price of social disintegration is usually higher than the cost of the sacrifices required to keep limping along and patching things together.

of course, if the collapse of environmental viability is sudden and catastrophic, ripping vast holes in the social fabric over a period of a decade or so, then all bets are off and it's a free-for-all. that seems unlikely to me atm compared to the slow-motion series of emergencies without a single crescendo.

yeah there probably won't be an implosion just gradual decay but i think the big distribution networks that connect us will start to see a lot of pressure, steady accumulation of failures and cynicism will have a traumatic psychological effect in large enough numbers that we'll get some localized principalities that break away with renewed political energy, feeding on an appetite for violence and fundamentalism. the country is isolated from the rest of the world but it's also huge, already very disconnected internally, i think there's a possibility we see it unravel itself.

I think it's mostly from other countries catching up and the US stagnating. The US hasn't had significant infrastructure upgrades since the 50s. Its creaking constitution (and an undereducated voting populace) has prevented the legislative branch from doing as much as it needs to do.

End of the US timelines seem approximately analog to the Big One earthquake/asteroid timelines. It's happened before and will happen again, but it does not stick to a schedule.

not long, hope to be dead

I hope to die not before Criterion keeps reissuing Renoir films.

what floor is yr condo on?

sea rise level

Miami: Future Venice of Florida.

crosspost to us foreign policy thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDzyFBcYgN8

That video addresses US global hegemony but not the maintenance of its internal integrity. It should seem pretty clear by now that the series of military and foreign policy failures since 2002, topped by the election of a bloviating incompetent, have badly eroded US hegemony, so the video is essentially correct in its analysis.

We've obviously lost far more global prestige and power than can be repaired by the sort of marginal political change that Obama was able to promote after 2010 saw Congress change hands, and Obama was close to a best case scenario in the absence of profound political realignment in the USA. But the USA can survive quite a long time w/o global hegemony.