
Why We’re Underestimating American Collapse - shrumm
https://eand.co/why-were-underestimating-american-collapse-be04d9e55235
======
Animats
The school shooting thing is strange. Here's a summary of school-related
shootings so far in 2018.[1] The most common event is bullets fired at a
school or school bus without any clear target. Five of those. One suicide by a
non-student near a closed school. One case of bad gun handling during gun
training. Two students shooting other students. One frat party shooting.

This thing of just randomly shooting at schools is new. Even in states with a
lot of guns.

[1] [https://thinkprogress.org/school-
shootings-2018-e139b247474e...](https://thinkprogress.org/school-
shootings-2018-e139b247474e/)

~~~
devnonymous
Hah, I guess this is what is called normalisation. Gawd,in both, where I come
from (a ^developing^ country) and where I live (a European ^first world^
country), a gun at a school (let alone a shooting) would qualify for national
news.

------
to_bpr
Given the increase in fractured heterogeneity and the fall of Christianity in
the USA, or at least adherence to its teaching and participation (i.e. census
stats disregarded), it's not hard to see how people feel socially isolated and
free of any debt to any form of "community".

Coupled with a media (traditional tv, print, modern online) whose purpose
seems to be purely to exacerbate divisions and perceived social tensions;
giving voice to only the most radical on any spectrum on any issue all in the
name of getting clicks to sell ads to; it's again not hard to see how groups
are drastically losing empathy and support for one another.

America has become a model of how not to approach the goal of creating and
supporting a healthy society. One would hope that lessons would be learned
from it, but it seems that Western Europe is gung-ho to follow almost every
footstep.

As people in tech, there should be no doubt of the contribution we've made, or
leadership provided, to the above.

~~~
ben_w
> the fall of Christianity in the USA, or at least adherence to its teaching
> and participation (i.e. census stats disregarded)

Two questions:

1) How are you measuring that if not via the census?

2) Given the Wikipedia list of “Importance of religion by country” places the
USA nowhere near the top or bottom of the list, and that nations which are
less religious than the USA include socially aware and stable nations such as
Canada, Switzerland, Germany, and all of the Scandinavian nations, why would
declining religiosity be a cause or effect of national collapse?

------
jonbarker
I am increasingly hearing that the US is in a state of impending collapse from
a variety of sources, and I always ask, well if it is, how much time do we
have? In the absence of any method for accurate forecasting, I defer to J.
Richard Gott
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Richard_Gott](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Richard_Gott).
According to his method, which he used successfully to predict when the Berlin
Wall would come down, the US probably has about 800 years left, based on a 75%
chance it has lived about a quarter of its life.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
You aren't applying that method correctly.

The method is just making the assumption that you are observing a entity at a
point in its lifetime that is randomly distributed with a uniform
distribution. So there is a 75% chance that you are in the middle 75% of its
lifetime (i.e. somewhere from 12.5% to 87.5% through its lifetime) and there
is a 95% chance that you are in the middle 95% (somewhere from 2.5% to 97.5%
through the lifetime).

The US is currently 242 years old, so the 75% confidence interval for its
total lifespan is 276-1,936 years for an expected end date of 2052-3712. The
95% confidence interval end dates are 2024-11,456.

Applying it in reverse, the chance of it collapsing within my expected
lifetime is 18%. That's not exactly comforting.

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wrongc0ntinent
Anyone writing opioid epidemics only happen in the US is either poorly
informed or is intellectually dishonest. I assume the second here, since this
reads like contemporary agitprop.

~~~
fulafel
This WaPo article[1] has references to UN data sources and says: "United
Nations data provide one important benchmark against which to judge how much
more or less opioid consumption might be appropriate for a given country. And
what it finds about the United States is jaw-dropping: Even when the list is
restricted to the top 25 heaviest consuming countries, the United States
outpaces them all in opioid use."

So it's within reason for the article to say "[US] people abuse opioids en
masse unlike anywhere else in the world"

[1]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/15/ameri...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/15/americans-
use-far-more-opioids-than-anyone-else-in-the-world/?utm_term=.d9785f5d743e)

~~~
peoplewindow
It's some quirk of how the US handles painkiller prescriptions right? Or
something like that. Most opioid addicts in the USA got addicted via their
doctor's prescriptions, if I recall correctly.

I found the article to be interesting but the weakest part by far was where he
mentioned declining life expectancy as to do with the lack of public health
care, and thus unique the USA _except for the UK_. But wait, the UK has an
entirely nationalised healthcare system, it's the literal opposite of the USA.
So if the UK is seeing the same thing, that suggests it can't be due to the
funding mechanism used. It's more likely that we've hit some sort of life
expectancy peak in the most highly developed western nations and if the UK and
USA go first, it's very likely that other countries aren't far behind.

~~~
mcphage
> It's more likely that we've hit some sort of life expectancy peak in the
> most highly developed western nations and if the UK and USA go first, it's
> very likely that other countries aren't far behind.

Except that the US hasn't reached the peak—life expectancy in other nations is
up to 5-10 years higher (depending on gender).

~~~
peoplewindow
Yeah, but wasn't the highest in Cuba or something like that? There are clearly
other tradeoffs involved - probably diet related. If you can eat what you want
because you're a rich country, the exact way the health system is run is
probably not that big of a deal in comparison.

------
leoc
Be wary of anything that seems to suggest that social _pathology_ or social
_evil_ must lead, or must even tend to lead, to social _collapse_.
Civilisation can roll from strength to strength, serene and happy and proud in
itself, while (sometimes even _because_ ) the marginal, unloved, non-compliant
or just unlucky are crushed pitilessly and unceasingly beneath its wheels. In
fact that's the normal state of affairs. Providing examples from US history is
left as an exercise for the reader: and that's not to suggest that the US is
very much, or perhaps even at all, exceptional in its historical level of
social brutality.

------
jv22222
This article is so full of fear mongering language, yet it makes some salient
points. I wish the same article existed that was stripped of the hyperbole.

Example:

> what I mean by “social pathologies of collapse”: a new, bizarre, terrible
> disease striking society.

~~~
ajb
I don't think such an article would have the same meaning. The whole point of
the article is that this is something you (Americans) should take seriously as
an existential threat.

~~~
jv22222
Motivating people with fear is as old as the bible, so I guess it's par for
the course.

~~~
mcphage
Older, even. "Hey Gorbb! There's a sabre-toothed tiger coming up behind you,
you'd better start running!"

------
lafar6502
At the moment people would rather collapse with America than prosper somewhere
else

~~~
cheschire
People would rather HODL their investments in retirement, networking, and
social constructs than uproot and jump into the deep end of another nation
which presumably has its own pitfalls just waiting to trap naive gaijin.

~~~
devnonymous
Here's your big reveal, the choice between uprooting oneself from where you've
lived all your life versus sticking it out in the hope that things would get
better existed through _all_ generations, including your grandparents and
mine... Irrespective of where they were. The US simply had one extra
generation of a buffer where Americans didn't have to really think hard and
long about these matters... But trust me, the risk assessment you allude to,
that was real and hard for every immigrant, irrespective of the country of
origin.

------
zbentley
The article's format and tone remind me of a US high-school speech and debate
"radio" speech: [http://www.msdlonline.org/radio-
broadcasting.html](http://www.msdlonline.org/radio-broadcasting.html). Not
good or bad per se, just a familiar style.

------
ldiracdelta
"Why we're writting click-bait article titles that assume an extreme minority-
held premise."

------
splintercell
TL;DR: America is failing as a state because it is not a good European welfare
state. School shootings, lack of public investment, lack of nationalized
healthcare, opioid crises, income inequality, extreme capitalism, oligarchy.
We need more Europe, less America in order to save America.

EDIT: Here [1] is more by the author on how making America more like Europe is
the key to solving all of America's problems.

1\. [https://eand.co/the-american-dream-is-over-this-is-the-
age-o...](https://eand.co/the-american-dream-is-over-this-is-the-age-of-the-
european-dream-71c668bef945)

~~~
ken
I didn't get that at all. The author doesn't mention Europe in this article,
except for noting that the UK in the only other country with a declining life
expectancy.

Asia and Africa are mentioned, a couple times, as examples of places that
don't suffer from the same problems as America.

~~~
splintercell
You must be new to the author, but check out his other articles, nearly every
article is written the same way. And plenty of them mention Europe.

------
solarkraft
I don't like that this is a semi-paywalled article.

------
shillno1138
I do not ever comment, but this article is rife with misconceptions. A
specific example would be:

* How did America’s elderly end up cheated of dignity? After all, even desperately poor countries have “informal social support systems” — otherwise known as families and communities. But in America, there is the catastrophic collapse of social bonds. Extreme capitalism has blown apart American society so totally that people cannot even care for one another as much as they do in places like Pakistan and Nigeria.*

Any honest examination of the destruction of the social family unit easily
shows that this was not due to capitalism, but progressive and socialist
legislation that encouraged disintegration of the family units.

Three of the largest 'capitalism endorsed' holidays in the USA are Christmas,
Thanksgiving, and Easter (though Easter in the last few decades has decreased
significantly in its importance and stature).

If anything, capitalism's endorsement of these holidays brings families CLOSER
together, than they normally exist during the rest of the year. Left policies
and statements about 'patriarchal structures' and why they need to be
disassembled have contributed far more to family unit disintegration than
capitalism.

Edit: Not to belabor the point either, but referencing Pakistan and Nigeria in
this quote shows the authors bias. Both of these countries are great examples
where patriarchy is absolutely thriving, strong familial bonds, led by men in
those nations, with a subjugated women class.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Any honest examination of the destruction of the social family unit easily
shows that this was not due to capitalism, but progressive and socialist
legislation that encouraged disintegration of the family units._

Can you give concrete examples of legislation that "encouraged disintegration
of the family units"?

 _> If anything, capitalism's endorsement of these holidays brings families
CLOSER together, than they normally exist during the rest of the year_

How so? Would Christmas have faded in significance if it weren't "endorsed" by
capitalism"?

 _> Left policies and statements about 'patriarchal structures' and why they
need to be disassembled have contributed far more to family unit
disintegration than capitalism._

The canonical American nuclear family unit doesn't even include multi-
generational housing.

~~~
shillno1138
>Can you give concrete examples of legislation that "encouraged disintegration
of the family units"?

Absolutely. I am not going to link to any analysis right now, but take a look
at the requirements placed on familiy units for welfare consumption, WIC, etc.
In order to obtain the optimal amount of benefit, the family unit must already
be in a disintegrated state, eg non-married, non-cohabitating, with offspring
present. This encourages an anti-marriage, anti-stable family pattern.

>The canonical American nuclear family unit doesn't even include multi-
generational housing.

This is where you will need to link me to concrete proof of anything having to
do with the 'canonical American nuclear family'. This appears to be a
statement that is clearly subjective from family to family.

~~~
lou1306
> This encourages an anti-marriage, anti-stable family pattern.

Welfare state is _not_ "let's financially encourage the disintegration of
families". It's "let's help individuals that suffer from the lack of a family
support system".

People on unemployment benefits still look for a job, because they value their
dignity over money. Similarly, most people want to be loved and cared, and
wouldn't destroy their own family over a (meager, by the way) monetary gain.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Welfare state is not "let's financially encourage the disintegration of
families". It's "let's help individuals that suffer from the lack of a family
support system"._

In policy, outcomes are at least as important as intentions. The question is
whether welfare has this effect, not whether the original/current proponents
of welfare _intend_ for this effect.

There's the kernel of a reasonable idea here [1]. Unfortunately for your
parent post, even the studies most favorable to this conclusion find only a
modest effect and cite factors like relationship quality and access to decent
paying jobs as much better predictors of marriage success.

 _> People on unemployment benefits still look for a job, because they value
their dignity over money._

Even the studies that are used to justify your parent post's viewpoint
ultimately conclude that this is true for the vast majority of people.
Interestingly, those studies also find that the _poorer_ you are, the _less_
likely you are to consider loss of welfare benefits when making a decision
about marriage.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_trap)

------
anthonyleecook
Let's use some bigger, current metrics to measure whether or not US is
collapse or not, instead of some random stats about shooting, or observations
about US collapse.

1.) US GDP is 19.73 trillion in 4th quarter 2017, best in the world.
[https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-gdp-5-latest-statistics-
and-h...](https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-gdp-5-latest-statistics-and-how-to-
use-them-3306041) second best is EU, at 17.1 trillion.

2.) US GDP per capita is $57,000, pretty impressive considering it has a
population of 330+ million people and growing. compare that with $8000 for
China.

3.) US ranked 3rd in GDP per hours worked, pretty productive for such a big
nation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_hour_worked)

4.) Dollar is still the hegemony

5.) US military is the biggest in the world, and has the most combat
experiences. It has provoked many wars over the years, some good (toppling
dictators, preventing communisms from spreading, advocating democracies), as
well as some bad (instilling instabilities in regions)

6.) US innovation is everywhere, in tech (internet, hardware, software),
finance, entertainment (games, tv, movies, music), lifestyle, education,
services, etc

7.) there's a bigger upper middle class than ever, lower middle class has
shrank . [http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/21/news/economy/upper-middle-
cl...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/21/news/economy/upper-middle-
class/index.html)

8.) With tariffs punishing China, Apple/Amazon investments of billions into
american cities, and fines levied on China for unfair tech transfers, US will
revive manufacturing and economies in middle America

~~~
throwawayjava
America is the most powerful and impressive developed country in the world,
attached to a vast and profoundly depressing failed developed state.

C.f. SF Bay and rural Oklahoma.

