That writer is a kind of a jerk (more in the replies than in the original post). "I know, you don't, I'm smarter than you, you have to prove that you follow what I'm talking about (and I'm talking as obscurely as I can) before you're worthy of me having a real conversation with you." Yeah, spare me; you aren't so amazingly, uniquely insightful that it's worth it for me to jump through your hoops.<p>That said, there's an interesting question in there. If our society were starting into a technological collapse, what would it look like? And how would it look different than what our current world looks like?<p>I'm not sure I buy that this is what's happening. But looking around, I see enough that might be evidence that I can't rule it out...
Decline (99 times out of a hundred) is so slow and steady that the only way to discover that it's happening is to compare things NOW with things THEN.<p>So:
Can a single-earner family today buy a house, a car, and send their kids through a good education system?<p>Is the US still capable of launching men into space, let alone sending several at a time to the Moon and back safely?<p>Can a normal wage-earner still afford several weeks of hospital care?<p>50 years ago, we would be answering 'Yes' to all three of these questions.