Closing The Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared than the US (2006)

71 点作者 krutulis大约 5 年前

14 条评论

hash872大约 5 年前

I dunno, seems a little overly dramatic. Previous world powers didn't collapse, they just faded- Britain, Spain, Portugal, etc. This seems much more likely, especially as budget issues prevent the US from deploying the same overwhelming military power all over the globe. America already spends more of its federal budget on entitlements than the military, contrary to what progressives will tell you- when push comes to shove, we'll always fund Social Security over another aircraft carrier or 30,000 troops in South Korea. So, a slow fadeout seems way, way more likely. Plus, declining birth rates & declining business dynamism.The states that actually collapse are the more rigid, authoritarian ones like the USSR or the Ottoman Empire. Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders.No offense but I have to roll my eyes a bit at these disaster fetishists. Orlov is apparently a foreign-born one, but we have tens of thousands of domestic ones here in the states, this is a very old belief system. (Hell, my parents were back to the land hippies fleeing Nixon & the imminent nuclear apocalypse!)

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Hokusai大约 5 年前

Without agreeing with many points, the main thesis is true but just for one point: XXI century economies are less resilient to isolation than in previous centuries.We live in a more complex society and countries need each other more than before. Communication is cheap, transport is cheap so it makes sense to rely on other for your own need.So, this lack of preparedness is true for USA, but also for many countries in Europe, and Asia. The more complex the society the more fragile it is to disruption.Is it solvable? Yes. Local renewable energy is a good example of reduction on distribution complexity. There is more knowledge involved, but there is less countries participant in the complexity.To stop believing in politics seems worse advice ever, thou. It seems more a receipt for collapse than a solution to be more resilient.> "Took 10 years to recover"Has Russia recovered? That also needs more probe. To be better that you were 10 years ago is not synonym of being recovered. Russia is just less chaotic, maybe.

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dnprock大约 5 年前

The US is a federation of states. It has already fallen apart in some ways in this crisis. Power and decision making are shifting to local states. I think the trend will intensify. The biggest threat to the US is probably secession. That has not happened since the Civil War. Since then, it has become even more unified. It's hard to see how states can leave the Union now. Being able to shift power between local and federal is a strength of the US political system. At international level, the US alliance may fade away.I guess China would fall apart next. It's a country that's stitched together by force and propaganda. It doesn't seem to have the ability to shift its internal borders. So its collapse would be more dramatic than the US.

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jrumbut大约 5 年前

It's so funny how widespread those beliefs about oil were. I would have guessed that by now we would be paying $300/bbl and everyone would know that the end of oil was near.It's hard to predict the future!

vasilipupkin大约 5 年前

yeah, except it's nonsense, Soviet Union was completely unprepared for collapse. It couldn't even survive Chernobyl.

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ltbarcly3大约 5 年前

"This too will pass" -Captain ObviousThe US will eventually suffer a collapse, that seems like a safe bet. Then it will probably recover, become dominant again (at least somewhat), and collapse again. If we look at Rome, that cycle could continue for 500 years or more.Wondering who is 'prepared' for a collapse is a weird way to think about it. If you are capable of taking steps to prepare for a collapse -- you wouldn't suffer a collapse.

huffmsa大约 5 年前

The US at the federal level, maybe.But it'll likely just fracture into smaller regional Nations made up of the states.Worst case, it's 50 separate nations.Especially now that we'll likely see a shift back towards state level autonomy, with the federal government's bungling of the SARS2 pandemic.The US is decentralized to begin with, the USSR was not. Decentralized systems fare better in collapse situations.

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bobmcbobface大约 5 年前

This idea of US collapse, as framed seems deeply silly, for a number of reasons.1. This isn't really the US we are talking about, its the Western economic system2. Things 'collapse' in different ways. A slow collapse looks more like a transition. Most things don't collapse anywhere near as quickly as the USSR for obvious reasons.

TomMckenny大约 5 年前

Another perhaps core issue is whether the party in power gets there by majority will or is there due to legalisms, archaic power distribution and voter suppression. The party that people didn't vote for is not likely to run anything in their interest.

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yters大约 5 年前

I wonder if the different economic system had anything to do with USSR's collapse? And perhaps US collapse becomes more likely as we change economic systems?For example, communists killed and imprisoned all the kulaks (land owning farming class) to create their collective farms. Shortly thereafter the USSR was hit with devastating famine. Similar series of events happened in China under Mao. Coincidence or causation? If the latter, is this indicative of the nature of the USSR economy and perhaps provides insight into why it collapsed?

unnouinceput大约 5 年前

I have a saying in my country, it translates roughly like this:"Horsed don't die when dogs want/wish".Original is "Nu mor caii cand vor cainii"

cpr大约 5 年前

Orlov is a very interesting character who's written a lot about societal collapse, having lived through the Soviet version. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Orlov_(writer)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Orlov_(writer)</a>)I've read some of his books (The Five Stages of Collapse, e.g.) and there's a lot of food for thought.He's now spending his time designing and building "unsinkable" houseboats.His thinkpieces, which in the past were quite worthwhile, are now behind a paywall at

knolax大约 5 年前

The entire thing seems tongue in cheek to me. Not sure if it had any serious message.

sacks2k大约 5 年前

When human life is meaningless and you don't have to make decisions around a pesky constitution and citizen rights, it's really easy to be prepared for anything.

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