How close are we to the collapse of the Western world according to you?

[Kasierith]

@Kasierith

Do you consider Russia to be a part of the Western civilization?

No. The philosophy dictating Russian society and how individuals interact with the governing body are dramatically different. I'm a firm believer of the theory of the sun king, best translated, that argues that Russian society due to being separated from Europe due to Mongols and similar overlords never underwent feudalism and thus never underwent similar transitions of power from absolute monarchies to more diversified power bases, meaning that for hundreds of years Russian society has been distinctly top heavy. The relation of regular people has always been more pragmatic and subserviet; as long as the sun king keeps society stable and running. They are directed less by enlightenment values of individualism and free enterprise, and more by path of least resistance.

[Trassk]

The eradication of the western world, I would have originally said given another 15 years we'd see European countries destroyed.

But the yellow jackets gave me hope, so might not happen.

[valax]

The Western world is suffering from many issues in recent years of which some have been brewing for decades and others have recently become bigger.

To name a few issues that seem to contribute to the collapse:
- Further Political polarization;
- Only extremes matter in politics;
- The political"fallout" after the Trump era;
- The increasing resentment towards the EU in many member states;
- Rapidly rising financial inequality;
- Housing problems;
- A big economical crash looming on the horizon (the "big one";
- Cheap labour- and the lack of worker rights in non-Western countries;
- Increasing unemployment numbers, further automation and robotization;
- Lack of common values or goals in our society;
- The decline of the traditional family;
- The absence of traditional norms and morals;
- The increasing "men vs women" views;
- Rise of mental health problems amongst young people (for different reasons);
- Ageing population, eventually too few people have to pay for the elderly (pensions/healthcare);
- Healthcare in general is getting more and more expensive;
- Mass immigration from undeveloped countries;
- A possible military conflict with Russia in Europe;
- A possible military conflict between the US and China;
- Etc. etc.

For me it's not a question of "if", but one of "when" we will see the unavoidable collapse of the Western world.

So when will we see it collapse? What do you think? Or do you think it's not going to happen at all?

Depends on globalism IMO. Funneling wealth into the hands of the elected few will increasingly make countries miserable as a whole , economic nationalism is the only way i can see wester countries flourishing again . My country , Italy has continuously gone downhill economically ever since we joined the Euro but now pulling out would be a disaster as the damage has been done and our economy has devaluated A LOT.
A strong union < strong independent countries , when the governments have to respond to even higher powers what chance does the citizien have to make an actual change? 0 .
You'll see thing get worse and worse for factories operational freedom because of environmental problems , yet in the asian portion of our planet they keep polluting and producing more than ever , we get taxed and ruled while they get richer and damage the atmosphere without regards.

[Deleted]

No. The philosophy dictating Russian society and how individuals interact with the governing body are dramatically different. I'm a firm believer of the theory of the sun king, best translated, that argues that Russian society due to being separated from Europe due to Mongols and similar overlords never underwent feudalism and thus never underwent similar transitions of power from absolute monarchies to more diversified power bases, meaning that for hundreds of years Russian society has been distinctly top heavy. The relation of regular people has always been more pragmatic and subserviet; as long as the sun king keeps society stable and running. They are directed less by enlightenment values of individualism and free enterprise, and more by path of least resistance.

Thank you for your answer.

So is Russia a lone wolf civilization?

[Cradyz]

No. The philosophy dictating Russian society and how individuals interact with the governing body are dramatically different. I'm a firm believer of the theory of the sun king, best translated, that argues that Russian society due to being separated from Europe due to Mongols and similar overlords never underwent feudalism and thus never underwent similar transitions of power from absolute monarchies to more diversified power bases, meaning that for hundreds of years Russian society has been distinctly top heavy. The relation of regular people has always been more pragmatic and subserviet; as long as the sun king keeps society stable and running. They are directed less by enlightenment values of individualism and free enterprise, and more by path of least resistance.

I'd disagree that Russia never underwent feudalism, quite the opposite, they got stuck in it for far too long. Or at least their special kind of Russian feudalism with the same serfs, but more centralised control. Russian peasants were still serfs in 1860 after all. Unlike the western European monarchies the Russian absolute one never got liberalised into a constitutional one or some form of republic. Instead Russia went from absolute control of the tsar, to absolute control of the party, briefly to control by oligarchs, to now slightly more democratic central control. With I agree with the people always being subservient to the current hegemonic power. I do think that the Russian peoples willingness to go along with it has more to do with lack of access to liberal filosofy than taking the path of least resistance. Russia is big, insular and slow to change and it has always been so. But the internet is pretty quick so who knows what the future holds.

[Theodarzna]

Considering the slow pace, it is hard to really gauge when such an event starts and stops.

Considering also that many problems can be traced back centuries and have only now started to sprout, there is perhaps a case to be made that the beginning of its end happened well before this present date.

Collapse though is tough, we could be heading to any number of futures. But all of them will be a complete inversion of the promises of Liberal society. So I imagine within 12 years would be a good measuring stick as technology will be further along, but also either the current holders of political power will have either been deposed and gotten rid of, or will be thoroughly entrenched by a system of control made possible by technology, robotics and AI.

The future of the West is essentially something resembling China mixed with the plot of Gattaca. And it won't even be because of conquering armies, but because the people running the show prefer it that way.

[cubby]

Untrue we have had many intern dates come and go with the one common denominator being "things are below projections", leading to some hilarious explanations as to why. Also we have had climate doom for over 50 (farthest back I recall was from early 70's, but it may have well been before that) years now, and they had dead by 2000 at the time, so no this isn't new... As for resting well I'm more concerned that your kind is slowing our progress into off planet colonization because "Think of the Tree's", and we will all die by some extinction event that we actually have proof of happening in the past.

Name one and cite it then. Show me some data saying climate "doom/catastrophe" was imminent and then the date passed.

[Kasierith]

I'd disagree that Russia never underwent feudalism, quite the opposite, they got stuck in it for far too long. Or at least their special kind of Russian feudalism with the same serfs, but more centralised control. Russian peasants were still serfs in 1860 after all.

But the key feature of feudalism as opposed to other ways to organize society is not the lower class is oppressed. It's about hierarchies of power. For example, earlier forms of governance had a king controlling all; think Alexander the Great. In feudalism, however, power was dispersed. The king may have been the top, but the majority of your fighting force was under the direct control of barons, who were under counts, under dukes, who then responded to the king (just as one example). The power of the king was further spread by the presence of the Church. The people turned to the landed nobility for administrative control, but to the church for spiritual and moral concerns. There were kings who claimed to be operating under a divine mandate and were significantly involved in the church on a functional level, such as Charlemagne, but there were very, very few instances where such power across the entire spectrum was exhibited.

This never happened in Russia. There was no point in Russian history where the equivalent of a duke had nearly as much power as their western counterparts.... control simply wasn't that diversified. The landed nobility were largely tools and assets of the Czar. The level of control that Charlemagne exhibited over his empire would have been typical in the Russian system. It's why Russia's history is filled with peaks and troughs. Strong czars, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, caused massive changes. Weak czars caused the entire system to deflate, until it finally collapsed.

Unlike the western European monarchies the Russian absolute one never got liberalised into a constitutional one or some form of republic. Instead Russia went from absolute control of the tsar, to absolute control of the party, briefly to control by oligarchs, to now slightly more democratic central control. With I agree with the people always being subservient to the current hegemonic power. I do think that the Russian peoples willingness to go along with it has more to do with lack of access to liberal filosofy than taking the path of least resistance. Russia is big, insular and slow to change and it has always been so. But the internet is pretty quick so who knows what the future holds.

I mean... that's basically what I was saying. What defines western civilization is proliferation of Enlightenment era values and ideology. And you can't say that they don't have access to it.. the internet exists. At the end of the day, when the Russian people collectively are faced with a situation where they can sacrifice comfort for personal liberties, they choose stability and comfort because cynicism is such a massive driving force. This is the path of least resistance. Look at Shalcker's posts if you ever want to see someone following this perspective. The system is corrupt and wrong, but it's not like the US and Europe and their ideology is perfect so why make a big deal out of it.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you for your answer.

So is Russia a lone wolf civilization?

Unsure of what you mean by lone wolf. If you mean that there's no other country in an even similar situation, yes definitely. If you mean that Russia would benefit from being a solo player and withdrawing from the world, definitely not. Russia is undergoing significant internal instability, for a wide range of reasons with government corruption at every level down to local police stations being a very significant one. Two other key issues is that a lot of wealth has left (millionaires who did not want to play ball with Putin when he started to crack down on the oligarchs in the 2000s), especially to the UK, and that the industries such as producing large quantities of natural resources simply aren't profitable unless they can engage in foreign markets. It needs foreign allies at this stage, and Putin is not doing it any favors. For those of us not devoid of our senses and engaged in rampant cynicism, Putin played a major role in stabilizing the country following the oligarchs devastating it in the 1990s, but through Russia United was allowed to keep control of the country and has engaged in politics oriented around maintaining power and prestige rather than changing the country for the better.

[PC2]

All of this collapse talk is very vague. What are the 5 top objective metrics that people are using to judge collapse? Food amount? GDP? Mortality rate? It will be nearly impossible to prove these claims wrong when they are so vague.

[Kasierith]

All of this collapse talk is very vague. What are the 5 top objective metrics that people are using to judge collapse? Food amount? GDP? Mortality rate? It will be nearly impossible to prove these claims wrong when they are so vague.

One can easily set the requirement to "my political side is losing" and the western world will have been dying for a few hundred years now.

[IIamaKing]

Not very close.

[Deleted]

It's why Russia's history is filled with peaks and troughs. Strong czars, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, caused massive changes. Weak czars caused the entire system to deflate, until it finally collapsed.

This is pretty much how it was in the rest of Europe. Strong monarchs and weak monarchs. Peaks and falls.

You have interesting parameters for what qualifies as a part of Western civilization and what not does not qualify. I would rather take the matters of religion, culture and philosophy as parameters that define what is as a part of the Western civilization and what is not. Personally, in all these three parameters, Russia is a part of the Western civilization in my eyes. But we probably do not share the same parameters so any further talk would be fruitless. Nevertheless, thank you for your answer.

[Kasierith]

This is pretty much how it was in the rest of Europe. Strong monarchs and weak monarchs. Peaks and falls.

You have interesting parameters for what qualifies as a part of Western civilization and what not does not qualify. I would rather take the matters of religion, culture and philosophy as parameters that define what is as a part of the Western civilization and what is not. Personally, in all these three parameters, Russia is a part of the Western civilization in my eyes. But we probably do not share the same parameters so any further talk would be fruitless. Nevertheless, thank you for your answer.

I don't really mind people disagreeing with me. It's not like I'd ever argue that I'm an expert on the topic; at the best these things like this are hobbies.

For your three parameters, religiously Russia is distinctively different. It split apart from Catholicism centuries previously. While the Mongols were tolerant of foreign religions as long as taxes were due, they were not accepting of foreign church leaders holding sway which restricted the influence of the Russian church to strictly spiritual matters. The religious system was very disparate, until the codifying of the cyrillic alphabet and proliferation of standardized holy writs for expressly that purpose. Void of a centralized religious body, the czars had much more influence over religious matters than their western counterparts. In the time era's we're talking about, Russian religion was iconoclastic orthodox without a centralized religious authority.

Culturally? I... don't really know where to start with this one, to be honest. Slavic culture was the product of the original people meshed with the influence of the Mongols prior to their empire's collapse. It was consistently viewed as distinct from western culture throughout the Russian Empire's history. There were numerous attempts to change this, such as the renovations of St. Petersburg and Catherine the Great's efforts to modernize the country.

And philosophically, the enlightenment philosophy values were severely lagged, and didn't really start taking hold in Russia until the 1800's with massive resistance from the nobility and church who found the common folk suddenly turning towards individualism to be an existential threat.

[Deleted]

I don't really mind people disagreeing with me. It's not like I'd ever argue that I'm an expert on the topic; at the best these things like this are hobbies.

For your three parameters, religiously Russia is distinctively different. It split apart from Catholicism centuries previously. While the Mongols were tolerant of foreign religions as long as taxes were due, they were not accepting of foreign church leaders holding sway which restricted the influence of the Russian church to strictly spiritual matters. The religious system was very disparate, until the codifying of the cyrillic alphabet and proliferation of standardized holy writs for expressly that purpose. Void of a centralized religious body, the czars had much more influence over religious matters than their western counterparts. In the time era's we're talking about, Russian religion was iconoclastic orthodox without a centralized religious authority.

Culturally? I... don't really know where to start with this one, to be honest. Slavic culture was the product of the original people meshed with the influence of the Mongols prior to their empire's collapse. It was consistently viewed as distinct from western culture throughout the Russian Empire's history. There were numerous attempts to change this, such as the renovations of St. Petersburg and Catherine the Great's efforts to modernize the country.

And philosophically, the enlightenment philosophy values were severely lagged, and didn't really start taking hold in Russia until the 1800's with massive resistance from the nobility and church who found the common folk suddenly turning towards individualism to be an existential threat.

To my eyes, when I look at Russian culture, your artists and your scientists, I see the Western civilization despite all the arguments of Russian Slavophiles. Your faith is a Christian one, your received Greco-Roman heritage through Byzantine Empire. Various European philosophies, including those born of the Enlightenment did reach Russia. You also got communist ideology through that channel.

Of course, it could also be that my eyes are deceiving me. To be blunt, while I do hold deep love of the Russian arts, it would be in my country geopolitical interest to see Russia butchered into as many independent political entities as possible.

[Cradyz]

<snip> There were kings who claimed to be operating under a divine mandate and were significantly involved in the church on a functional level, such as Charlemagne, but there were very, very few instances where such power across the entire spectrum was exhibited.

This never happened in Russia. There was no point in Russian history where the equivalent of a duke had nearly as much power as their western counterparts.... control simply wasn't that diversified. The landed nobility were largely tools and assets of the Czar. The level of control that Charlemagne exhibited over his empire would have been typical in the Russian system. It's why Russia's history is filled with peaks and troughs. Strong czars, like Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, caused massive changes. Weak czars caused the entire system to deflate, until it finally collapsed.

I agree with most of what you say but I'd still call that feudalism with a russian twist. I agree you mostly can't compare the other European systems with the Russian one since the latter one developed in such a more unique way. Like I said it has always been very insular for various reasons. But I wouldn't discount the influence of the influence of the nobles in the 15th- early 19th century. Yeah I'd agree they had less power than their (early) French or Hungarian counterparts but the Tsar still had too manouvre around them, which took a ton of time, an excellent ruler or both. Especially when it came to eroding their power like doing away with serfdom, which could only be finished in the 1860s over a hundred year process, considering that Catherine was busy with it in 1770. I'm just saying if the Tsar in early Russian history had as much power as the French sun king centuries later than all of that wouldn't have happened like it did.

I mean... that's basically what I was saying. What defines western civilization is proliferation of Enlightenment era values and ideology. And you can't say that they don't have access to it.. the internet exists. At the end of the day, when the Russian people collectively are faced with a situation where they can sacrifice comfort for personal liberties, they choose stability and comfort because cynicism is such a massive driving force. This is the path of least resistance. Look at Shalcker's posts if you ever want to see someone following this perspective. The system is corrupt and wrong, but it's not like the US and Europe and their ideology is perfect so why make a big deal out of it.

I mean access to it in earlier Russian history. I think it safe to say that a Russian peasant thousands a miles removed from any non russian entity in 1600 was about as well informed about the lastest philosophical development in France as such a peasant in 1900. Not to mention the repression of information during the soviet era. The internet is a really recent phenomenon as is the access your random rural Russian citizen has to the info that comes with it. Meaning to say, the Russian people never were well informed, ideas that could have forced the country to liberalise in some ways never did take root, untill now you could argue.

I can't really speak of the actual mentality of the Russian people as I don't live it. But just looking at the way those enlightenment ideas never took root I just imagine that it is no surprise that the russian people obey the current power structure because they lack(ed) the means to challenge it. That choosing stability and comfort as you say is just complacency for the lack of an alternative course of action, not because it's the easy choice to make. I don't think the russian people are that more subservient in nature than other Europeans, or perhaps it just takes time for that subservience to dissipate.

[d00mGuArD]

The most probable impact to our infrastructure is space junk.

We keep dumping shit in a low earth orbit.
Eventhough space is vast and empty, a chain reaction could cause significant damage to most satelites and other important systems that are intigrated in our society.
Phones, internet, GPS, military and health systems, etc.

Anytime I have looked at the ISS live feed, I have not seen a single piece of junk
I have watched it pass over entire continents and never saw any junk
it rotates the whole earth every 92 mins. Every second you see 5 miles! you can see huge areas very fast.
never spotted anything. I may be blind though...

[Dendrek]

If it happens, welcome to the apocalypse. It would result in the destabilization of the world's economy and the rise of authoritarian governments. Wars, genocide, disease, poverty. Pick your flavor of shithole future. They're all terrible.

[Crispin]

When did we have it better? Seriously? Sure Trump is making noise and the French are rioting “when are they not?”

It’s probably a far more subjective feeling. During the cold war, nuclear destruction was a daily worry. Markets have always gone up and down. Bush felt like he were splitting old alliances to pieces “freedom fries etc”

Fact is that the western Alliances is like a marriage, tough at times. But it’ll take more than Russian hackers and a crackpot POTUS now and then to end it. Wishful thinking to non-westerners and local Extreme right and left wing idealists.

[Super Kami Dende]

Yeah it's clearly a 1400 year old religion's fault lol
Go make to marinating your chicken boi

Well for centuries basic common sense and logic kept them and their barbaric dark age beliefs out of other Countries in their hordes. Though the PC Brigades push to allow an unchecked influx of them into every western Country because "Tolerance" and other such bullshit has given them the opening they have needed.

[Franz123]

With Trump being there, we are a hairline close to destruction.