Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

You want to talk politics...fine...but I am not interested in the current choice of two "pensioners".

What I am interested is:

1. Is this the decline era for US "empire"?

Yes.

Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

2. If no...nothing. If yes, then would that decline be more like the decline of the British Empire (BE) or more like the decline and fall of Rome?

I think more like the fall of Rome—except that this time, the Empire is global. Thus per the below, I do not contemplate only the American Empire.

Results most probably will include the total destruction of all civilization and advanced knowledge, thus sending the talking monkeys back to the Stone Age—and may possibly instead cause their extinction.

N.b. that many authors who recognize this reality suffer a foreshortening of their predictions. The historical process of this collapse will probably not happen overnight, or in a year, or even in a mere few decades. Barring a sudden (and unpredictable) mass catastrophe, the dead remains of civilization may keep momentum even for another century or two.

I do think that the collapse is nigh inevitable, barring a drastic, radical global change that has negligible chance of actually happening.

Quote from: nullius on March 16, 2020, 08:35:20 PM

Only a fool would claim to know in advance exactly how all of this will play out. And to be clear, I myself am dosing with Hopium® for technological civilization to last at least a bit longer. It may. And none of us is prepared for otherwise. Don’t argue with me; I obviously know what the fuck I am talking about. 99% of “prepper” stuff is, unfortunately, a self-comforting illusion. A few people may be well enough prepared to have a small chance of long-term survival in the event of a global collapse—of the global collapse, an historically unprecedented event, the Fall of Rome raised by a few orders of magnitude.

Quote from: nullius on March 16, 2020, 05:09:35 PM

I am not a financial analyst. I think in historical terms. The context that you snipped:

Quote from: nullius on March 16, 2020, 03:24:01 PM

Every sane person has known for a very long time that the dollar must collapse someday; but trying to predict when is like trying to predict the fall of the Roman Empire when you are living in it at some undermined point between c. A.D. 300–400... or is it later than I think?

Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

3. If like BE, then...nothing.

There, you are wrong! The fall of the British Empire was a part of the rise of its replacement, the American Empire; and by no mere coincidence, it brought the spread of International Communism. (Edit of draft in preview: inb4 strawbs. Nullian posts take too long to make.)

If this were like the fall of the British Empire, I would say that, in all likelihood, the Communist American Empire would be replaced by the Capitalist Chinese Empire (PRC is nowadays governed from the stock exchange). That is not an improvement, and not “nothing”.

We may see a phase of Chinese global hegemony before the globalist, International de facto One World Government empire system collapses.

Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

If like the decline and fall of Rome, then we could be up for a few decades to few centuries of unpleasantness (Dark Ages II).

We are already in a Dark Age. It is thus far covered by a façade of shiny gadgets, which are brought forth by the momentum of a dead civilization. Or better said: Your iGoog device is a maggot feeding off the bloated corpse of civilization.

Culture is dead. Art is dead. Literature is dead. Science, in the sense of objective (and apolitical) search for naturalistic truths, is dead. All that we have remaining is technicians, who are essentially automobile mechanics with higher IQs (and much higher conceits).

A Dark Age is never obvious to the chattering apes, whose blind eyes and small minds are wrapped in its tenebrous embrace. Most people are not historical thinkers, and are incapable of attaining historical perspective. You would need to step outside your own worldview, detach yourself from the modern Zeitgeist with all of its fantastic conceits, and see the world today as would a man from at least 150–200 years ago (better: 2000–2500 years ago).

Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

For the history buffs, it is thought that Justinian plaque (most likely caused by plaque bacteria- Yersinia pestis).
Maybe something rhymes here.

The fall of Rome was caused by a combination of the internal decline of the patrician class, and the plague of Christianity, a memetic virus that is tantamount to mental AIDS.

Quote from: Biodom on Today at 09:33:25 PM

What's your take?

This:

Quote from: nullius on February 08, 2018, 11:54:02 PM

Quote from: Vod on February 08, 2018, 11:53:07 AM

Society cannot continue even another hundred years the way we are now.

I thought it clear, my implication was past-tense. You are most of a hundred years out of date for the collapse of anything which could be properly called a functioning “society”. Some might say, more than a hundred years. The problem is that those living in a post-apocalyptic desert of downfallen, zombie-like anthropoids have already forgotten what it means to be human—what it meant, once upon a time.

By comparison, Roman society was a zombified rotting corpse for four or five centuries before the civil machine built by long-gone forebears ran out of momentum. I can see how greater technology could have accelerated the ultimate downfall in various ways.

What’s left is to secure yourself, take care of your own, live by honour alone whereas law is meaningless, keep busy with something productive, and try to have some fun.

[...]

Quote from: Vod on February 08, 2018, 11:53:07 AM

I believe nullius has a more optimistic view of the future than I do. :)

“Optimism is cowardice.” — Spengler (writing most of a hundred years ago)