• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Speculation comparing impending US collapse to Soviet collapse

Status
Not open for further replies.
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

A long but very interesting read comparing both similarities and many dissimilarities. I have thought of this stuff before, but not nearly this thoroughly or coming from his perspective. I wonder what he would think of my "bail the fuck out" plan.
 
I

Invisible_Insane

Member
Most of those comparisons don't strike me as particularly well-thought out. The United States has deep political and social problems, but the presence of those doesn't make it equivalent to the Soviet Union.
 
T

TheJollyCorner

Member
The U.S.A. ain't goin' nowhere, son!


american-flag.jpg
Click to expand...

ROCK, FLAG, AND EAGLE!!!!!!!!!
 
Dice

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Invisible_Insane said:
Most of those comparisons don't strike me as particularly well-thought out. The United States has deep political and social problems, but the presence of those doesn't make it equivalent to the Soviet Union.
Click to expand...
I would be very impressed if you got a good handle on what he said there in three minutes.
 
LQX

LQX

Member
Welp, it was good run. Hopefully all the boroughs split off from Manhattan, then we will see who really needs who.
 
I

Invisible_Insane

Member
Dice said:
I would be very impressed if you got a good handle on what he said there in three minutes.
Click to expand...
I read it quickly, I can't possibly understand his points!

The first several slides describe the United States in a way that isn't well-based in reality, so there isn't much value in delving into the comparisons.

Also it's old.
 
A

Aylinato

Member
Dice said:
I would be very impressed if you got a good handle on what he said there in three minutes.
Click to expand...



This isn't the first time someone has said the US was going to collapse. It also isn't true in the slightest.


The USA economy has been on an upward slop since the economy took a tank. The DOW jones is almost at 13,000 again, which the economy was at almost 15,000 before it took a dive.

The thing that hasnt happened yet is people being hired by big corporations, and the slowing of creation of jobs from "creators."
However taxes on the rich have to go up so that we can distribute the wealth through public works, construction(roads/buildings), and helping poor people.


Russia economy tanked, and they were holding other countries in their "union" by force.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
It's a bit nutty. We have a more-or-less functioning economy that produces more than enough food and shelter for everybody, plus iPhones. We could double taxes and keep on going, although it would slow growth, and nobody has much of an incentive to risk collapse. We're in hugely better shape debt-wise than most of Europe, and if push comes to shove and the US became suddenly unable to borrow or print money, there are relatively easy savings that wouldn't impact quality of life for quite a while (massive military cuts, for example). It's not like we're at risk of being invaded; the military is a luxury that we choose to pay for right now, not one that we absolutely have to have. We could slash Medicare and, while old people would die earlier and that would be sad, that's not the sort of thing that causes countries to collapse.

Soviet central planning and a ridiculous ideological aversion to using anything that smelled like a market caused massive shortages of even the most basic goods, and the government used absurd amounts of labor and resources in nonproductive ways in order to show up the west. The system collapsed because it completely failed to make enough useful stuff. We don't have that problem.
 
W

Wotan131

Neo Member
The USSR collapsed because it started the super-expensive Cold War from a very very weak base, while the United States started the Cold War from one of the best scenarios possible.

USSR in 1945 was completely destroyed for 1/3rd, the Western USSR was completely in ruins from the Russo-German war of 1941-1945. Adding to that, the USSR (Russia) was still in the process of transforming from an agricultural society to a modern one when WW2 broke out. Western Europe and the USA made that transition already around 1850.

The Cold War bled the USSR to death cause it started from a horrible position, while the USA never endured a single attack on its home territory and actually made money off WW2.

Everyone saw the USSR collapse coming in theory, thats not the case for the USA today. The whole starting premise of this guy's articles in OP is wrong.
 
M

Matt

Member
richiek said:
If collapse means the US gets broken up into smaller countries, I'd be ok with this.

m0QbC.jpg
Click to expand...

Map is ok, but too many OK areas (Southern Florida, Northern Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, the Research Triangle, Austin, Ohio, Colorado, etc) get lumped in with the red.

Also why is Maryland left out? That makes no sense at all...
 
K

Kabouter

Member
You know, I was going through a list of issues I had with the first couple of slides, but I just deleted that stuff, because as you go down further and further, you just end up with a big old bag of crazy. This is complete rubbish.
 
M

Matt

Member
Gaborn said:
So... in your view Detroit is not part of "DumbFuckistan"? REALLY? Have you paid attention to Detroit lately?
Click to expand...

Since we will no longer need to be carrying the dead weight of the red states, we will be able to take care of Detroit.
 
F

Furio53

Member
richiek said:
If collapse means the US gets broken up into smaller countries, I'd be ok with this.

m0QbC.jpg
Click to expand...

ugh. I hate this shit. gtfo

Hurr hurr, but it's funny cause rednecks! I'm from Texas. The amount of extremely intelligent people there shouldn't be looked past because of peoples stupid misconceptions.

Maybe you should move to Dumbfuckistan.
 
J

Joe Shlabotnik

Banned
Wotan131 said:
The USSR collapsed because it started the super-expensive Cold War from a very very weak base, while the United States started the Cold War from one of the best scenarios possible.

USSR in 1945 was completely destroyed for 1/3rd, the Western USSR was completely in ruins from the Russo-German war of 1941-1945. Adding to that, the USSR (Russia) was still in the process of transforming from an agricultural society to a modern one when WW2 broke out. Western Europe and the USA made that transition already around 1850.

The Cold War bled the USSR to death cause it started from a horrible position, while the USA never endured a single attack on its home territory and actually made money off WW2.

Everyone saw the USSR collapse coming in theory, thats not the case for the USA today. The whole starting premise of this guy's articles in OP is wrong.
Click to expand...

Wellllll there was one...

your actual point is totally correct though
 
M

M-PG71C

Member
Guys, there is plenty of idiots all across our great nation. From New York to Chicago, from Nashville to Miami, from Detroit to San Diego. Plenty of dumbfucks everywhere!

We can all be part of dumbfuckistan.
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Furio53 said:
ugh. I hate this shit. gtfo

Hurr hurr, but it's funny cause rednecks! I'm from Texas. The amount of extremely intelligent people there shouldn't be looked past because of peoples stupid misconceptions.

Maybe you should move to Dumbfuckistan.
Click to expand...

I imagine there are a lot of intelligent people in all of those states, unfortunately those people aren't driving policy and that's where the problem lies. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that everyone in Texas is a dumbfuck, but the Texas GOP's thoughts on education belong in dumbfuckistan, not the United States.
 
G

Godslay

Banned
Dr. Pangloss said:
Maybe California will because it won't have to subsidize the other states.
UwHv0.gif
Click to expand...

This estimate is already considerably off. North Dakota for instance is running huge surpluses at the moment. Largely due to oil production in the Bakken, but it goes to show you that images such as this are purely speculative and things can change very quickly.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
The whole premise of that article is silly.

First of all, not all empires collapse.
For example, the largest empire in history, the British Empire, didn't.
It shed its colonies, but generally, life in England were not dramatically impacted by that.

And it's really weird that he picked the USSR; first of all, it's very different than the US, but more importantly, it had a very unusual collapse.
In fact, I can't think of another totalitarian empire that collapsed peacefully due to economic difficulties.
 
D

Dr. Pangloss

Member
Godslay said:
This estimate is already considerably off. North Dakota for instance is running huge surpluses at the moment. Largely due to oil production in the Bakken, but it goes to show you that images such as this are purely speculative and things can change very quickly.
Click to expand...

No it isn't off. It is accurate for the 20 year time period it represents. Sure North Dakota might be experience a boom due to natural resources, but 10 years from now what industry is going to be propping it up? California is more than natural resources which it has too. It also has billion dollar industries in technology, entertainment, and agriculture. Once North Dakota is literately out of gas, what will it have left?

Also, why should we ignore that California has been a net contributor to the country at the federal level for the last 20 years and North Dakota hasn't been? I would say California has earned some time to be a drag and fix its problems. North Dakota and the rest should be picking up the slack.
 
F

FieryBalrog

Member
Dr. Pangloss said:
No it isn't off. It is accurate for the 20 year time period it represents. Sure North Dakota might be experience a boom due to natural resources, but 10 years from now what industry is going to be propping it up? California is more than natural resources which it has too. It also has billion dollar industries in technology, entertainment, and agriculture. Once North Dakota is literately out of gas, what will it have left?
Click to expand...

Who cares? Gas and oil are why we want to keep around North Dakota in the first place :p
 
F

FieryBalrog

Member
Chichikov said:
The whole premise of that article is silly.

First of all, not all empires collapse.
For example, the largest empire in history, the British Empire, didn't.
It shed its colonies, but generally, life in England were not dramatically impacted by that.
Click to expand...

That's still a collapse. Almost a complete collapse, if you look at the map from 1914 to 1950.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Xbox Series X and S Sales Have Collapsed in Europe
Sales-Age 17 18 19 20 21
1K
69K
Chronicle replied
  • Locked
So, I've been pondering over this for a bit. Do you think US Football being our dominant sport is why we have so much gun violence?
Social Opinion
24
1K
AJUMP23 replied
  • Poll
PLAYSTATION 6: Potential Innovations, Features, Business Strategies & More (Speculation)
Opinion Analysis Platform 2 3 4
181
13K
hussar16 replied
  • Locked
IGN: How Hidden Nazi Symbols Were the Tip of a Toxic Iceberg at Life Is Strange Developer Deck Nine
3
681
tkscz replied
Wataru Ishibashi (10/25/79 - 2/16/14) - Remembering a Fantastic Composer
1
416
AJUMP23 replied
Top Bottom