"Robert Sturgeon" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 6 Aug 2006 14:57:09 -0500, "Jeff McCann"
wrote:

(snips)

Societal collapse is a macro-scale event. What happens to individuals
within that society are micro-level events. Individuals win and lose all
the time, even in a thriving society. Whole groups have been caused to
suffer many times by rapid changes within a complex society, yet the
society
as a whole endures.

Sometimes it doesn't. At the height of the Roman Empire,
Rome had a population of around 1,000,000. By the late
Middle Ages, that was down to less than 10,000, and wolves
were roaming the streets. Various other societies have gone
through collapses that were as bad, if not worse. Contrary
to what we like to think, things can, in fact, go Very
Badly. There is no reason to suppose that we are somehow
immune.

Yep. No society is immune from collapse. My point is only that
technologically advanced societies are much less so. So, do you think
anyone alive at the height of the Roman Empire was still alive to see those
wolves roaming the streets? No. It took a very long time indeed, for Roman
society to decline and fall. It didn't suddenly collapse within a portion
of a single lifetime, like, say, the Incan Empire.

It sucked to be a technology worker during the dot-com bust or an
aeronautical engineer when we retreated from manned space exploration.
It
also sucked to be a buggy whip maker during the advent of the automobile.

I'm not talking about going through an economic shift, but
an economic/societal collapse. Different story...

Time to define our terms, I think. So, what does an economic/societal
collapse mean to you?

Personally, I expect American society to die with a whimper, not a bang,
over a span of many generations, in a way that is not readily apparent to
many who are living through it.

Jeff