27 ms·

I wonder if I am an outlier here (physically the US) and think society is not collapsing, but diversifying. Also, given the state of the environment, national d

I wonder if I am an outlier here (physically the US) and think society is not collapsing, but diversifying. Also, given the state of the environment, national debt, employment prospects for many in the generations proceding me, and civic unrest, it seems prudent that we evaluate our socioeconomic activities.

tasogare 6y ago
Roman empire didn’t collapsed, it became diversified by the Lombards, Franks and Wisigoths.
- AlotOfReading 6y ago
  It's not clear to me whether your point is intended sarcastically, but for those who don't know, the Roman Empire was incredibly diverse throughout all of its history. Rome itself was a cosmopolitan urban center for centuries. Even after the split and collapse of the WRE, the east remained hugely diverse.
  - imbnwa 6y ago
    Not so much Rome as the entire Mediterranean has swapped genes and cultures a hundredfold for thousands of years being the trade hub between Europe, West Asia, and Africa. I also feel like I'm reading a bunch of coded statements with some of these comments in here.
    - AlotOfReading 6y ago
      Honestly, I'd rather deal with the coded language visible thus far than have to explain why Diamond's Collapse is utter garbage for the hundredth time.
      - mercer 6y ago
        Both are exhausting, honestly.
    - mercer 6y ago
      Oh yeah, I've found 'the reason why Rome collapsed' type arguments to be at this point mostly a kind of 'Rorschach Test' for the ideology of whoever is promoting it.
iridium_core 6y ago
And the nations which are overtaking us - Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China - are the complete opposite of diverse. Perhaps diversity is not our strength?
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Good side effect of that is strong culture. It doesn't get diluted by diversity. I can only imagine what it would have been like to travel to another country many decades ago before globalization and travel. Here is Tokyo 100 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8 The simplest of things - a tunic or a shirt is commoditized by the entire globe. Everyone on the whole globe just wears a shirt/pants. Each nation had their own attire and it was just normal to wear skirts in Scotland and suits in England, and kimonos in Japan. This was erased by globalism and diversity. It may be that shirt/pant combo is actually superior attire due to some particular measurable quantity, but I suspect it was because of English imperialism.
  - imbnwa 6y ago
    > Good side effect of that is strong culture. It doesn't get diluted by diversity. Yeah, CCP is kinda working on that whole eliminating cultural diversity thing as we speak
    - fermienrico 6y ago
      I was thinking more on the lighter side - huge fan of Civilization, the game! Cultures are cool.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  You mean places that had the least to offer to any kind of migrant from the West during the period of European imperialism are also the least diverse? Setting aside the complicating factor of the West African slave trade as a factor of population displacement, color me surprised. This whole diversity thing just fell out of the sky over here.
- 6y ago
tathougies 6y ago
Rome didn't collapse, it just diversified into several other smaller states. The Aztec empire wasn't overthrown by the Spanish, but just fractured. The empire of Genghis Khan didn't collapse, it just got successfully split until what remained resembled nothing of what it once was. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but rather pointing out that -- in the grand scheme of history -- every collapse can be recast as a 'diversifying' of the original society, even if the end state of the society has little in resemblance to the original. For example, the Roman empire lasted -- in the form of the byzantines -- until 1453, only a few decades before Columbus discovered America, but the Byzantines were not really Roman in the way we think of ancient Rome, despite having every claim to being one and the same with the Roman empire.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  >every collapse can be recast as a 'diversifying' of the original society, even if the end state of the society has little in resemblance to the original. The folks from Easter Island would beg to differ if they were still around!
  - tathougies 6y ago
    I can't tell if you're joking or not. Easter Island is yet another example of my general premise. The people who colonized it originally -- the rapa nui -- are still around, even if their current culture is very different from the civilization that erected the moai?
betwixthewires 6y ago
Immigration is addressed in the article as a potential cause of societal collapse. I do think we (the US in particular, and the western world in general) are undergoing a process that, if it continues to fruition, is societal collapse. That said, I don't think it is imminent or unavoidable. I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion. At some point you go from becoming diverse to being supplanted. Immigration rates high enough to drastically change the culture of a society within the lifespan of one human being can be catastrophic. It naturally creates division and strife. It really doesn't matter if the cultures are both equally advanced, good, if one is being mean to the other, etc. There will be friction. When this happens slow enough, over a few generations, newcomers adopt prevailing norms, and the incumbent culture adopts some newcomer customs. Also, the stronger the incumbent group hold to their customs and take pride in them, the more immigration they can handle, because this creates peer pressure on the newcomer group to assimilate. The combination of massive immigration and social pressure to view our own customs as unimportant or even inferior is potentially a bad combination for the survival of our society. I hope to see it survive, I do like it, I wouldn't want an entirely homogenous society.
- BuckRogers 6y ago
  We don’t have this problem in the US, most of our immigration is from fellow western and Christian nations like Mexico and similar in central America. Maybe what you describe is an actual risk in Europe.
- pgcj_poster 6y ago
  > I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion Sure. For example, historians debate the extent to which the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was a migration vs an invasion. However, we know the Anglo-Saxons at least did things like set up their own kingdoms and cause some of the Celtic Britons to flee to Wales and Brittany. It seems to me like immigrants in present-day western countries are really, really far away from doing anything like that.
- jhowell 6y ago

tasogare 6y ago

Roman empire didn’t collapsed, it became diversified by the Lombards, Franks and Wisigoths.

AlotOfReading 6y ago
It's not clear to me whether your point is intended sarcastically, but for those who don't know, the Roman Empire was incredibly diverse throughout all of its history. Rome itself was a cosmopolitan urban center for centuries. Even after the split and collapse of the WRE, the east remained hugely diverse.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  Not so much Rome as the entire Mediterranean has swapped genes and cultures a hundredfold for thousands of years being the trade hub between Europe, West Asia, and Africa. I also feel like I'm reading a bunch of coded statements with some of these comments in here.
  - AlotOfReading 6y ago
    Honestly, I'd rather deal with the coded language visible thus far than have to explain why Diamond's Collapse is utter garbage for the hundredth time.
    - mercer 6y ago
      Both are exhausting, honestly.
  - mercer 6y ago
    Oh yeah, I've found 'the reason why Rome collapsed' type arguments to be at this point mostly a kind of 'Rorschach Test' for the ideology of whoever is promoting it.

iridium_core 6y ago

And the nations which are overtaking us - Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China - are the complete opposite of diverse. Perhaps diversity is not our strength?

fermienrico 6y ago
Good side effect of that is strong culture. It doesn't get diluted by diversity. I can only imagine what it would have been like to travel to another country many decades ago before globalization and travel. Here is Tokyo 100 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8 The simplest of things - a tunic or a shirt is commoditized by the entire globe. Everyone on the whole globe just wears a shirt/pants. Each nation had their own attire and it was just normal to wear skirts in Scotland and suits in England, and kimonos in Japan. This was erased by globalism and diversity. It may be that shirt/pant combo is actually superior attire due to some particular measurable quantity, but I suspect it was because of English imperialism.
- imbnwa 6y ago
  > Good side effect of that is strong culture. It doesn't get diluted by diversity. Yeah, CCP is kinda working on that whole eliminating cultural diversity thing as we speak
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    I was thinking more on the lighter side - huge fan of Civilization, the game! Cultures are cool.
imbnwa 6y ago
You mean places that had the least to offer to any kind of migrant from the West during the period of European imperialism are also the least diverse? Setting aside the complicating factor of the West African slave trade as a factor of population displacement, color me surprised. This whole diversity thing just fell out of the sky over here.
6y ago

tathougies 6y ago

Rome didn't collapse, it just diversified into several other smaller states. The Aztec empire wasn't overthrown by the Spanish, but just fractured. The empire of Genghis Khan didn't collapse, it just got successfully split until what remained resembled nothing of what it once was. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but rather pointing out that -- in the grand scheme of history -- every collapse can be recast as a 'diversifying' of the original society, even if the end state of the society has little in resemblance to the original. For example, the Roman empire lasted -- in the form of the byzantines -- until 1453, only a few decades before Columbus discovered America, but the Byzantines were not really Roman in the way we think of ancient Rome, despite having every claim to being one and the same with the Roman empire.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>every collapse can be recast as a 'diversifying' of the original society, even if the end state of the society has little in resemblance to the original. The folks from Easter Island would beg to differ if they were still around!
- tathougies 6y ago
  I can't tell if you're joking or not. Easter Island is yet another example of my general premise. The people who colonized it originally -- the rapa nui -- are still around, even if their current culture is very different from the civilization that erected the moai?

betwixthewires 6y ago

Immigration is addressed in the article as a potential cause of societal collapse. I do think we (the US in particular, and the western world in general) are undergoing a process that, if it continues to fruition, is societal collapse. That said, I don't think it is imminent or unavoidable. I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion. At some point you go from becoming diverse to being supplanted. Immigration rates high enough to drastically change the culture of a society within the lifespan of one human being can be catastrophic. It naturally creates division and strife. It really doesn't matter if the cultures are both equally advanced, good, if one is being mean to the other, etc. There will be friction. When this happens slow enough, over a few generations, newcomers adopt prevailing norms, and the incumbent culture adopts some newcomer customs. Also, the stronger the incumbent group hold to their customs and take pride in them, the more immigration they can handle, because this creates peer pressure on the newcomer group to assimilate. The combination of massive immigration and social pressure to view our own customs as unimportant or even inferior is potentially a bad combination for the survival of our society. I hope to see it survive, I do like it, I wouldn't want an entirely homogenous society.

BuckRogers 6y ago
We don’t have this problem in the US, most of our immigration is from fellow western and Christian nations like Mexico and similar in central America. Maybe what you describe is an actual risk in Europe.
pgcj_poster 6y ago
> I do think there's a gray area between immigration generating diversity and immigration serving the same ultimate purpose as invasion Sure. For example, historians debate the extent to which the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain was a migration vs an invasion. However, we know the Anglo-Saxons at least did things like set up their own kingdoms and cause some of the Celtic Britons to flee to Wales and Brittany. It seems to me like immigrants in present-day western countries are really, really far away from doing anything like that.
jhowell 6y ago