Social Collapse

[pink_trike]

Indeed' date=' there are strains of bacteria which have resistance to all known antibiotics.

 

The proliferation of these bacteria to a large portion of the population would greatly affect modern medicine. Many of our current treatments, including all types of surgery, are dependent on antibiotics in order to be successful. If doctors can no longer use antibiotics because all bacteria are resistant to them, medicine could possibly be reverted back to how it was at the beginning of the 20th century.[/quote']

 

Good point. This problem is further complicated by the fact that these resistant bacteria, which are developing in part from overuse of antibiotics, are being passed through the general population at an alarming rate by the...health care profession(!), escalating an already epidemic rate of general and cascade iatrogenesis (officially classified as an epidemic by the CDC in the 80s). Simply put, the health care profession is creating the resistent bacteria, and is also very effectively spreading them throughout the general population at an epidemic rate during hospital stays and clinic visits.

 

You may enjoy:

 

Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis, the Expropriation of Health by Ivan Illich

 

...which looks at this dark side of allopathic medicine.

[JohnB]

If anything drops our society it will be the fact that so many believe that it cannot fall.

 

The large percentage of the population that believe that the values of western society are not worth fighting for illustrates this quite well. Too many highly placed people (generally advisors rather than politicians) believe in Moral Equivilence.

 

Too many believe that they can take from society without giving something back. People are told endlessly of their "Rights" but never of "Responsibility".

 

The criminal is not something that needs to be "understood", it is a threat to our society that needs to be eradicated. Preferably by eliminating the causes for crime.

 

Why is it that no-one in their right mind would drive over a bridge that was tinkered with by apprentice engineers but will allow Social Engineers (who at best could be described as well meaning fools and at worst Ideological Morons) to tinker with the structure of society?

 

The combination of these types of factors in the blind belief that "It doesn't matter" or "We'll find something else" or "God will save us" or "Once we create our Silicon God it'll work out all the answers" or the biggy "Someone should do something about" will be our undoing.

[padren]

If anything drops our society it will be the fact that so many believe that it cannot fall.

 

The large percentage of the population that believe that the values of western society are not worth fighting for illustrates this quite well. Too many highly placed people (generally advisors rather than politicians) believe in Moral Equivilence.

 

I think a sense of invulnerability is a fair risk factor. As for the percentage of people who would not fight for western values - where did you get that idea? Or do you mean not military fighting' date=' but political fighting, such as fighting the errosion of civil liberties and the values they protect? If you mean militarily, we haven't been militarily threatened in a very long time.

 

The criminal is not something that needs to be "understood", it is a threat to our society that needs to be eradicated. Preferably by eliminating the causes for crime.

 

I agree about eliminating the causes, but how can you eradicate anything, from crime to a flu virus, without understanding it? I think you may be confusing understanding with condoning.

 

Why is it that no-one in their right mind would drive over a bridge that was tinkered with by apprentice engineers but will allow Social Engineers (who at best could be described as well meaning fools and at worst Ideological Morons) to tinker with the structure of society?

 

When you say social engineers, do you mean politicians? Usually changes to the social system via changing laws and/or competition of ideas slowly modify the culture for better or worse, but don't lead to instant catastrophic failure such as in bridge construction. You can try reaganomics, then hold your head and say "wow that was a bad idea" and try something else. Even when the effects aren't gradual (such as amature mistakes during the cuban missile crisis could have been instantly catastrophic) there is the fact that in social systems, we only have completing amatures and no experts capable of providing us with the alternative of a stable bridge.

[JohnB]

Or do you mean not military fighting, but political fighting, such as fighting the errosion of civil liberties and the values they protect? If you mean militarily, we haven't been militarily threatened in a very long time.

Actually I meant both. Just because the West hasn't been militarily threatened for some time doesn't mean we should let our guard down. The distaste that some sections of the populace view a military career is symptomatic of what I was referring to. Similarly the rise in some quarters of the concept of Moral Equivilence leading to it being "wrong" to say that you disagree with another moral stance. In some ways it has become "wrong" to say that you think your moral values are "right". If you can't say that they're right, you can't fight for them.

I think you may be confusing understanding with condoning.

Not really. While it is required that to end a problem we must understand it's cause, in the case of the criminal that person has chosen, as a conscious act, to behave in a manner that they are well aware is contrary to societies values. The rapist doesn't need to commit the act, he chooses to. I find in many cases that when someone says they are trying to "understand" they are really being an "apologist for". Look at the arguments often put forward by defense counsels. "He came from a bad family", "His father left when he was young and so he had no strong male role model" or "Society made him the way he is". Sorry mate, I'm part of society and I never met the SOB and never did anything to him, so don't try to pin the blame on me. (I'm not implying that you are, that's just how the argument goes, somehow it's my fault he chose to act how he did.) He chose to act as he did and must bear the consequences.

 

There has been much talk in Oz about the Bali Nine. They tried to run drugs in a nation that has the Death Penalty. They got caught. Two will be shot. Tough. I understand why they did it, they wanted to make a lot of money. They took a risk and lucked out. They will either die or rot in jail. Boo Hoo.

 

Social Engineers I find are rarely politicians, they are usually political advisors pushing their own ideological barrow as to how the world should change to suit their view. While the effect of each change may be small, I am concerned about the cumulative effect of many changes. One change may no cause catastophic collapse, but there could be "straw that breaks the camel's back hiding somewhere. The problem is that we wouldn't recognise it if it was chewing on our shirtfront.

 

Society must evolve or stagnate and the small changes may result in a better freer society, but as you said, all we have are amateurs and the result could go the other way. Where I find them dangerous is that in their worldview no matter what they do, society will go on. History shows this to be untrue, so I find their attitude dangerous.

[Jim]

I'm aware that generalism is frowned upon in the scientific world' date=' but surely not here too?

 

I may not write well, I invented devil's advocacy, and my sense humor is dry, twisted, and often undetectable...but my educational background, resume, publication record, work history, and life experiences support my generalist view and interests.

 

Just pedal faster...[/quote']

 

I think you write well; I was only trying to make the point that you are referencing a wide range of differing topics on which no one person can be completely confident.

[Pangloss]

That has some truth to it' date=' but ultimately I think you're being too flippant. Nazism and Fascism were basically huge overreactions to perceived social threats. But they were also, in essence, social movements, and turned out to be quite dangerous indeed. The Nazis brutally subjugated their own people, it's true, but were only able to do so because the culture embraced them with open arms. So what happened? How did an entire nation (or enough of a nation to effectively be an entire nation) go insane in a few years? What the **** happened? Nothing more than a proud, aggressive culture reduced to humiliation and economic depression, and looking for hope, pride, and someone to blame. Hardly a unique circumstance, I think, and far from the only runaway social trend that could be hugely destructive.

 

The most dangerous social shifts, I think, are after some other catastrophe has occured. When the Western Roman Empire was overrun, Europe was in anarchy. The culture was fragmented and confused, its intellectual community effectively silenced. And how do the people react? By fully embracing a particular form of Christianity that is utterly destructive. They have nothing, and so the shunning of material things is appealing, although it completely stifles progress and sets back the knowledge the ancients had by millenia. Further, they want guidance from anywhere they can get it, the only two places left being thuggish warlords, to whom they happily submit, and the church, which becomes stupefyingly oppressive. What follows are the aptly named Dark Ages.

 

If a setback [i']that[/i] huge were to happen again, there might well be no recovery. Why? Because we live in a global culture, and while the Dark Ages were limited to Europe, and there were still flourishing civilizations in the Muslim world, China, etc., there wouldn't be any this time. The rennaissance in Europe was caused largely by influeence from the Middle East. Further, we've used up most of the easily available natural resources. Not much of a problem for us, since as we use more resources, we also find more ways to harvest them, and develop high-tech renewables. But it would be a huge problem for, say, a pre-industrial society. The Industrial Revolution might only be able to happen once. Or, at the very least, it would be much harder. An imminent threat? I doubt it. But a few hundred years down the line? Certainly. I consider it the most likely end to our civilization.

 

Now why do I think this sort of thing is an issue today? Well, look at the United States. We too are a proud, aggressive culture, and have become used to winning. Further, statistics reveal a startling ignorance among the populace, and a growing trend of anti-intellectual rhetoric both anecdotally in my personal life, and what I see in politicians. Reactionary ideas like "intelligent design" seek to undermine science on its own terms, we're constantly menaced by a vague and (or so we're told) utterly unsympathetic enemy in what has been dubbed the "Long War" in a particularly Orwellian flair, the President affects a silly drawl and can't (or pretends he can't, which is worse) string together a coherent sentence, and the so-called "megachurches" draw huge congregations by essentially offering to run people's lives for them. Now, all of these things will in all probability fizzle out on their own, as temporary trends. And, of course, this is mostly just America, not the whole world. But how big of a spark would there have to be to ignite something horrible? We live in dangerous times, I think.

 

Great post. But ultimately I'm afraid it's flawed, because you're not warning people about the need to react to important dangers, you're actually criticizing people for not reaction to the specific dangers that you perceive. That's not societal protection, that's ideology.

 

Specific flaws in your reasoning:

1) Christianity is not inherently destructive.

2) It isn't responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire.

3) While surely "dark ages" were not a good thing, there was a benefit that arose from them in the form of the modern, moral society, which compares quite favorably to a Roman society that does not deserve your lionization.

4) The situation today is not like the situation in the 1930s. Today we suffer from a plethora of things which we can react to, and a culture that supports and even demands immediate reaction on a godly scale. Isn't some sort of balance preferable?

 

All that having been said, I'm not being sarcastic when I say that was a great post. I found a great deal about it to agree with and I share many of your concerns, for example your analysis of the current American culture and the situation in Renaissance Europe. Such is the nature of online communication that I don't have the opportunity to nod at the appropriate places, but please consider some nodding to have taken place anyway. ;-)

[Jim]

Actually I meant both. Just because the West hasn't been militarily threatened for some time doesn't mean we should let our guard down.

 

Ditto, God yes, ditto.

 

The distaste that some sections of the populace view a military career is symptomatic of what I was referring to

.

 

The public thinks better of the individual service member than at any time since WWII.

 

The greatest threats to America are external. Our institutions are fundamentally healthy and it will take a huge shock to cause a social collapse. If we lost a city not to weather but to terrorism, I do not know what we would become. It is historically ignorant to believe this can not happen. No country can play perfect defense forever.

 

I am also worried how China will exploit GNR in the coming twenty years. Whereas we can't even agree on stem cell research, China in its current form should have no problem exploiting GNR to the fullest.

[JohnB]

If we lost a city not to weather but to terrorism, I do not know what we would become.

Neither do I, that's what worries me. The thing that stops America from truly becoming "The Great Satan" is that the two halves of your political spectrum can barely agree on what day it is. Should you all ever actually agree on a course of action then the danger to the rest of the world would be profound.

 

Combined you would have the will and militarily you would have the way to attempt to force your worldview on the rest of the planet. In the long run, I doubt you would succeed, but we would all, as they say, "Live in interesting times."

The public thinks better of the individual service member than at any time since WWII.

There is more to Western Civilisation than the opinion of the American public.

 

Like it or not, these days we are all dependent on each other, for our technologies and markets for our products. It's said that if the American economy sneezes, other economies catch a cold. the reverse is also true if enough external economies catch a cold, the American economy will catch pneumonia.

[gcol]

There is more to Western Civilisation than the opinion of the American public.

 

........... if enough external economies catch a cold' date=' the American economy will catch pneumonia.[/quote']

 

Now there are two truths, which whilst seemingly obvious to the rest of the world, in America dare not speak their name. The ostrich with its head in the sand never sees the ar*e-kick coming, but raises one helluva squawk when it hapens!