How do you see current society playing out? Headed towards Civil War Lite?

[Larry]

I dunno. Seems like every election I'm wondering if the zombies are winning. 

[Barry.Randolphe]

12 hours ago, Destino said:

Bakker is talking demon zombies?  That’s the worst variety I’ve come across in fiction.  Usually the only question with zombies is fast or slow.  Fast types are near certain death, but demons zombies are worse.  Besides being fast, they’re also as smart as the demon controlling them and can infect animals.  

 

When people think “I could survive the zombie apocalypse” these are definitely not the kind of zombies they’re thinking of.  

 

Thank you for this - I don't need to go ask my local crazy person for a breakdown

[Larry]

1 hour ago, Barry.Randolphe said:

 

Thank you for this - I don't need to go ask my local crazy person for a breakdown

 

Who needs local crazy persons, when we've got the Internet?  

[The Sisko]

On 5/31/2018 at 9:01 PM, Bang said:

...Now, as to specifics,, i don't know that we'll see a populist revolutionary coup attempted in the traditional sense,, even the most moronic confederate flag headband wearing fatass NRA doughboy has to be smarter than that. No one is rushing the Capitol...

Worst. Prediction. EVAR!! Never underestimate the stupidity of ‘Muricuns! 😃😃

[Bang]

12 hours ago, The Sisko said:

Worst. Prediction. EVAR!! Never underestimate the stupidity of ‘Muricuns! 😃😃

🤣 my fresh faced optimism got progressively worse over the next two years 🤣

~Bang

[China]

The ‘End Times’ Are Here, Mississippi Elections Chief Says, Calling For Christian Leaders to Heed the Signs

 

Mississippi needs Christian leadership to steward the state through the coming tribulations as Armageddon draws near, Secretary of State Michael Watson, the top elections official, announced at a prayer event alongside other state leaders today.

 

“I believe we need Christian men and women in office today more than ever before. And if you’re a believer, if you’re a member of the church, you understand the signs of the times right now,” Watson, the son of a pentecostal preacher from the Assembly of God denomination, said today. “In the last few years, no more than ever before in the history of the church, we see the end times.”

 

Watson made the comments during the Mississippi National Day of Prayer event at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. The organizers behind the event are part of a national evangelical organization, the National Day of Prayer Task Force.

 

‘Seven Spheres of Influence’
The event in Jackson included leaders from each of what the national task force describes as “the seven centers of power” it wants to influence: government, military, media and arts, business and commerce, education, church and family. In its press release announcing today’s event, National Day of Prayer Mississippi called them “the seven spheres of influence in our culture.”

 

The organization borrows the idea from the New Apostolic Reformation movement’s “seven mountains mandate” theology, which teaches that God has begun “raising up” Christian apostles and prophets in the United States to take dominion over the “seven mountains” (or “spheres”) of political and cultural influence. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

I'm guessing they don't believe in the concept of separation of church and state.

[China]

THE FUTURE DYSTOPIC HELLSCAPE IS UPON US

 

BARRETT MOORE HAD ordered 2 million N95 masks, held enough freeze-dried food to feed families hiding from global Armageddon for decades, owned a small arsenal of guns, and fortified a pole barn in which to wait out the collapse of civilization. But he had something no one else could buy: knowledge that the end was coming and that the supply chains would snap; the best hope your family had was holing up in his northern Michigan compound while things fell apart. The price for this service would run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to be paid in installments. Starting in 2007, the former private military executive (who boasts of his special forces connections and a past life as a spy deployed to Australia) offered to friends and associates with enough money a chance at private salvation, claiming that he and his team could whisk them away from jihadis, electromagnetic pulses, pandemics, or any other existential threat when the great, imminent collapse of the United States came to pass. He called this service “Life Continuity.”

 

Moore had spent much of his professional life preparing for the worst and watching institutions fail. His career in profiting from unpreparedness dates back to the Iraq War, when Triple Canopy, the mercenary firm he co-founded in 2002, cashed in on the American military’s profoundly unprepared invasion. In 2009, Triple Canopy took over a billion-dollar contract directly from Blackwater after that company became embroiled in one of its violent scandals. But Moore never made it past 2004 at his own outfit: He left Triple Canopy after the company sued him over accusations of “unjust enrichment,” intellectual property theft, piracy, violating of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and using his “power as CEO to force Triple Canopy to enter into a ‘sham’ licensing agreement,” according to court documents.

 

The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2005, and Moore began a new career as an end-times steward three years later. He spoke of himself in bold terms: a man of decisiveness, daring, and business acumen. In a corporate biography appearing on one of his many personal websites, Moore described himself as a “seasoned, contrarian business executive and serial entrepreneur with extensive strategy, security and supply chain experience,” having “spearheaded a series of start-ups in the manufacturing, government contracting, technology, international business, and intelligence/security sectors.” He was always sure to talk up his more unusual bona fides: “Mr. Moore served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, specializing in issues related to the non-proliferation of biological weapons and related weapons of mass destruction.” As recently as February 2020, Moore claimed to have been dispatched to infiltrate an Australian car import operation by the CIA as part of a mission to apprehend its leader, “a major international crime figure thought to be trafficking in bio-weapons.”

 

As Moore’s fortunes ebbed and flowed, so too would his venture abruptly shift in scope and detail (as well as corporate monikers, à la Blackwater). But no matter how many LLCs Moore shifted through, selling Life Continuity remained a constant. As a product, Life Continuity works like the grandest of all possible insurance plans, a hedge against doomsday geared toward the right-leaning rich. Just as the most opulent health and dental plans entitle patients to spa-like care in the case of personal misfortune, Moore offered a vision of serenity and safety in case of global mayhem: the hope that while cities burned and nation states crumbled, your family could continue their way of life. It was an almost biblical promise of salvation and hope amid chaos, right down to promotional materials that read like they were plucked from Scripture. At one point, Moore’s venture was named Sovereign Deed. His hideaway for the chosen was called the Haven.

 

Click on the link for the full story

[MrSilverMaC]

https://apple.news/ARCk-Oe3KQ-e1ZjCBxFYbDw
 

MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule.

A 1972 MIT study predicted that rapid economic growth would lead to societal collapse in the mid 21st century. A new paper shows we’re unfortunately right on schedule.

A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has found that a famous, decades-old warning from MIT about the risk of industrial civilization collapsing appears to be accurate based on new empirical data.

As the world looks forward to a rebound in economic growth following the devastation wrought by the pandemic, the research raises urgent questions about the risks of attempting to simply return to the pre-pandemic ‘normal.’

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse. Their system dynamics model published by the Club of Rome identified impending ‘limits to growth’ (LtG) that meant industrial civilization was on track to collapse sometime within the 21st century, due to overexploitation of planetary resources.

The controversial MIT analysis generated heated debate, and was widely derided at the time by pundits who misrepresented its findings and methods. But the analysis has now received stunning vindication from a study written by a senior director at professional services giant KPMG, one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms as measured by global revenue.

 

Limits to growth

The study was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040.

The study represents the first time a top analyst working within a mainstream global corporate entity has taken the ‘limits to growth’ model seriously. Its author, Gaya Herrington, is Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States. However, she decided to undertake the research as a personal project to understand how well the MIT model stood the test of time.

The study itself is not affiliated or conducted on behalf of KPMG, and does not necessarily reflect the views of KPMG. Herrington performed the research as an extension of her Masters thesis at Harvard University in her capacity as an advisor to the Club of Rome. However, she is quoted explaining her project on the KPMG website as follows:

“Given the unappealing prospect of collapse, I was curious to see which scenarios were aligning most closely with empirical data today. After all, the book that featured this world model was a bestseller in the 70s, and by now we’d have several decades of empirical data which would make a comparison meaningful. But to my surprise I could not find recent attempts for this. So I decided to do it myself.”

Titled ‘Update to limits to growth: Comparing theWorld3 model with empirical data’, the study attempts to assess how MIT’s ‘World3’ model stacks up against new empirical data. Previous studies that attempted to do this found that the model’s worst-case scenarios accurately reflected real-world developments. However, the last study of this nature was completed in 2014.

 

The risk of collapse

Herrington’s new analysis examines data across 10 key variables, namely population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial output, food production, services, non-renewable resources, persistent pollution, human welfare, and ecological footprint. She found that the latest data most closely aligns with two particular scenarios, ‘BAU2’ (business-as-usual) and ‘CT’ (comprehensive technology).

“BAU2 and CT scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” the study concludes. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible. Even when paired with unprecedented technological development and adoption, business as usual as modelled by LtG would inevitably lead to declines in industrial capital, agricultural output, and welfare levels within this century.”

Study author Gaya Herrington told Motherboard that in the MIT World3 models, collapse “does not mean that humanity will cease to exist,” but rather that “economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living… In terms of timing, the BAU2 scenario shows a steep decline to set in around 2040.”

…

 

 

more at link.

 

 

 

sorry for any crappy formatting, it’s pasted from apple news.

[TradeTheBeal!]

The nice thing about predicting catastrophe, is that you can never really be wrong.

 

Catastrophe is surely coming, always.  Whether goofballs predict it or not.

 

if you wanna impress the Tailgate, predict good things.  Bit more of a challenge, I think.

[NoCalMike]

First thing, climate will eventually destroy everyone unless something is done, but lets put that aside for a few moments.  Let's focus specifically on economics.  America, and the world at large actually is sort of at this crossroads, the wealthy have been absorbing a bigger share of the pie continually for the last 30+years.   Trickle down never really went away regardless of the President, it just might have gone sideways for a few years or even still gone in the wrong direction just at a lower pace for a little bit.  

 

As long as populations continue to grow, and resources continue to be used up, there is going to have to be an alternate way to live on Earth in a few hundred years or less.  With the way food is mass produced now (meat probably most dangerously, but fish, dairy, & produce as well) it is easy to predict outbreaks of something or industry unable to keep up with demand so they will continue to take shortcuts, get regulations slashed so they can put out an inferior product that they can make more of etc etc etc....

 

So I kind of got off on a tangent there (been smoking a bit) but what I was going to say before all that splashed onto the page is that the uber wealthy are going to have to either come up with some master plan to make the world a better place for the masses or things are going to get ugly for those us not born behind ivory towers.   The government while not always bad, is still too way entrenched in industry money from every direction. 

[PeterMP]

10 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

First thing, climate will eventually destroy everyone unless something is done, but lets put that aside for a few moments.  Let's focus specifically on economics.  America, and the world at large actually is sort of at this crossroads, the wealthy have been absorbing a bigger share of the pie continually for the last 30+years.   Trickle down never really went away regardless of the President, it just might have gone sideways for a few years or even still gone in the wrong direction just at a lower pace for a little bit.  

 

As long as populations continue to grow, and resources continue to be used up, there is going to have to be an alternate way to live on Earth in a few hundred years or less.  With the way food is mass produced now (meat probably most dangerously, but fish, dairy, & produce as well) it is easy to predict outbreaks of something or industry unable to keep up with demand so they will continue to take shortcuts, get regulations slashed so they can put out an inferior product that they can make more of etc etc etc....

 

So I kind of got off on a tangent there (been smoking a bit) but what I was going to say before all that splashed onto the page is that the uber wealthy are going to have to either come up with some master plan to make the world a better place for the masses or things are going to get ugly for those us not born behind ivory towers.   The government while not always bad, is still too way entrenched in industry money from every direction. 

 

It seems highly unlikely that climate change will actually destroy everyone.

 

Also most of our food issues have to do with priorities/resource uses, and it seems likely that if we have food issues going forward the same will be true.

 

American dairy farmers dumping out milk to keep milk prices high (and other examples of resource waste by farmers in the US and other countries) is something that happens pretty regularly.

[The Sisko]

21 hours ago, MrSilverMaC said:

https://apple.news/ARCk-Oe3KQ-e1ZjCBxFYbDw
 

MIT Predicted in 1972 That Society Will Collapse This Century. New Research Shows We’re on Schedule.

A 1972 MIT study predicted that rapid economic growth would lead to societal collapse in the mid 21st century. A new paper shows we’re unfortunately right on schedule.

A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has found that a famous, decades-old warning from MIT about the risk of industrial civilization collapsing appears to be accurate based on new empirical data.

As the world looks forward to a rebound in economic growth following the devastation wrought by the pandemic, the research raises urgent questions about the risks of attempting to simply return to the pre-pandemic ‘normal.’

In 1972, a team of MIT scientists got together to study the risks of civilizational collapse. Their system dynamics model published by the Club of Rome identified impending ‘limits to growth’ (LtG) that meant industrial civilization was on track to collapse sometime within the 21st century, due to overexploitation of planetary resources.

The controversial MIT analysis generated heated debate, and was widely derided at the time by pundits who misrepresented its findings and methods. But the analysis has now received stunning vindication from a study written by a senior director at professional services giant KPMG, one of the 'Big Four' accounting firms as measured by global revenue.

 

Limits to growth

The study was published in the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology in November 2020 and is available on the KPMG website. It concludes that the current business-as-usual trajectory of global civilization is heading toward the terminal decline of economic growth within the coming decade—and at worst, could trigger societal collapse by around 2040.

The study represents the first time a top analyst working within a mainstream global corporate entity has taken the ‘limits to growth’ model seriously. Its author, Gaya Herrington, is Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States. However, she decided to undertake the research as a personal project to understand how well the MIT model stood the test of time.

The study itself is not affiliated or conducted on behalf of KPMG, and does not necessarily reflect the views of KPMG. Herrington performed the research as an extension of her Masters thesis at Harvard University in her capacity as an advisor to the Club of Rome. However, she is quoted explaining her project on the KPMG website as follows:

“Given the unappealing prospect of collapse, I was curious to see which scenarios were aligning most closely with empirical data today. After all, the book that featured this world model was a bestseller in the 70s, and by now we’d have several decades of empirical data which would make a comparison meaningful. But to my surprise I could not find recent attempts for this. So I decided to do it myself.”

Titled ‘Update to limits to growth: Comparing theWorld3 model with empirical data’, the study attempts to assess how MIT’s ‘World3’ model stacks up against new empirical data. Previous studies that attempted to do this found that the model’s worst-case scenarios accurately reflected real-world developments. However, the last study of this nature was completed in 2014.

 

The risk of collapse

Herrington’s new analysis examines data across 10 key variables, namely population, fertility rates, mortality rates, industrial output, food production, services, non-renewable resources, persistent pollution, human welfare, and ecological footprint. She found that the latest data most closely aligns with two particular scenarios, ‘BAU2’ (business-as-usual) and ‘CT’ (comprehensive technology).

“BAU2 and CT scenarios show a halt in growth within a decade or so from now,” the study concludes. “Both scenarios thus indicate that continuing business as usual, that is, pursuing continuous growth, is not possible. Even when paired with unprecedented technological development and adoption, business as usual as modelled by LtG would inevitably lead to declines in industrial capital, agricultural output, and welfare levels within this century.”

Study author Gaya Herrington told Motherboard that in the MIT World3 models, collapse “does not mean that humanity will cease to exist,” but rather that “economic and industrial growth will stop, and then decline, which will hurt food production and standards of living… In terms of timing, the BAU2 scenario shows a steep decline to set in around 2040.”

…

 

 

more at link.

 

 

 

sorry for any crappy formatting, it’s pasted from apple news.

So it looks like Malthus wasn’t all that far off after all. I’ve always thought he was pretty much right in spite of the fact that subsequent technological advances he couldn’t have known about would forestall the inevitable. What is a surprise is seeing it start to play out in my lifetime. Now that wasn’t supposed to happen.😒

[China]

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Animal farm seems like it should be a little closer to brave new world than a handmaids tale. But I like it anyway.

Edited September 12, 2021 by CousinsCowgirl84

[The Sisko]

I find it more than a little ironic that Animal Farm was used as a tome on the perils of communism when I was in school and it turns out that a right-wing administration ended up emulating it to a scary degree.

[China]

Earth is getting a black box to record events that lead to the downfall of civilization

 

An indestructible "black box" is set to be built upon a granite plain on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia, in early 2022. Its mission: Record "every step we take" toward climate catastrophe, providing a record for future civilizations to understand what caused our demise, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.   

 

 

The project, led by marketing communications company Clemenger BBDO in collaboration with University of Tasmania researchers, is currently in beta and has already begun collecting information at its website. 

 

The structure is designed to be about the size of a city bus, made of 3-inch-thick steel and topped with solar panels. Its interior will be filled with "storage drives" that gather climate change-related data such as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and average temperatures. In addition, using an algorithm, it will scour the web for tweets, posts, news and headlines. 

 

The developers estimate that storage will run out in 30 to 50 years, according to the ABC. There are plans to increase the storage capacity and provide a more long-term solution, but it's unclear how the structure will be maintained -- how its solar panels might be replaced before the end of civilization, how well those drives hold up after decades and how impervious the vault will be to vandalism or sabotage. Its remote location, around four hours from the closest major city, is one deterrent -- but will that be enough? 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

On 7/14/2021 at 9:28 PM, TryTheBeal! said:

 

 

if you wanna impress the Tailgate, predict good things.  Bit more of a challenge, I think.

 

New Tool album? 

[TradeTheBeal!]

1 hour ago, Spaceman Spiff said:

 

New Tool album? 

New, old…it’s still the same 3 riffs.

[Fan since a Fetus]

[Chachie]

On 4/8/2021 at 12:04 AM, The Sisko said:

Worst. Prediction. EVAR!! Never underestimate the stupidity of ‘Muricuns! 😃😃

 

On 4/8/2021 at 12:44 PM, Bang said:

🤣 my fresh faced optimism got progressively worse over the next two years 🤣

~Bang

 

 

 

This morning I thought this was a new thread and opened page 1. I saw that @Bang had posted there and read his remarks. @The Sisko, you beat me to it. WOW. 

[The Sisko]

12 hours ago, China said:

Earth is getting a black box to record events that lead to the downfall of civilization

 

An indestructible "black box" is set to be built upon a granite plain on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia, in early 2022. Its mission: Record "every step we take" toward climate catastrophe, providing a record for future civilizations to understand what caused our demise, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.   

 

 

The project, led by marketing communications company Clemenger BBDO in collaboration with University of Tasmania researchers, is currently in beta and has already begun collecting information at its website. 

 

The structure is designed to be about the size of a city bus, made of 3-inch-thick steel and topped with solar panels. Its interior will be filled with "storage drives" that gather climate change-related data such as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and average temperatures. In addition, using an algorithm, it will scour the web for tweets, posts, news and headlines. 

 

The developers estimate that storage will run out in 30 to 50 years, according to the ABC. There are plans to increase the storage capacity and provide a more long-term solution, but it's unclear how the structure will be maintained -- how its solar panels might be replaced before the end of civilization, how well those drives hold up after decades and how impervious the vault will be to vandalism or sabotage. Its remote location, around four hours from the closest major city, is one deterrent -- but will that be enough? 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

What makes them think there will be future civilizations if things continue to play out the way they have so far? Besides, there's not really a need for it. They could just package up a copy of the well known documentary, Idiocracy and call it a day. Anyone watching that would at least get the gist of what happened. This isn't an entirely bad idea though. This might be useful to future alien civilizations that visit the planet and undertake archeological research to find out what happened to the allegedly intelligent, extinct species that once dominated earth.

Edited December 8, 2021 by The Sisko

[China]

America is ‘closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,’ CIA adviser says

 

One of the world’s leading experts on political violence and terrorism is sounding the alarm on the state of democracy in America, warning that the country is increasingly on the path to being caught up in the throes of a second civil war.

 

Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, has served on an advisory panel run by the Central Intelligence Agency for the past several years that aims to predict where in the world a “civil war, political violence, and instability is likely to break out,” she said in an interview with CNN on Sunday, where she discussed her new book out January, “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Dan T.]

On 7/14/2021 at 9:28 PM, TryTheBeal! said:

 

if you wanna impress the Tailgate, predict good things.  Bit more of a challenge, I think.

 

I predict that the butts of Washington Football team players will never again be cold this season, even during away games.

[China]

If a Humanity-Ending Asteroid Heads Our Way, Will Anyone Believe Scientists?

 

In the new movie Don’t Look Up, available on Netflix on Friday, astronomers played by Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio try to tell the world that a comet 9 kilometers wide will collide with the Earth in six months, utterly destroying most life and ending human civilization. This is decidedly not Armageddon but a dark comedy. When the astronomers appear on a talk show to get the message out, one host asks if the comet can land on his ex-wife’s house, and the other chides the astronomers for not being light enough for their morning segment. Media training is recommended.

 

It’s a cliché that every disaster movie begins with someone ignoring a scientist, because our real-life disasters start the same way. Don’t Look Up is a thinly veiled critique of society’s feeble response to scientists’ warnings about the existential threat of climate change, and has special relevancy now because of the inability of many of us to understand and act on what scientists tell us about how viruses work. As an astrophysicist, I have felt sympathy for scientists trying to convey these dangers: Climate change is happening on scales too large to perceive easily; viruses are too small to be seen directly. I have also smugly assumed that if a mountain-size comet, plainly visible in the sky, were barreling to Earth at 25,000 mph, my colleagues and I could communicate the dangers.

 

Don’t Look Up has made me seriously question that. No one in the film grasps what must be done, the astronomers included. Like anyone watching this movie, I rooted for the astronomers trying to save the world and booed the talking heads and other idiots who couldn’t see the danger. But as a scientist, too, I also found myself shaking my head and asking: Are we just as unteachable?

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

My problem with this premise is this:  if there is a humanity-ending comet headed our way it doesn't matter whether or not we believe the scientists, because humanity will end regardless.  I don't buy into the notion that we can successfully launch a nuclear missile to redirect or destroy the asteroid or comet before it hits.

[LD0506]

19 hours ago, China said:

My problem with this premise is this:  if there is a humanity-ending comet headed our way it doesn't matter whether or not we believe the scientists, because humanity will end regardless.  I don't buy into the notion that we can successfully launch a nuclear missile to redirect or destroy the asteroid or comet before it hits.

 

Draft all the MAGAs into the Space Force

Shoot them into its path, broadcasting their bilge and the asteroid flinches, repulsed by this tactic