• jack [he/him, comrade/them]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    13
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    What does that look like to you? The US’s capacity for imperialist projection is currently retracting rather quickly. Is that collapse? Does it need to be totally incapable of anything other than local projection?

    Or is this internal? Truly dramatic political change? Revolution? An end to the formal entity The United States of America? Food systems failure?

  • Owl [he/him]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    262 years ago

    Gotta define collapse.

    The domestic system of governance? Already collapsing.

    The ability of the state to project military power? A decade or two for most of the world, an extra decade for South America.

    A formal entity called the United States with structure derived from its constitution? Could be a thousand years.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      162 years ago

      A formal entity called the United States with structure derived from its constitution? Could be a thousand years.

      My pet theory is that the US will eventually go the way of the HRE. Just like there was an emperor, there’s going to be a president in Washington DC for centuries to come. He’s going to be a very important person who’ll have soldiers in fancy uniforms saluting him, but the centre of real political power will have moved somewhere else.

  • CyborgMarx [any, any]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    252 years ago

    If collapse is defined as swathes of the country either being abandoned or placed under indefinite martial law and if current trends in terms of housing, education, health, wages, pollution, infrastructure and climate change continue

    Then around 20-25 years, 10-15 years if the worse case scenarios for climate change become reality

    • Kuori [she/her]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      42 years ago

      if the worse case scenarios for climate change become reality

      essentially guaranteed at this point

  • sicklemode [they/them]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    41
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Long enough to outlast your youth and the best years of your life, if you still are in the prime of it.

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    7
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    depends on what you mean by “collapse.” i think we’re probably going to see a constitutional amendment that essentially declaws most or all of the non-military powers of the federal government in the next 50 years. i think we’re already seeing the mass social murder of the poor, and i believe it will escalate without stopping as long as it doesn’t touch the middle class.

  • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    192 years ago

    Going based on pure vibes and ass-pulling:

    • Irreversible decline: We are here.

    • “The sick man of [continent]”: By 2050s.

    • Losing most imperial possessions: A few decades after “The sick man of [continent]”

    • Minor Balkinization (secessionist movements): ~2070s

    • Major Balkinization (rump state surrounded by successor republics): 2100-2110s

    • Formal end of these United States of America: The rump state could easily truck along for centuries, especially if one of the successor republics manages to conquer the rump state and retroactively claims itself as a continuation of the rump state.

    My vibes-based analysis is unable to incorporate climate change into its analysis, but climate change will obviously speed up the timeline.

  • kristina [she/her]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    172 years ago

    us federal government says significant chances of societal collapse due to climate change in certain areas plus civil unrest by mid 2030-2040, so ill say if its going to happen any time soon, itd be then

      • kristina [she/her]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        14
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        Idr, was a report posted here at some point from the department of homeland security I believe

        • Juice [none/use name]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          182 years ago

          I remember back in 2015-16 when a report was released by Langley that basically spelled out that they were expecting the environment and economy to collapse, and the plan was to keep adding cops.

          Back then I was like damn, but now I wish I saved it somewhere because that shit has been scrubbed or buried.

          Anyway thanks for checking

      • Azarova [they/them]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        42 years ago

        In addition to what others have answered, Gwynne Dyer’s talk Geopolitics in a Hotter World talks a fair bit about this too. Most governments are preparing for climate unrest in the coming decades.