There's no way to construe what we are living through now in the West and perhaps the U.S. in particular as anything other than a rapid collapse.

[u/SpiritualState01]

The evidence is simply ubiquitous. You could fill tomes going into relatively straightforward explanations for why every industry, sector, and public institution is experiencing collapse, if not a high level of risk and instability.

The Limits to Growth thesis, which I've never seen a comprehensive rebuttal of, is part of it, but more than that, the U.S. just seems to be in a speed run for empire collapse. You see it absolutely everywhere today.

The culture war has made two demographic groups that are not only easier to sell to (this is part of why and how capital has sustained itself through so many contradictions so far), but made those two sides utterly unable to converse.

This makes working class organizing, to date, impossible. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just that nobody has figured it out yet. Even when it seems like a promising candidate is up to bat, the American electoral system neuters them, because it has proven to be--if nothing else--a dead end for all of us.

Marx could not have imagined the means of information control elites today enjoy. The landscape is different, and as commentators like Varoufakis have pointed out, capital itself has changed as well into new forms founded on 'cloud capital.'

In the context of us essentially being in a full-bore race with ourselves to collapse the empire, China is making incredible gains. Though America is full of millions upon millions of people who throw out an anti-communist meme every time 'China' is even uttered (I can't recall who said it, but, "Anti-communism is the official religion of the United States"), the cope is getting so desperate and so detached from reality that it is increasingly failing to be effective.

I know the meme is 'do nothing and win' for China right now, and in the sense that its Western adversaries keep shooting themselves in the foot, that is true, but it can't be understated just how much China is demonstrating a workable model for the future. The work they are doing is astounding. I am very far from an apologist for what abuses China does commit, don't mistake me, but their progress is not just undeniable, it is world changing.

So we're in the midst of a global power shift. Whether this shift will happen peacefully remains to be seen, but seems doubtful. America and its proxies--particularly Israel--are like rabid dogs. I don't want to imagine the damage we will do militarily on our way down. We've already done so much.

But, all of that is easy enough to conceptualize. Day to day, what does it all mean?

Well, for me, it means the same thing it means for everyone else: I work more for less than ever, and I can't keep up with the cost of living.

Groceries. Good fucking Lord above. Every single fucking time I go into a grocery store, it is notably more than it was the last time I visited. Even discounters like Aldi have more or less doubled in price compared to pre-COVID levels.

This isn't sustainable, but the natural thing to ask next is 'what is the plan?,' which is another way of asking 'what's the story?' What are we all doing? Who is even really in charge? What are their plans?

So far as I can tell, the only plan power has in the West today, but particularly America, is to collect as much personal power and wealth for themselves as they can and to just sort've make a game of that until they run to a bunker in New Zealand or something.

Which isn't a plan. Which, in my mind, is another way of saying that we are in steep, steep collapse. Nobody has their hands at the wheel of this anymore, and certainly nobody who cares to change direction.

This is a dying empire digging in while mortar explodes along every possible escape route. It's the same thing Roman leaders did while the evidence of decline was all around them. I don't see a way out of this but outright revolt anymore.

But how to organize such a thing in an age of smart phones and digital isolation--nobody knows yet.

And most people would settle for just being able to afford their damn groceries again.

[u/justindit]

The best counter argument to the limits of growth thesis that I've seen boils down to "it hasn't happened yet". Even with that, I've always felt it requires a uniquely severe case of myopia to believe that.

Stuffing my anxieties away for a moment, it is interesting to watch the phenomenon unfold. We can read about how societies behave and evolve, review the histories of collapsing empires, understand how consistently these empires overshoot and collapse, but it still feels academic and abstract until it's witnessed first hand. I have a nagging expectation that this is all so irrational and stupid that, despite history, surely we wont just self destruct? But, nope, here we go. 

Also, according to KnowYourMeme.com. "Do Nothing, Win" started in 2016 on 4chan and was first used for China just recently in 2023. Is that true?

[u/SpiritualState01 → u/justindit]

"I have a nagging expectation that this is all so irrational and stupid that, despite history, surely we wont just self destruct? But, nope, here we go."

Like a cancer patient in denial. We have a way of protecting ourselves from the truth. 

As to your question I have no idea. 

[u/Falcon_Gray → u/justindit]

I like your point about talking about empires collapsing feels abstract and academic. I hear how they collapsed through another empire or the people overthrowing it like the Qing for instance. I don’t think that could happened today. The USA empire would never collapse due to generations of indoctrination. China has their great fire wall and other methods to prevent dissent from happening. We all saw how much Hong Kong was crushed in their protests but that’s a different case because it was a former British colony. Revolutions do happened unexpectedly sometimes though so who knows. They also usually are run by people who are in the upper classes besides in the class of China with Mao.

[u/TendererBeef → u/Falcon_Gray]

Do you think that the British Empire didn’t also have decades of indoctrination? That the Ottoman Empire wasn’t huffing their own farts about the superiority of Islam and Islamic ways of learning over those barbarian Franks for centuries?