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The issues discussed in this thread apply every bit as much to the rest of Europe, and I don't think Germany, France, etc would fare much better, than the UK.
Today France is the only major EU country that is food secure, and I acknowledge that's both a moving definition and target.
But what kind of an event would be big enough to cause some kind of total collapse on a global scale?
In the past natural disasters have only wiped small areas, world war II turned some areas into hell on earth but never on a national scale. Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
I'd say you'd need something on the scale of a nuclear war which basically isn't surviveable in the UK.
But what kind of an event would be big enough to cause some kind of total collapse on a global scale?
You don't need global scale, just some event that prevents people accessing their assets (i.e. an extended "bank holiday", or power outage)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glokta
In the past natural disasters have only wiped small areas, world war II turned some areas into hell on earth but never on a national scale. Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
Part of the reason for that was goods and services were provided locally and had stores held locally. Now most systems operate on JIT (just in time) average US stockpiles of foods for instance amount to 3 days in the commercial pipelines, there's no reason to think that the UK is any different.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glokta
I'd say you'd need something on the scale of a nuclear war which basically isn't surviveable in the UK.
Actually all evidence points to the overall system becoming less robust as we become more technically dependent. We need electrical power to provide banking and retail services (no power no ability to process credit cards) if we have power but no means to access credit card processing (i.e. a DDoS at Visa/MC/AA/DC) then even with power no credit card processing, no credit card processing limits purchasing to cash only purchases. How much cash do you have? Moreover a significant failure across the internet means telecoms themselves fail (almost all voice lines in the national and international trunks are just IP packets running on the Internet backbones). If we still have credit card processing but no power, then there's still issues, perishable foods, water, gas (gasoline/petrol and natural gas for heating) all need electrical power in some form to deliver to end customers (or meter at the destination).
Power is something we depend upon and is highly insecure, a proton storm of sufficient size can cause failures in the national grid, in 1859 we had just such a storm (the Carrington Event), telegraph operators were electrocuted from the EM pulses traveling along telegraph lines. Imagine the effects if that happened today, we've millions of more miles of cables, and they're ubiquitous not limited to telegraph offices. High altitude nuclear explosions (not war, but one device) in the right place could knock out most of Europe's power transmission and generation capability for months.
But what kind of an event would be big enough to cause some kind of total collapse on a global scale?
In the past natural disasters have only wiped small areas, world war II turned some areas into hell on earth but never on a national scale. Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
I'd say you'd need something on the scale of a nuclear war which basically isn't surviveable in the UK.
300 trillion dollars in derivatives going 'poof' with a systemic financial event would do the trick - it's something to be watchful of with the global economy currently going down the pan. However, as said, this is not related to the topic of the thread.
I don't think anyone (else) is taking into account that a system wide and societal collapse would see a decimation of the UK population, most people have no way of replacing any food they use up once the stores are empty, yes I know in the cities there will be some looting but that's only redistributing it there is still a finite amount it just gets moved around. once the stores are empty there will be a large scale die off through starvation/disease/accidents and suicide. give it 6 months and the population will be a fraction of what it once was.
I really didn't want to raise the issue of guns in this thread, but now that it's already been corrupted.......
Walmart is the largest seller of firearms in the US.
Let everyone have all the guns they want, just also bring on the ammo tax, $10 a round would be my number.
As Chis Rock or Dave Chapelle joked, "I'd love to shoot you, but I can't afford it".
Walmart plans to stop selling AR-15 assault rifles and other modern sporting rifles, a move the company says is motivated not by politics but by falling consumer demand.
Even if the government were to temporarily put a $10 per round tax, it would be short lived as the lawsuits would result in the SCOTUS ruling it un-Constitutional. Additionally, many a person would just make their own ammo. The only reason more don't is because they are lazy. But rest assured people would start buying their own ammo presses in the interim.
As to WallyWorld and their choice to stop selling the semi-automatic (note I didn't uses the inaccurate liberal term "assault rifle") AR-15, it is the most popular rifle in America, but you can only sell so many of them. So it does not surprise me that after people went nuts buying them left and right when Obama's 2nd term started, the country is at a saturation point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glokta
But what kind of an event would be big enough to cause some kind of total collapse on a global scale?
In the past natural disasters have only wiped small areas, world war II turned some areas into hell on earth but never on a national scale. Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
I'd say you'd need something on the scale of a nuclear war which basically isn't surviveable in the UK.
A major solar flare, asteroid impact or volcano eruption are but three natural disasters that could easily create a global crisis.
Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
It onlay looks that way if you aren't familiar with the society that existed before the Black Death. At that time the feudal system was firmly in control of Europe.
As the plague killed masses of people across generations, it simply became nearly impossible to keep someone as a serf if the plague passed through the area. Too many people died to reliably say what a person's legal status was, and with the nobility struck down just as the poor were the kings could no longer trust their military strength to the pledge of a man who might be dead alongside his entire before you even knew he was sick. At the same time cities became ghost towns on even the rumor of plague, and kings had to grant extended rights to the cities as well as their inhabitants in order to get people to move back.
As the plague went on the taxes levied were in terms of money instead of manpower. The kings came to depend on cities and their inhabitants as their main support instead of the nobility. Merchants and tradesmen gained wealth that rivaled and surpassed the landed gentry.
It is easy to imagine that an accumulation of new technologies and knowledge over the centuries would have inevitably created the modern era. The truth is that the Black Death killed the feudal system that created and sustained the Medieval Era, and that in grasping blindly for something for the remains of European civilization to hold on to the conditions that would allow the creation of the modern world came into being.
But what kind of an event would be big enough to cause some kind of total collapse on a global scale?
In the past natural disasters have only wiped small areas, world war II turned some areas into hell on earth but never on a national scale. Diesase like the black death killed alot of people, but again society was nowhere close to a collapse.
I'd say you'd need something on the scale of a nuclear war which basically isn't surviveable in the UK.
As others have noted it doesn't require of a global event. Cyber warfare is now considered such a threat, that a few years ago US Congress declassified the budget for it, in order to raise public awareness. Currently stands at $5B a year and rising. Power and water supply hacking are considered by far the biggest threat. Bad to mess with the residential water supply, worse to turn off the water supply to the cooling systems of all the nuclear reactors.
Read the above. this is going to cause social unrest in europe.lets see how the "natives" react to the invasion.to semi quote the film field of dreams(substitute field for country)"if you let them in they will come.
It is already causing social unrest in some places, some "migrant centres" in Germany have been attacked. countries across Europe are starting to close their borders, probably too late I fear.
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