When Is Civilization Going To Collapse Already?

There’s a new essay from a conservative magazine speculating about “the coming global disorder.” It starts by suggesting that Japan’s and China’s recent squabbling over a small island might lead to World War III and proceeds to walk through five scenarios in which different parts of the globe could descend into disarray in the next five or so years. It’s not nearly as apocalyptic as your run-of-the-mill cherry-picked doom-porn Zero Hedge post, and contains a lot of interesting history and present, but I still think it’s too pessimistic about our possible futures.

In an essay brave enough to imagine so many specifics, it’s easy to pick at the most egregious details. Bret Stephens seems to understand financial markets even more poorly than I do if he thinks it’s even possible for the stock market to drop 1,600 points following an Obama victory; that would imply that 1) markets were very much expecting a Romney victory and 2) very much disliked the surprise they got. Based on all the latest and smartest estimates of an Obama victory (70%+) and the current direction of the stock market (up), the stock market is most likely already pricing in an Obama victory, and what’s more, it seems to actually like it!

But that’s a trivial criticism, as the overall purpose of that section is to pretend a future where the US has “entered a long and perhaps irreversible period of decline,” and I could certainly see that happening in the near future if, say, appetite for US debt finally dries up. And there are certainly looming problems that could believably reach new crises in the next few years regarding Iran, the EU, China, and the Arab Spring.

Overall, though, I think the piece suffers from that peculiar neoconservative lack of imagination that everything all over the world could actually be OK somehow even if the US military wasn’t always all over the place trying to protect our definitions of democracy while propping up the regimes we happen to like. It’s true that China’s economy shows growing signs of instability, but I think it’s more likely that the Arab Spring uprisings will jump the Great Wall and dismantle China’s authoritative leadership, and less likely that “Chinese leaders will seek to divert growing popular discontent with party rule into a series of confrontations with China’s neighbors,” especially considering all the trade their economy relies on these days.

And speaking of the Arab Spring, there have been plenty of uneasy signs that al-Qaeada-y extremists are gaining power in several of the post-dictator power vacuums, but they at least seem to be failing in Libya, where thousands of citizens literally ran them out of town yesterday. Of course, it’s the other countries that Stephens is more concerned about, but I’m hopeful that this won’t be the last we’ve seen of that; Muslims with jobs, bread, and Facebook are much harder to turn into terrorists.

I will be least surprised if Stephen’s musings about Europe’s economics come true, as their debt crisis seems unavoidable, although it’s managed to stagger on for many months with no noticeable progression. But I don’t share the neoconservative fears of “European defense spending” being “gutted even further.” I’m also not convinced that the seeming inevitability of a nuclear Iran will “entail easily foreseeable and utterly disastrous consequences” – though I’m admittedly uncertain enough to be glad I don’t have to accept the responsibility of deciding what to do about it.

Maybe I have too much faith in the historical decline of violence and the ability of technology and the growth of trade and general economic progress to soften the grievances between us. Humans are certainly still capable of terrible things, and technology is also making some of those things cheaper and easier to accomplish. My religious views give me fear in the seeming decline of hearts changed by the only true source of love and peace, but also hope that God will never allow things to get too bad. I wasn’t old enough to see the destruction of the World Wars or live under the specter of the Cold War, so perhaps I simply can’t imagine how terrible things could be – but at the same time I can see how things have gotten so much better and could theoretically continue to do so. Given mankind’s tendency to always predict too much doom, I feel justified in leaning to the side of optimism. I’m just not sure how far I dare to lean…

4 thoughts on “When Is Civilization Going To Collapse Already?”

  1. I totally agree with all of your points. On average, the stock market does better when a Democrat is in office. Maybe Obama will be an exception, but I doubt it. He is unlikely to commit us to one stupid war, let alone two. He is governing much like Eisenhower. There is a lot not to like about how he handled the Libyan situation, but at least it didn’t cost us much money. He may have broken a few rules (constitutionally) and caused unrest in neighboring Mali, but he did help the rebels overthrow a man who killed 43 Americans (and countless others). We got a lot of bang for very little buck (Ike would be proud).

    It is more likely that we will continue our current state, which is very similar to “Japan’s lost decade”. If you talk to folks who lived through it, they would say that it wasn’t that bad, just not great. Except for the recession, the U. S. has lived like this since 9/11, when we reacted just as the terrorists hoped we would, by overreacting and causing turmoil in the Middle East. That sensibility seems to be dying off, which is a good thing. It is too bad we didn’t react the way that we did when Sputnik went into orbit. We started a space race, of course, but we also invested in math and science education. That is exactly what we need to do now, to deal with the problems of the next generation.

    I completely agree with your points about less war, not more. China won’t start too much trouble for the simple reason of demographics. They don’t want to lose too many young men (they don’t have that many). The Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent are a different situation, of course, but if they see economic growth, then we will get through this difficult period just fine.

    The only thing I worry about is global warming. Sometimes the doomsayers are right. They were right about AIDS, for example. Unfortunately, global warming is exactly the type of problem that we have a hard time solving. There is a delay between the cause and effect. The science is confusing and extremely complicated. There are plenty of winners and losers (on both sides) who will try and obfuscate the science. It requires global cooperation. Having everyone else do their part, while you do nothing, is actually better for you overall. For example, if we taxed gasoline at a really high level to bring down our consumption, it would mean the rest of the world pays less. All that being said, I do think it is possible that we will come out of this just fine. Never underestimate the power of technology. In this case it means finding ways to accomplish the same thing with less global warming emissions as well as finding ways to remove the excess that is already there.

    1. Thanks for your comment, just a couple of nitpicks:

      First, on the stock market, I’m not so much talking about averages when GOP/Dem are in office (I’ve also heard inflation has been higher under Dems, which could cancel that out?), but just the simple fact that the market always prices in current expectations about the future, and current expectations are that Obama will win (poll analysis, intrade markets, etc), yet the stock market is up. So the only way an Obama victory could crash the stock market was if the stock market was up because it was strongly expecting a Romney victory that it didn’t get – but no one’s expecting that right now, or at least definitely not strongly enough that the opposite would crash it.

      Second, I barely missed the AIDS scare, but my understanding is the doomsayers were wrong, or at least the worst ones. The awesome Wired article quotes Oprah saying “Research studies now project… one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS… by 1990.” Obviously nothing even close to that ended up happening. But regardless, I’m also optimistic that technology will help with global warming (assuming it’s real 😉 both in reducing new emissions and clearing out old ones.. outer space is huge, I won’t be surprised if we figure out a way to blast some CO2 out there or something.

  2. I totally agree with all of your points. On average, the stock market does better when a Democrat is in office. Maybe Obama will be an exception, but I doubt it. He is unlikely to commit us to one stupid war, let alone two. He is governing much like Eisenhower. There is a lot not to like about how he handled the Libyan situation, but at least it didn’t cost us much money. He may have broken a few rules (constitutionally) and caused unrest in neighboring Mali, but he did help the rebels overthrow a man who killed 43 Americans (and countless others). We got a lot of bang for very little buck (Ike would be proud).

    It is more likely that we will continue our current state, which is very similar to “Japan’s lost decade”. If you talk to folks who lived through it, they would say that it wasn’t that bad, just not great. Except for the recession, the U. S. has lived like this since 9/11, when we reacted just as the terrorists hoped we would, by overreacting and causing turmoil in the Middle East. That sensibility seems to be dying off, which is a good thing. It is too bad we didn’t react the way that we did when Sputnik went into orbit. We started a space race, of course, but we also invested in math and science education. That is exactly what we need to do now, to deal with the problems of the next generation.

    I completely agree with your points about less war, not more. China won’t start too much trouble for the simple reason of demographics. They don’t want to lose too many young men (they don’t have that many). The Middle East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent are a different situation, of course, but if they see economic growth, then we will get through this difficult period just fine.

    The only thing I worry about is global warming. Sometimes the doomsayers are right. They were right about AIDS, for example. Unfortunately, global warming is exactly the type of problem that we have a hard time solving. There is a delay between the cause and effect. The science is confusing and extremely complicated. There are plenty of winners and losers (on both sides) who will try and obfuscate the science. It requires global cooperation. Having everyone else do their part, while you do nothing, is actually better for you overall. For example, if we taxed gasoline at a really high level to bring down our consumption, it would mean the rest of the world pays less. All that being said, I do think it is possible that we will come out of this just fine. Never underestimate the power of technology. In this case it means finding ways to accomplish the same thing with less global warming emissions as well as finding ways to remove the excess that is already there.

    1. Thanks for your comment, just a couple of nitpicks:

      First, on the stock market, I’m not so much talking about averages when GOP/Dem are in office (I’ve also heard inflation has been higher under Dems, which could cancel that out?), but just the simple fact that the market always prices in current expectations about the future, and current expectations are that Obama will win (poll analysis, intrade markets, etc), yet the stock market is up. So the only way an Obama victory could crash the stock market was if the stock market was up because it was strongly expecting a Romney victory that it didn’t get – but no one’s expecting that right now, or at least definitely not strongly enough that the opposite would crash it.

      Second, I barely missed the AIDS scare, but my understanding is the doomsayers were wrong, or at least the worst ones. The awesome Wired article quotes Oprah saying “Research studies now project… one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS… by 1990.” Obviously nothing even close to that ended up happening. But regardless, I’m also optimistic that technology will help with global warming (assuming it’s real 😉 both in reducing new emissions and clearing out old ones.. outer space is huge, I won’t be surprised if we figure out a way to blast some CO2 out there or something.

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