Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Explore a hypothetical with me

Hypothetical: the current recession is just the beginning of a very long, brutal, global decline in wealth and standards of living, across the board, but in particular for the richest nations.

This will last for decades- for the rest of our lives.

The root cause of this recession will essentially paralyze entire economies.

The question I'd like to explore is, given this hypothetical and the reality on the ground of billions of people globally, and hundreds of millions here, and the infrastructure we have in place......

What political philosophy best manages large, modern societies through such a decline, and why?

If you aren't interested in exploring this hypothetical that's fine but please, don't argue agains the premise on this thread. Let's explore this (hypothetical) premise.

Kill or be killed.

please help me better to understand the stated hypothetical scenario before i delve more deeply.

are you suggesting something like peak population, or peak standard of living, or something similar?

something similar might be peak output of food & fiber from Planet Earth? i'm just trying to get a grip on what the challenge is that you speak of.

Martial law will rule, the global decline will cause a giant "3rd world country". There will be a 1 world government and the "sheeple" will fallow, and I think this will happen sooner rather than later,
site like 24hourcampfire will be gone if not the entire internet, power systems will fail due to lack of funds, they "brown shirts" will try to save the citys and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves, we will have mass exicutions (cleansings) so the select few can survive, food supplies will be cut short, without medical care minor infections and transmitable dieses will kill off hoards of people, only those who can survive and don't trust "big brother" will eventually weather the storm, but it may take decades. New societies will be formed based largly on trade of goods and servieces.
I know I sound paranoid but i think this is where we are headed

THERE WILL NOT BE A GOLBAL DECLINE....man you've been converted by the nutcases here. Yes some countries in Europe have dead ended. But there are huge parts of the world with flourishing economies. And they will continue to flourish. And we won't grow probably at rates we'd like to but we'll grow too. It's up to us to figiure out how to tap into the growth that isn't ours and it won't be easy but don't let the guys here convince you to throw in the towel on the USA!

i didn't realize we were speaking of TEOTWAWKIK or some such.

if so, about 6 months of uncontrolled, unorganized incivility. then after a year, some 200 million of the current 300 million will be gone, in the US. Earthwide, don't have a clue.

i suspect we'll devlove into two groups. those who choose to live inside the "fence." and the group that elects to live as wild, feral humans, outside the fence.

it's be two radically different lifestyes, for certain. brutal in both cases, so noone will escape brutality. we've already seen incivility on this board. just wait till it resides in a house next door.

I don't think that is what he's doing. Looks like he's wanting opinions on how things will be at there worse (world-wide) and how people will carry on everyday life. As to the above statement of a "One World Government", whether you believe in God and are Christian(2 different things I mite add) it does specifally state such a prediction along with other series of events that fall into line leading up to one another. As to the rest of the members opinion, as much as I don't want to believe it, way of life could come down to near or exactly that senario. As to the otehr claim of "other countrys" growing and flurishing, I have no doubts about that. But bare in mind, THOSE may/will be the very countrys that will have a choke hold on the rest of the world during this time ahead...if it actually comes to it.

Darwin was right!

The nation/state is over. There is no need for a nation/state.

So let's look at this from the individual sovereign and small sovereign city/states.

For the first time in human history technology will allow the individual to be his own sovereign. Two terminologies in particular is the Internet of course and fuel cells for the home. The Internet is still in it's primitive form much like the automobile of the early 1900's. Look at where the Internet has come from since the 1990's we can only imagine what the Internet will be like in another 150 or so years. I've looked at some of the schematics of fuel cell technologies for the home. I don't know if anything is available yet but when it gets off the ground it will truly free humanity.

As the nation/states implode the city/states will become sovereign. One may ask why would there be city/states? I think because most humans like to live with others and humans will tend to cluster into sovereign city/states. The advanced Internet and fuel cell technologies will be a major benefit for city/states as well individuals. Politically, city/states lend themselves to libertarian principles quite well because of their smaller size. I'm not talking anarchy here. City/states will be run on membership fees rather than taxes. The power to tax as a monopoly leads to slavery as I think most humans are coming to realize. Also the monopoly of force is also slavery. I see city/states being run on the old New England town meeting style.

Well this is enough to digest now and get the ball rolling.

Can you cite one example in recent hstory where that has actually happened? Outs side of the Vatican, which is a historically curiousity, I can't think of many others?

Histroy shows that nations/country's go through a natural cycle of growth and decline..As one country or nation declines, its replaced by another which is in its ascendancy..

While national boundries change and countries sometimes come and go, they are only replaced by similar geo-political units..

Mans nature is to "herd" and the perceived benifits of being in a bigger and bigger "herd" drive the nation building process..

As an example of all this look at post WW2 Europe. You see the rising Soviet empire reach its zennith, and then its eventual collapse, followed by the same process in the EU..The EU hasn't quite collapsed yet, but it will and when it does, it will be replaced by another rising empire (possibly Muslim?)..

The city state came and went about a thousand years ago..even when they were common in Europe, they still formed affiliations with other similar city-states which eventually resulted in the formation of countries as we know them today..

A theocracy will fix it all in due time -- count on it. Jesus Christ will set it all straight. Ready or not, here he comes!

Liberty works best. To maintain liberty, you need strictly limited government. To maintain strictly limited government, you need the rule of law rather than the rule of men, i.e., all are equally under the law, and no one possesses any arbitrary power, i.e., all actions of government officials need to be based solidly in legislated law. Note I specified legislated law, since any other (such as regulatory law created by agencies of government by unelected agents) is arbitrary and therefore despotic. All this along with a strict adherence to the subsidiarity principle. Look it up.

A theocracy headed by Jesus Christ.

Why? Because it was written so shall it be and no force on earth can stop it.

Had you been posting more I might have read down to see if you had beat me to it.

i've been having a long drawn out conversation with a devout Presbyterian couple. their view is that what the world needs is a cartharsis, is that what you mean?

Hi folks,

While TEOTEAWKI may be a result of my hypothetical, that's not my interest here. I'm talking about a brutal global recession/depression that is essentially permanent for our purposes, since it will outlast us here, and how the common political systems might handle this. In particular, OUR political system- with it's competing tendencies towards socialism and free-market capitalism.

No it doesn't...

Again look at history and cite one example of a successful country or Empire that was founded on true Liberty ie no suppression/domination of any its citizens or subjects under its control...

I spoke of liberty under law. You're speaking of anarchy. Two different animals. In fact, liberty can only exist under law.

PS Freedom is not synonymous with liberty. Freedom means the absence of restraint only. Liberty refers to the freedom to act only in accordance with one's right to do so. A right is objectively determined, discovered through reason, accepted by tradition.

the third leg of the stool represents the productivity of the Earth. are we all in denial, or just some of us?

Western civilization has cluttered itself with lots of human dead wood. The third world have been attracted to the largess thrived and prospered, dragging western civilization further down.
A totalitarian government will need to step forward to clean out the remains of western civilization or sweep the dregs off the roots and branchs of western civilization.
There's no other choices.

Jim