What can we do, if elites trigger a civilization-wide war in collapse?

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Grief & Praise
#1

As the rather predictable (to anyone with a cursory understanding of accounting) Greek default finally looms, a Euro crash ought to follow, and possibly bring on soon after, a US dollar crash. That historically can bring on riots where the guillotine starts flying.

But the Elites didn’t get their power by accident. They know how to plan ahead, and lo and behold we have Netanyahu evidently ready to strike “Axis of Evil” nation Iran. Iran and Syria have a pact similar to those before WW1, and now Russia has publicly said it will not allow Syria to become Libya 2, rather clearly saying who they have a pact with. Russia and China have some kind of a pact. China and Pakistan have a pact. Pakistan and Afghanistan now have a pact. Brazil could go either way.

It sure looks like pre-WW1 to me. We even have an extremely expansionistic militaristic nation with ever-increasing police state tendencies, reminiscent of Germany in the 30s, in the USA. But pre-WW1 looks more the case, with US’s essential “blank cheque” given not to Austria but Israel.

Historically, I think it really looks like Tikal vs. Copan at the end of the Mayan civilization. And after just looking at last two days news, I put a 70% chance the Elites plan to have billions of “useless eaters” fight each other to the death in a WW3, rather than allow them to overrun the elites, as it would otherwise happen. And possibly sooner than later. Really could start any time and some analysts say it could escalate very, very quickly.

What do you think?

Russia/China/Iran/Pakistan have nukes, EMP capability, 21st century biotech germ weapons, debatably connections with some Mexican drug cartels, hordes of young men with no family, no hope to reproduce, and under propaganda since birth, a viable industrial base, and relatively huge untapped internal oil. If NATO/Israel elites start it, people in NATO nations will not exactly get away unscathed, despite what their newspapers might try to imply at first.

Assuming elites get their WW3, soon, or next year, or five years down the road, or, heck 25 years down the road, what will it mean for us rewilders? When we don’t have a frontier, what can we do to sidestep civilization’s final death throes?

#2

Just saw this little piece of pre-war propaganda on BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15544841?

Russian and Chinese companies ‘most likely to bribe’

With bolded subsections to help sheeple better grasp the right perspective:
“Companies from Russia and China are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad, a survey suggests.”

“‘No Integrity’”

“‘Cheating Taxpayers’”

It ought to end with: your two-minutes hate brought to you by Big Brother.

To a sheeple that doesn’t doubt, they will feel mild outrage at those ‘no integrity’ swine in China and Russia, who, btw, are ‘cheating taxpayers’ not their own government - a less disturbing story-line. And really somebody should go over there and teach them some integrity. Like the light of liberty, NATO. Good to be a good guy in a sea of bad guys. Now where’s the remote, so I can watch my sports/Dancing With the Stars?

The catch that makes it even more ridiculous? Only 28 countries were included in this survey. How did they pick them? Did they pick the 28 most ethical? It doesn’t matter if the survey is crap science, this is about helping the trance victims see who their next enemy is. Think of it this way: if Russia and China were our strongest allies, would the editor allow something as controversial as this? On the top of the front page of the website? Totally unnecessary.

That this stuff, in the way it is presented, comes out, makes 70% chance of world war look like 73% chance. Could use some signs to the opposite.

#3

A week or two ago, the LA Times ran an article regarding Taiwan purchasing aircraft from the United States. It openly stated that Taiwan wanted enough aircraft to defend against potential Chines aggression long enough for the US to intervene and rescue them. Right there, a suggestion of World War Three. And nobody notices.

#4

So you guys are suggesting that this war would be on American soil? That’s the only thing that would be different from the situation for the past 20 years or so (from an American perspective anyway). War is Peace as they say.

#5

They want to keep us all permanently scared and paralyzed. Stop watching the Spectacle! Just like with the magician on the stage, the real action is elsewhere, and if you keep watching the shenanigans going on, you miss the real stuff.

Sure… getting threatening people to kill one another is an old strategy. It could happen. So let’s make sure that we build links that make people see how artificial all this conflict-provoking really is… and how long it’s been going on. And let’s stop funneling energy to the people who are behind the Spectacle. Give your energy to people you trust!!! :slight_smile:

#6

Nothing may happen. Collapse may not even happen, if for example cold fusion happens.

I don’t see a good return on investment for a land invasion of any countries, but if any nation has the people and industy for it, China probably does. But America is largely exploited already and half a world of expensive fossil fuel away. But its elites have that motive of reducing their internal enemy (their people)'s power.

More likely than invasions, but still not certain is WMD use on NATO soil. Especially advanced biological weapons in retaliation to WMDs on Iran. Sometimes it looks likely to me, and I would like to make it to being one of the people in Afterculture, if I have any say in it, lol

I agree, acting in the direction of one’s vision makes more sense than trying to avoid things that could interfere with arriving at one’s vision. Ultimately, any death throes of civilization really could turn out a blip on our radars, and to the extent it can be influenced, that is one of my goals. I have more a tendency to focus on problems to solve, almost to a fault, and so it still sometimes looks like a WW3 could be one. Want to out-plan civ, if possible, increase odds on the most likely roadblocks. Biggest, btw, still food IMO.

#7

Who was it recently who has written about China, and how their long term strategy has always been to weaken their neighbors and turn them into vassal states. Oh yeah, David Graeber, Debt (the last 5000 years).

So I don’t see their invading… no need.

Biological weapons are a problem for the elites, because they can backfire against one’s own. You may think you have an antidote and start a plague, and oops! find out it does not quite work the way intended.

Starvation is the sure thing. No water, no food. And it sure seems to heading that way, eh?

#8

It does look to me like starvation will come. Especially since agriculture that feeds billions of people depends on cheap fossil fuels or fresh topsoil, one of which has probably ended and their other ended for a large scale, a few decades ago.

The biological weapons are almost stupider than nuclear weapons. If a country that has them has their civilized structure bombed enough to feel “the universe’s greatest acheivement” is ending, might open the vial. Idk. In that case, I don’t think a good solution exists. Perhaps just get enough nutrition and take barberry or Oregon grape root tea and love your immune system with all your heart.

I forgot also a chance a draft would be instituted. Given elites sometimes appear to me to see the time for depopulation is now, getting drafted could be a death sentence.

I really feel time to leave, but the only frontier left is space. One still in Brazil, but a small one, and not entirely out of current weaponry’s way. Civilization has a brutal history (part of why I want to leave it) and so I sometimes expect the pendulum to swing back to the brutal side.

Yeah China probably has no economic benefit to invade a land with heavily armed citizens, to boot. If we still had an age of increasing energy, possibly. With their massive dissatisfied, single male population, their elites do have an incentive to invade somewhere. Probably not Russia, their ally. India, perhaps. The stupidity of it might increase if elites are desperate enough. History is less on NATO’s side, as the declining power, but even if the East won a WW3, they probably wouldn’t keep the spoils for long, because of collapse. I just want to be alive and living a free existence at that time.

#9

Yeah, there are small spaces out there, but vulnerable. The only way to step out is into invisible-to-the-system autonomous zones, imo.

#10

Actually, I don’t think outright WW3 is very likely. The era of that type of warfare (known as 3G war) is over - now is the time of 4G war, like the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military strategists know that attacking the big powers in high-tech (tanks and such) frontal assaults (3G) would mean losing, whereas a sneaky, guerrilla-type war with the soldiers embedded (and hidden) in local populations means victory, even with few resources and low technology. The only strategists that don’t seem to understand that are those in the Pentagon, who are so tied up with defense contractors and thus invested in the previous way of warfare (high-tech) that they can’t (or won’t) see reality even after 8+ years of it smacking them in the face.

So I fully expect the US to keep invading other countries, although in relatively small engagements (because that’s all the public will support, and as long as they want to maintain the veneer of democracy, they have to care about that), but I highly doubt anyone would initiate a full-on war, or invasion, of the US. Instead, I anticipate more terrorist attacks, and insurgencies against US forces in their home countries.

Here in the “1st world”, I think we have MUCH more reason to fear our own governments and militaries. Firstly, as the gloves come off and the police state shows its true face (particularly in response to increasing resistance by the people, which we are already beginning to see). Both the US and Canada have plans already drawn up for detaining large swaths of the population in detention centers (by converting ball stadiums and building new “residential facilities”, which they are already doing) - the US already has the capacity for detaining 10 million Americans, last I heard. And secondly, as the “1st world” societies start to disintegrate, and they can no longer support the massive military, I expect groups of soldiers to splinter off and start doing their own thing, following former officers turned warlords. Not only has this already begun (in England, of all places), but historically this was the nature of the maurauding gangs of thugs that terrorized the populace.

Right now there aren’t many open spaces on the map, although its totally possible to stay under the radar. But as this shit starts to go down, many more holes will open up, particularly in Canada (much larger landbase, lower population, and smaller military), but even in the US. The governments & warlords just won’t have the capacity, or the desire, to hunt down small groups hiding in the wilderness. They will be concentrating their efforts on securing cities, where most of the people are, and rural farmland, where the food is.

#11

Stay away from population centers. And pray that something edible still grows during nuclear winter. That is all.

#12

Population centers make little sense, though I hesitate to say so now that Peter moved this to Rewild Portland’s site, lol
Just talked with my cousin and he mentioned a recently declassified cold war report on nuclear Armageddon with an interesting conclusion. Rather than leading to Mad Max, with reduced demand from urban centers, ahem, that 1/3 of people who survive have all the old farmland to themselves.

So, yeah, fallout and a nuclear winter notwithstanding, not living in downtown of NYC, DC, or LA would probably make sense if, as you say, G3 war comes up, perhaps including nukes on Iran. Having a place outside those cities to leave to until everything’s over would make sense to me, were I still there. No industrial cities left in the West to target. But if Russia and China get pissed enough and want to stop appeasing USA, downtown of any of the top 30 cities might not make a good place to take one’s chances.

Doubly so for the risk of a martial law crack down. Heard Jesse Ventura say if you want to see what martial law is like, go to an airport. He did an hour-long documentary on those empty detention centers with barbed wire pointing inwards. It is part of a series on conspiracy theories, and the only one the government censored. Because of “fear of causing panic”, a nice diplomatic sounding reason.

Meanwhile, Popandreau was bluffing about calling a referendum on Greek debt, which would have brought the Euro’s end closer. So less rioting in the near future. And heard speculation Netanyahu is bluffing about attacking Iran. But also that so many top officials are fighting the attack in Israeli press, it looks more real.

Btw, according to a website, a soil filter of like a foot of non radioactive dirt will do a lot to decontaminate water from most nuclear fallout, so a spring might also do most of the work.
Food? In some parts of Germany, boar hunters have to get their boars tested for accumulated Chernobyl radiation before eating. Don’t know about that. But again, nukes might be kept to a minimum at the end of this thing.

#13

Adding on to what Bereal said, one of the main differences between now and 100 years ago is that fossil fuels are on the decline rather than going up. We’re losing the capability to use big, high energy weapons. The US seems to be losing it’s grip on the empire; could the Arab Spring have happened 10 years ago?

#14

With the defense authorization act that legalizes “disappearing” citizens someone in the government feels terror over, continuing anti-Iran propaganda and buildup of forces near Iran ands its ally Syria, one version or another of an elite attempt to control collapse looks to me higher than 50%. Of course, my feelings say physically get out of civilization now, before I get sucked in. But as a global civ now, that would pretty much imply space travel, lol.

I’ve asked myself and can’t see going to Brazil, New Guinea, or Indonesia. But when they start coordinating propaganda to justify a draft, or to round up “independent thinkers” to reduce the threat to the elites, that really hits a point I want a plan for. Collapse, if it will come with this probably peak-oil induced downturn, could play out that way. I may not need to worry about it, but sometimes, like today, it feels likely.

WW1 started because an inbred “nobleman” was killed. Only the Elites were offended, not the Austrian people. With all these alliances, it struck me it could take something ridiculous like that if they wanted one.

So in that case it makes any difference to plan ahead, and elites manage a population collapse, their style, what can we do?
Leave civ?
Join the SS?
Join the idiots dying for their propaganda?
Go feral and hope they don’t see us until dust settles?
Dig a bunker?
Pray?
Hope collapse progresses faster than the elites can manage?

I guess as it gets closer and more likely (though possibly never certain), time to take it seriously approaches. Though everything could turn out honky dory for civ, for decades to come and I’ll feel embarassed I posted this. I want to keep it light, but don’t feel light.

#15

Better to be a bit embarrassed than to be caught in a dire situation unprepared!

As Starfish said, the time of world wars is past - even the US just doesn’t have the resources. As empire declines, it pulls inward rather than expanding outward, except for isolated engagements strategically designed to gain resources (expending as little as possible to do so). I think this is why we are seeing the US pull out of Iraq, conceding that the country is as “stable” (as supportive of US interests) as its going to get, and that staying would just drain more resources and likely deteriorate the situation further. Whereas in Afghanistan, NATO forces are actually making “progress”, and the US has help from other countries to spread the pain around.

I definitely think local/regional resource wars are on the horizon, however - particularly as the global collapse accelerates, governments fall, nations splinter, and chunks of the military split off to pursue their own interests. All that is inevitable, it’s only a matter of time.

And that time may be shorter than any of us have thought - have any of you been following NASA’s warnings about the coming “solar Katrina” (solar flare event), expected to occur from the end of 2012 to 2014? Various scientists & research groups have been warning of potentially severe consequences, ranging from disruptions to satellites and power grids (the least extreme scenario) to the complete shut-down of the global power grid, causing world-wide blackouts, planes to fall from the sky, destruction of satellites, and total shutdown of transportation and industry (most extreme, but possible, scenario). If something towards the latter happens, I think it’s questionable whether global civ would ever recover to its current state. Even if the former happens, I think collapse will be dramatically hastened - the straw that broke the camel’s back, as it were.

#16

This thread makes me want to move to Wyoming. Unfortunately, I was educated in an American public school so I’m not sure if Wyoming is far enough north be out of the future water war zone.

#17

Hahaha, Wyoming is nice. So is Montana. There are still bison there, just waiting for the fall of civ so they can spread back across the plains.