I'm all for a serious discussion of the energy crisis, but this author is really pandering to the audience with his talk of the disappearance of "car society, suburban living, big box stores, corporate-run government, global empire, or runaway finance".

That's exactly what the kind of people who read Energy Bulletin want to hear.

Dmitry Orlov makes the parallel between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the impending collapse of US. However, I get a feeling he's much more versed in the Russian culture than the American one; as such, I doubt the collapse (if it happens and doesn't turn into a strong but passing depression) will happen as he predicts. Then again, who of us knows the future?

Pretty grim stuff.

Let's hope this stays a work of fiction.

So oil dropped almost by half since the article was written. I'm all for development of new energy sources, but just because my family's person-car ration is close to 1 doesn't mean the world will end if gas becomes expensive again.

I think I remember reading another article by this author where he somehow implied that Soviet Union's population was better prepared for financial collapse (due to resourcefulness or whatever). Having lived through that mess myself I disagree. That country had screwed up economy and when fit hit the shan everyone was out for himself and the country was pretty much torn apart and sold by pieces down to tools at factories and telephone wire.

Russia was back in stone age until oil prices picked up. Now they seem to be repeating the same mistake, according to the author, where their economy struggling once that very oil is so cheap.

Listing all the relevant differences between the Soviet Union and the United States in culture, finances, and politics would literally require a book, or even a series of books. I'm all for learning from history, but there's just so many differences between the two that I'm completely unconvinced there's a useful comparison to be drawn.

Which isn't to say there won't be a collapse. Perhaps it will even be worse. I'm simply saying I don't think this argument has much value.

Certainly, if what he described was happening, rather than a run-of-the-mill recession, I would expect commodity prices to be rising, not dropping. Dropping commodity prices are a good thing for the economy; they were probably credit-inflated too.

Not to mention this whole "five stages of collapse" is really just an ass-pull, something this guy said to make it sound like he wasn't just making it up as he goes. See also: The entire self-help book industry, with six-step thises and twelve-step thats.

Not Hacker News. This is low-quality fearmongering, more appropriate to Reddit or even Digg.

I think this is high quality fearmongering.

Different aspects of what this guy is talking about happen all the time, all over the world. Take Argentina in 2001, Chile in the early 70s, Bolivia in 2004 or so, and the Rodney King riots of 1992. I've spoke to a teacher who was in Chile during the coup and he told me never in his wildest dreams did he imagine soldiers ransacking university libraries and burning books on the street. Not in Chile!

Now of course, there are fearmongers who aren't worth listening to, but that doesn't mean this guy's one of them. I think he's off on some points, but he tries to give an idea of what people can reasonably expect in the off chance there is a collapse. It's not the end of the world, but it's worth thinking about.

Also, keep in mind that there are times when it makes a lot of sense to be afraid. A lot of people are dead because they weren't scared enough to emigrate when they still had the chance.

Disaster scenarios are always shockers, perhaps because if people had the foresight to prepare for them they wouldn't be so disastrous.

I understand your sentiment, but let's not make Digg/Reddit a fearmongering catchphrase, like the word "communist" in the 1950's, or the word "terrorist" of today.

Reddit scares the hell out of us, because Reddit used to be as good as Hacker News, and slowly... oh so slowly are lower quality submissions coming. And then slowly that'll prompt lesser caliber people to enjoy participating. Who'll submit more lesser caliber stories, and then HN is a wasteland full of "puns" and just outright goofyness.

The average American isn't becoming a terrorist, or in any danger of terrorism. Hacker News will sink to the level of Reddit unless it's actively fought by the culture and leadership here.

I understand your concern, but there's a key difference between reddit and HN: one is general news the other--hacker news. So you should really be comparing reddit to CNN or other mainstream news organizations. In that sense, I think reddit is still a better source, even if it is very biased.

My initial point was: we shouldn't call a particular story redditlike as a catch-all Bad Thing(tm).

Have you looked at the front page? I'm finding there's precious little I can use. The V8 is nice & certainly the python articles are decent, but there's really nothing else. I can get better from the programming/linux/python subreddit.

If it's that egregious, the guidelines say you should flag it rather than cry "Reddit" in the comments.

The human brain, lacking infinite computational capacity, invents simplifying abstractions to understand the world. These abstractions increase the realm of human thought, but they also lead to errors when the simplification smooths out details that cause important differences between two events supposed to be of the same class.

He can't back up any of his assumptions (e.g. that oil is going to crash in the timeframe required for a "collapse"), but the last year or so of activity should suggest that something like this will probably happen on a smaller scale. As such it makes for a useful thought exercise.

Isn't it funny how conspiracy theorists always seem to lose the bigger picture. He compares the meltdown of a command economy that a had oppressed its own people for better part of a century with a recession i the US, arguably the worlds strongest economy.

He's comparing two over-extended empires. It is very far from absurd to class the United States as an unsustainable empire.

You're all a little young I suspect to know about the infamous "Limits To Growth reports" conducted by MIT CS grads in the late sixties commissioned by the Club of Rome.

They constructed computer models of population growth expectations against energy resources, waste, production etc. They concluded that unless society changed its ways DRAMATICALLY then a collapse would occur which would be unavoidable and would wipe out a large percentage of the worlds population.

The reports were widely dismissed at the time by the main stream media and other 'experts' however, many of their predictions are manifesting before our eyes as we speak, if not a little latter than originally expected.

Those that decry that technology will save us (and it may well do but we do have to create it first) the main unavoidable problem is capitalism = exploitation = waste / population which is increasing because of the high level of fossil fuel energy available / ( which is rapidly diminishing).

If any bright sparks here have a solution to this mathematical problem then I will be impressed. The reason I personally got into programming was to try and make some impact on this problem. Yet all I see here (which I don't blame you for) is naive youngsters who are deluded and indoctranated into believing that success is starting a startup and exiting with 1M+ cash in the bank. To me this = FAIL.

Those that were really smart would have an understanding of the unavoidable mathematical problems really facing us (which are not written about in our favorite math books) and would have a broader knowledge than that spouted by your ivy league universities.

Those bright sparks would be able to demonstrate 1) an understanding of the problem, 2) a deep understanding of the math involved, 3) an interest in solving the problem, 4) the capacity to think outside of the box and not follow the herd, 5) ultimately a working theoretical alternative which would be more robust than the current math which is the algorithm behind current capitalism (or what ever you want to call it, democracy etc.).

For those that think capitalism and democracy is the best system we have, do not bother replying! Your comments will be as limited as your 'intellectual' capacity and you would be better served spending your time on your fab new startup!