9 Comments
Oct 14·edited Oct 15Liked by Chris Koncz

That was long but sooooo worth it. Good choices for counter viewpoint. Although, the leftist was being honest, I sure would love to correct them on one or two things. But they are also on point about many things.

Just look at Strauss and Howe's, Fourth Turning work. We are right on track.

I appreciate the effort it took to pull this together and have emailed this to several folks.

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Thanks, appreciate the feedback and share!

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Good point regarding Fourth Turning.

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Oct 14Liked by Chris Koncz

That was an excellent piece of writing and it closely reflects my own thoughts over the past several years. I keep looking for the wise statesmen in the USA and keep coming up empty. If any of the politicians realize what is at stake, they are keeping quiet, although I think Trump comes closest to seeing it. Rand Paul also seems to get it. Some are thinking that generative AI is going to solve the stagnation problem, but it will crash and burn financially soon, and only accelerate the collapse.

Our trajectory as a nation does parallel features Howe wrote about in the Fourth Turning, and also Peter Turchin's books End Times, Ages of Discord, and War and Peace and War.

The West is collapsing now. The time when we reach either total anarchy or, more likely, martial law, is unpredictable. The West could exist on life support for some years or the end could come quickly. Time will tell.

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I think the West is certainly in trouble, I don't know, if it's collapsing just yet. Also, different countries and even regions within countries could have very different outcomes. France is looking pretty good. Despite the hype, China's not looking that great. Japan and Germany seem to be already declining precipitously. Most of East Asia is heading towards extinction with fertility rates a quarter of replacement levels in most big cities. We don't know yet, what effect AI and robots will have on all of this. We can't really predict how climate change will affect things. I've seen projections, where the only habitable zones left are in extreme latitudes, mostly on Antarctica. Other projections are significantly better. We just don't know with any certainty what's going to happen in the future.

But, what we can analyse, is preparedness and the quality of leadership on all levels. That is where some countries in the West, the US and UK in particular are looking really bad.

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Oct 15Liked by Chris Koncz

You might consider the fiction book by James Howard Kunstler called "A World Made by Hand". And it's three sequels. Good writing. Enjoyable yet prescient.

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Thanks. I like JHK, though I've only read his non-fiction books. The Long Emergency was incredibly prescient.

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I always look forward to what Dmitry has to say.

By the way Dmitry Orlov has a new book out. Just came out October 12th.

https://www.amazon.com/Uncontrolled-Chaos-Dmitry-Orlov/dp/B0DJZ55NWH/

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Yes, I knew his book was coming out soon, didn't realise it was already out! His first book was excellent, I will have to check this one out too.

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