Is Western Civilisation on its Last Legs?

dxhound2005

In order to be a Post War there had to be a War. A very civilised affair by very civilised people.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120385294#Comment_120385294

If one has to ever address someone as "They/Them" I shall ask if they have multiple personalities inside "them"

Define irony.........

NSAman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120386925#Comment_120386925

Could also be sarcasm?

thinkabouit

My opinion on this is yes we are, but not just western worlds. I think we are in serious trouble all over.

Because of our agriculture policy & biodiversity loss.

Land turning to desert all over the world because we have taken away the animals.

oceans & rivers poisoned, air quality destroyed.

i think most agree those are pretty much fundamental too us.

People seriously need to start learning about The Savoury Institute.

These guy’s are getting bigger & bigger every year around the world by managing Holistically.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120385192#Comment_120385192

When you start believing things that are fundamentally untrue, reality tends to correct you in a very brutal manner

rossie1977

The limits to growth study carried out in 1972 by MIT predicted society as a whole (not just western) would collapse around 2040

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120386907#Comment_120386907

Well you have Putin shaking hands with Xi Jinping, so just maybe that’s what we are headed for.

either way, I don’t predict a peaceful deescalation to this situation. We’ve come too far. Unless Putin drops dead. Still , no guarantees.

Russia and China vs the US, Britain…. And the EU more intent on growing it’s population and looking after other people, new arrivals as opposed to its citizens and investing in defence and the wellbeing of their people.…

on its last legs ? It’s certainly going towards an abyss..

dxhound2005

I will continue to appreciate the fact that I live in one of the most prosperous regions of the world, in the most prosperous time in history. If anyone can point me to a better time in the past, go ahead. And if the end of the world comes in my lifetime, it will be the first time the prediction has come true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

There are some strange people in the world, but nothing new there. Oscar Wilde said the trouble with Socialism is that it takes up too many evenings. The trouble with doom merchants is that a lot of them write walls of text that I cannot penetrate.

JupiterKid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120386907#Comment_120386907

I see nothing in any way "civilised" about a horrific World War that snuffed out more than 75 million lives and left much of Europe in ruins.

Good to see some good debate here on this thread I created. I do notice that the tinfoil hat/conspiracy theory brigade are making their presence felt...

Brid Hegarty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120386876#Comment_120386876

What were the things that "held western civilisation" together? What's the elephant in the room? And why is post war liberalism bad?

dxhound2005

The most advanced "civilisation" of the times, Europeans, snuffed out very large percentages of the "savage" populations in other Continents.

Brussels Sprout

Incredible how all of the responses to this are basically just various posters making it exactly and precisely about their own particular hobby horse:

• Inequality
• Uncontrollable migration
• Climate Change
• Shadowy Elites
• The Rise of AI
• Wokeness
• Population Decline
• The lying Media

I don't have any answer myself but I'm certain it's not any one thing. Things are complex and interdependent.

If you try and distill things down to easy answers then you're almost always going to either arrive at the wrong conclusions or ones that are so self-evident as to be worthless.

JohnnyFortune

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387365#Comment_120387365

The future of the US depends on destroying Russia before the BRICS nations expand and create their own gold backed currency. Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa are now being joined by Saudi Arabia and Egypt and possibly Iran. If their actually backed currency becomes the oil standard, then the US dollar will plummet.

I'm guessing a few of them will have "democracy" brought to them soon.

dxhound2005

Overpopulation used to be the thing that would cause the extermination. Now it is population decline. When the population was a lot less than it is now, there were predictions of food shortages, if it kept rising. Now there is so much food in Ireland, that people are throwing vast quantities away.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/

riclad

theres 2 main threats i see to western countrys , climate change is the first, we are seeing more extreme weather events, one example california has been hit by storms, heavy snowfall and heavy rain in the last month. the cost of housing in america is forcing people to move to area,s which are most likely to be hit by flooding or extreme wildfires .gen z all over the world is having less children due to the high cost of housing and the cost of childcare .its like the 70s now, eg rising inflation, high energy costs .most people seem to ignore climate change, people in american buy trucks or suvs that are larger than say the average car from the 80s.Most western countrys are run by liberal or conservative governments who believe in free market policys .the problem is we need more government regulation and international cooperation if we are to tackle climate change which go,s against the spirit of free market capitalism . western countrys have the technical expertise to switch over to green energy ,solar and wind power but this would mean less profits for oil companys gas suppliers and companys that run the present energy generation infrastructure .these companys have alot of political influence in western countrys .

japan is one example its economy is in decline simply because young people are staying single ,the birth rate is too low to provide the next generation of workers and taxpayers that are needed to keep the welfare system viable

we are seeing the end of the long tech boom, google ,meta, amazon are laying off 1000s of workers . Ireland is not the only country to be going through a housing crisis . we are seeing a decline in the quality of life, with rising inflation ,we will probably see gen z voting for more left wing partys like sinnfein as they lose faith in fianna fail and fine gael over their inability to solve the housing crisis

megaten

If by terms of the post WW2 American hegemony then maybe (though I'd never count them out). Otherwise no.

dxhound2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388259#Comment_120388259

Human ingenuity will find a way to solve the housing crisis. In Ireland and in other countries. In Ireland by moving some of the economic concentration out of Dublin to localities where there is plenty of housing. Plenty of houses for sale in various counties, and enough vacant properties to solve the crisis ten times over. Just as a short term solution, those with no economic ties to Dublin, especially those who arrived there from elsewhere, could be offered accommodation in a vacant property. Fr Peter McVerry could be given the job of arranging it, where people do not trust the authorities.

(April 2022)

There is a fundamental flaw in our housing policy when there are 90,000 empty homes across the country in the middle of a housing crisis yet there are just 1,043 available to rent according to daft.ie says Deputy Denis Naughten.

Using his constituency of Roscommon Galway as an example he pointed out: “County Roscommon has 4,090 vacant homes yet there are just 12 for rent according to Daft.ie with a similar situation in East Galway with the towns of Ballinasloe, Ballygar, Dunmore and Glenamaddy alone having 184 vacant homes and just two available to rent.

Larbre34

This thread presupposes that a) Western Civilisation is a completed project and b) that its not as if every other era / civilisation / society hasn't come and gone and the next one built on the best of the leftovers.

1800, industrial age. 1850,scientific and medical age. 1920, post Imperial age. 1950, post War age. 2000 post Cold War age, new order of power.

2050? 2100? Who can say for sure, but its not as if the wealthy Westerners of today are all going to evaporate, there will still be trickle down economics, there will still be aspiration, and ever better education and ever better health and life expectancy and an even bigger service economy.

There's the usual band of pearl clutchers here panicking about energy and climate and biodiversity changes. But humanity always moves forward. Innovation is what separates us from the animal kingdom. As recently as the mid-1800s, huge volcanoes darkened the planet for years at a time. Many died, but the strongest survived and improved and evolved. Species have come and gone by the millions throughout history, with or without anthropomorphic change. We'll adapt to that too, with growth and change and new priorities.

The only constant is change lads, don't panic.

Montage of Feck

Well we seem to be currently experiencing a similar confluence of conditions that lead to the bronze age collapse.

dxhound2005

For those concerned with inequality, the Middle Class is on the rise. And not just in the West.

https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/the-worlds-growing-middle-class-2020-2030/

FunLover18

Western civilization can't have been up to much if it can be taken down by a few pronouns. Wealth inequality is a huge problem but has it got a mention in this thread outside the OP? Refugees and trans people aren't taking homes from people, homes are being taken by the vulture funds but there's isn't a single thread on here asking for a zero policy on them. God help anyone who suggests billionaires shouldn't exist, why should we care about them hoarding billions of wealth when there are people sponging on welfare and trans people trying to use a **** bathroom 🙄

thinkabouit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120388884#Comment_120388884

Would agree with allot of what you say but disagree at the end.

We have to change the way we make policy’s & our thinking.

over two third’s of the worlds lands are turning to desert. Caused by humans.

so we are in unchartered territory.

humans beings only have a few tools to manage. We use technology, fire & conservation. We use small living organisms to make cheese wine etc

we have to include livestock as a new tool in our tool bag.

Nothing else is going to save humans.

dxhound2005

That could be good news for the desert dwelling species.

How many species live in deserts?

Many birds, reptiles, mammals and insects live in the desert. In the Sonoran Desert (Arizona, US) alone, there are over 500 bird species, 130 mammal species, 100 reptiles species and more than 2,500 plant species!

Wibbs

Western civilisation? It basically "won" the world. Go to China say and look at their cityscapes, the clothes they wear, the houses they live in, the cars and tech they use, even the financial and business systems. Almost all Western in origin. Even their popular media is "Western" through a local filter. To any alien watching for the last few centuries they'd say almost the entire globe has been "Westernised". Though conquest and colonisation certainly, but also culturally.

There's certainly been cultural exchange going the other way and lots of it, but like the English language Western culture tends to localise the bits it wants and often improves it. Printing being an obvious example. Invented in Asia, Korea to be precise for metal movable type and it didn't really do much or have an impact. Gutenburg improves the tech and it changed everything within a human lifetime. It had also passed through the Ottoman empire and again feck all happened.

This was nada to do with any "innate" skillset in Europe or Europeans, but far more to do with geography, history and especially geopolitics of Europe. Rome was a gamechanger that(with the help of the older Greek culture) drove "Europe" ahead, just like the Chinese empire did in the east. However the bigger gamechanger was that Rome fell, but it left behind a lingua franca, a common faith and continuing background empire of faith and the near constant need of wanting to go back to "Rome" and a long list of people trying to do that among all the growing little nations within the whole.

This drove intense competition in the continent and decentralised that competition, while again having that empire of faith as a check and balance for much of the time. This never happened in China. It never "fell". It stayed centralised and the only avenue open for real change was for somebody new to come in and take out the previous empire and voila you're running China. The Khans couldn't have done that in Europe. They might have taken the Poles, then they'd have to deal with the Germans, then the Italians(each one of their states), while the Poles came back and sooner or later they'd have to deal with the French. So something like printing or gunpowder comes along, the second one nation got it, the others wanted a piece of the action and then were pressed to improve it. Rinse and repeat.

Then tired and broke from bating the shíte out of each other, Europeans thought feck this, we can't build "Rome" here at home, so we'll build our empires overseas. We outsourced "Rome". Hell, look at the US and the US capitol building. It's feckin' Roman. They even have an oul obelisk around the place and Lincoln's memorial looks like a Greek temple to a god(only an actual Greek would wonder did they runout of cash before they painted it). The Chinese before Europe had sent out huge junks to explore and map their oceans and likely even made it to the Americas and Australia, but then went home and promptly burned their ships. Why not? We already have an empire you muppet. Whereas the "West"...

Even the "never" parts are dubious. Liberia was literally a Western concern and Japan was effectively under US control after WW2 for a while and heavily influenced by same. That map is kinda crazy really and it doesn't take into account the influence of the European colonies on the rest of the world. America being the obvious example. So yeah, the West "won".

Will it keep "winning"? That's the question. I suspect yes, or for quite a while yet. Even the devices we use to have this conversation and the very platform it's on is "Western". Oh the devices may be made elsewhere, but in many cases by Western companies and/or using Western licenced tech and the innovations that drove all that are in the vast majority of cases Western in origin. Of the top ten most used languages on the interwebs five of them are European/Western languages, English being top of the tree. Chinese comes second yes, but like their language it's far more "local" and Chinese. There are a multitude more people who speak English than are actually English, French that are actually French, Spanish than are actual Spanish etc. The majority of Chinese speakers are actually Chinese.

Local Western powers may rise and fall, but overall I don't think the West itself is going anywhere soon. If anything I can see some digging in of heels, now that IMHO we're in Cold War 2. Lines are already being drawn.

M.T. Cranium

Did you see that meme, a bear sits at a picnic table and says, "don't take offence, but our version of Goldilocks ends much, much differently from yours."

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120390271#Comment_120390271

Indeed, narratives are massively subjectively skewed. To get a clearer picture you have to look at the overall picture and the results.

Modulok

I don't think it has anything to do with wealth inequality. When the west was at its zenith, wealth inequality was much worse than it is now.

I think it's due to post-nationalism, multiculturalism, and white guilt.

mariaalice

I agree with the theory that rise if the computer age has for the moment solidifies the dominance of the west, the first machine code was in 'english' the computer ages is suffused with Western culture and values and there is no escape from it, whether you live in Bhutan, central Africa.

saabsaab

As the World's population continues to explode it will put extreme pressure on the planet to provide the resources needed by humanity. Notwithstanding science and invention there are limits that we can ask of the planet to support ourswelves. The Western capitalist system(s) of greater growth and resource consumption only will bring about collapse eventually. The question is when?

Francis McM

The world population increased from 1 billion in the year 1800 to around 8 billion today.  And it has not stopped yet. In Africa, over the next 30 years, the number of people on the continent is expected to double from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion. 

It is unfortunate that Family planning, an issue that calls for discussion in countries with booming populations, is considered a taboo in many.

As so many people come to western countries, it is not sustainable.