Dmitry Orlov: Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once
Here are some interesting thoughts from a leading popularizer of collapse, to follow on from yesterday's thread on Greer. Orlov's comment in the last paragraph brings to mind the contrast between Integrators and Specialists raised in another thread. It seems altogether possible that non-specialist Integrators may have a better feel for issues like this than Specialists - the experts whose knowledge tends to be confined to a single field.
Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once
I have been predicting collapse for over five years now. My prediction is that the USA will collapse financially, economically and politically within the foreseeable future... and this hasn’t happened yet. And so, inevitably, I am asked the same question over and over again: “When?” And, inevitably, I answer that I don’t make predictions as to timing. This leaves my questioners dissatisfied, and so I thought that I should try to explain why it is that I don’t make predictions as to timing. I will also try to explain how one might go about creating such predictions, understanding full well that the result is highly subjective.
To summarize: it is possible to predict that something will happen with uncanny accuracy. For example, all empires eventually collapse, with no exceptions; therefore, the USA will collapse. There, I did it. But it is not possible to predict when something will happen because of the problem of missing information: we have a have mental model of how something continues to exist, not of how it unexpectedly ceases to exist. However, by watching the rate of deterioration, or divergence from our mental model, we can sometimes tell when the date is drawing near. The first type of prediction—that something will collapse—is extremely useful, because it tells you how to avoid putting at risk that which you cannot afford to lose. But there are situations when you have no choice; for instance, you were born into an empire that’s about to collapse. And that is where the second type of prediction—that something will collapse real soon—comes in very handy, because it tells you that it’s time to pull your bacon out of the fire.
Plugging in everyone’s favorite Yogi Berra quote: “Making predictions is hard, especially if they are about the future.” Well, I beg to differ: making predictions about the past is just as difficult. The USSR collapsed unexpectedly in 1991, taking the “experts” by surprise. The root cause of the collapse remains veiled in mystery; the reason for the exact timing remains a complete mystery. Expert Kremlinologists were geared up to bet on minor power shifts within the Politburo, expert economists were entirely convinced about the superiority of free market capitalism over a planned socialist economy, expert military strategists could debate the merits of the Strategic Defense Initiative (there aren’t any) but they were all blindsided when the whole Soviet thing just folded up and blew away. Similarly, most political experts in the US are confident in their estimation of the odds that Obama will or will not be reelected in November 2012; what they can’t give you is the odds that the elections won’t be held, and that nobody will get to be president. Mind you, these odds are not zero, and we can be sure that such a day will come; we just don’t know when.
Experts can make predictions only within their area of expertise. They are constitutionally incapable of predicting when their area of expertise will undergo a spontaneous existence failure. Not being an expert in any of these disciplines, I knew that the USSR was going to collapse a year or so before it did. How did I know? By watching carefully, and by realizing that things can’t go on much longer in the same direction. I am doing the same with the USA now. So, let’s watch together.
ETA: There is much more in the blogpost related to the specifics of the American situation and why Orlov thinks the experiment is ripe for collapse. Echoing Greer, he says, "Do your own thinking! I’ve given you the tools you need to come to your own conclusions, based on which you may be able to start your collapse early and get it over with quickly."
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