civilization collapse

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/08/18/get-ready-for-armageddon/ "Yet within a decade the United States will be paying more in interest payments than it pays for the military—and that’s not because the Pentagon is such a great bargain."

List of wars and disasters by death toll - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll and my favorite new phrase - Anthropogenic disaster!

What do Joseph Tainter and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor have in common? You guessed right if you said "declining marginal returns on investment in complexity"! According to wikipedia "Upgrading the first 183 aircraft to the 3.2 upgrade is estimated to cost $8 billion." - which works out to $43 million per plane. Don't you wish you had that software development contract? Sure the contractors make more money - but civilization suffers as a whole. The wikipedia also notes that "the Ada software language was blamed for slow progress and increased costs on the program, leading to a reorganization in 2011." When in doubt - blame the tool. But what is this really about? Why are these planes needed? Why are the new capabilities that these planes represent needed? Why are the upgrades needed? Incremental threat escalation. It is not a called an arms race for nothing. These planes with these newer capabilities and upgrades a...

Der Spiegel has an excellent article - that highlights the "destruction power" of fininacialization - check it out here for a 2011 look at the crisis: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,781590,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization In his 2006 book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, American writer and commentator Kevin Phillips presented financialization as “a process whereby financial services, broadly construed, take over the dominant economic, cultural, and political role in a national economy.” (page 268). Philips considers that the financialization of the U.S. economy follows the same pattern that marked the beginning of the decline of Habsburg Spain in the 16th century, the Dutch trading empire in the 18th century, and the British Empire in the 19th century: (It is also worth pointing out that the true final step in each of these historical economies is; collapse) ". . . the leading economic powers have followed an evolutionary progression: first, agriculture, fishing, and the like, next commerce and industry, and finally finance. Several historians have elaborated this point....

trends - increasing population increased population results in increased resource depletion increased resource depletion results in increased exploration increased exploration results in increased border tension increased border tension results in increased border hostilities increased border hostilities results in increased border skirmishes one border skirmish at the wrong time, at the wrong place, with the wrong people results in war what is more precious in war time than life & liberty? - resources - intelligence - labour - time what do armies consume? - men - weapons - medical supplies - munitions - alcohol - avionics - satellites - chemicals - vehicles - computers - telecommunications - debt / finance / bonds what will war do the stock market? bonds? mutual funds? gold? silver? what can produced and sold at a profit during war time? - hospitality services what happens to the civilian economy? what careers / skills will people pay gold for? - security - resources - health - me...