Industrial Collapse; Is it possible?

Question

Is it possible that industrial civilization could collapse? What could cause this to occur?

Answer 1

I would say yes, its very remotely possible. If the world oil reserves somehow proved to be way, way smaller than anticipated, and we suddenly ran out of petroleum. That would pretty much change our way of life, probably forever, as most other real energy sources that could keep industry up and running are a good number of years away from being realized.

Answer 2

Economically, the greatest danger comes from a lack of inputs. Sudden cessation of the inflow of raw goods or labor. This could come about due to disruptions in the labor pool (epidemic), in transportation (gas crisis), or in source (we run out of mineable aluminum). Fortunately, ingenuity starts to kick in, and innovation becomes affordable as soon as the price of the original good exceeds the price of the replacement.

Politically, you could have a fundamentally counter-industrial ideology take power, such as the Taliban. You could also have an invasion or massive destruction, such as occurred following WWII.

Demographically, you could have a slow shift that eventually precludes the ability of laborers to labor (ie, low birth rate means a tremendous graying of the population) or a full migration away from the centers of production.

Ecologically, you may have conditions that fully preclude the production process altogether, either by starving/toxifying the labor pool, or by precipitating the growth of agents that damage production.

You can also have out-and-out panic - this is the goal of terrorism, and a partial incident may occur on June 6th simply due to all the clamor about the date.

Fortunately, true collapse requires a long-term issue.

Answer 3

Not a long way from now might be in much less then 10 years, however the so referred to as fiscal cave in would possibly not be too visible a number of the deficient nor the extremely-millionaires, truthfully the worst afflicted would be the ones that positioned all their eggs in a single basket form of. But on the other hand, fact is at the air.Good success (if this sort of factor exists).

Answer 4

Just read: Industrial Society and Its Future
By Author:Theodore Kaczynski

Answer 5

extinction of the human race or destroy all of the manufacturing plants in the world at the same time. While you are doing this get rid of all the fuels used in the world and burn down every ones houses and belongings. OH YEAH...this won't happen, because humans always rebuild bigger and better

Answer 6

Imagine:

No gas ( we will run out but will we be ready with renewable resources?)

No sunlight for 3 months (major volcano eruption/asteroid hit)

Bird flue runs out of control, world population 0.1 percent of what it is now.

I dont want to be around to witness any of the above!