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If the United States were to collapse


jurble

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If the US collapsed, it would soon become the Kingdom of Michigan. The king or queen of such (elected via a process even the lawyers themselves who wrote it fail to comprehend) would rule roughly what is the Continental US, and parts of Canada.

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I will disagree with BD about CA. A lot of their current economy comes from defence contract.

As much as I hate MD, I think it would be ok on its own. they have agriculture, tourism, science. Like CA, a lot of government, but I think they could convert them to local government jobs.

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Why the assumption that there would be no labour mobility and, apparently, no trade? Some places would just become really, really poor and depopulated and produce immigrants to other places.

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Why the assumption that there would be no labour mobility and, apparently, no trade?

Seconded. The lower 48 are well connected infrastructurewise; it's not that this will magically disappear because of political restructuring. At least, that was not the case set out from the OP.

If you're going with complete financial collapse triggering it, that will cause some changes, as trade would slow down considerably. Throw war into the mix, and conditions would worsen still more. But simply changing the US into the Separate States of America does not by itself change the most important economic variables to a less desirable condition.

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Guest Raidne

Okay Jurble - Here's your serious answer. Really, a nation only collapses when it is overrun by another nation. The Romans were overrun by Germans. During the early medieval period, all the noble families of Italy were Germans. The British have been overrun by, like, everyone. Vikings. Normans. You name it. European colonists ended the great Native kingdoms of South America.

If a nation isn't overrun, it doesn't collapse. It just becomes less and less relevant. Like Europe.

Kidding! I'm kidding!

Anyway, eventually, the United States will hit a weak point, go into crisis, possibly break up into a number a different countries, and eventually we will become a primarily hispanic nation, possibly annexed to Mexico. Think it over. Look 500 years into the future. You know it's true.

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Guest Raidne

Oh, you mean the country that was overrun by the Axis powers during WWII? When they massacared the Serbs? After which the favor was returned by ethnically cleansing all the people of German heritage from the region? After which they were held together by the socialist government of a member of the Russian Revolution?

Or were you thinking they just lost their national identity without any outside influence?

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Yugoslavia says hi.

I was thinking about this as well. Since a nation is a constructed group identity, I think the inner stability of a nation depends on the majority agreeing to what the nations means. The myths and symbols on which the US is based seem incredibly strong to me, considering all the discussion I have read on the board, so I don't really think that an economic collapse would lead to a complete separation into several independent countries. In Yugoslavia and many other nations with tendencies to desintegration, the "nation narrative" is/was too much biased to certain groups within the nation.

That said, you can not really compare a modern nation to pre-modern "nations" or empires.

Regarding the OP, an economic collapse would probably lead to changes in general mobility and to the desertion of some areas, but the US functioned already before the invention of airplanes and cars.

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Oh, you mean the country that was overrun by the Axis powers during WWII? When they massacared the Serbs? After which the favor was returned by ethnically cleansing all the people of German heritage from the region? After which they were held together by the socialist government of a member of the Russian Revolution?

Or were you thinking they just lost their national identity without any outside influence?

And neither being overrun by the axis nor the socialist dictatorship caused the nation to collapse: the *end* of these pressures did.

For a similar example take the USSR.

Nations quite readily collapse internally. China did so in the early 20th century, for instance. Not to mention that being overrun is just as often a symptom of collapse as the cause: When internal institutions become to weak the nation becomes prey for others.

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I gotta ask, given that this is apparently something people think about a lot - are you kinda, maybe, deep in a secret place in your heart, looking forward to this coming total collapse of civilization? I like a good post apocalyptic movie as much as anyone, but really, I know completely that its going to be pathetic, mean, boring, completely lacking any kind of drama or pathos and life will consist of exactly what it does today, but with worse nutrition and patchy electricity.

This kind of civilization dissolvement sounds cool, but I was in Ukraine in the 90s, and people did take to generating their own electricity and growing their own food in bathoic scenery of rusting amusement parks, and it wasn't cool - just ugly and poor and hard, and with nothing to show for it.

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It shnould also be noted that when the national institution is strong enough even invasion doesen't cause a collapse of national identity: Germany being probably the best example.

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Guest Raidne

And neither being overrun by the axis nor the socialist dictatorship caused the nation to collapse: the *end* of these pressures did.

For a similar example take the USSR.

Nations quite readily collapse internally. China did so in the early 20th century, for instance. Not to mention that being overrun is just as often a symptom of collapse as the cause: When internal institutions become to weak the nation becomes prey for others.

*Sigh* See, Jurble - this is no fun. One response post in on my part and I'm already bored with defending my pseudo-serious notion on how the United States will end.

One more for vampire zombie apocolypse.

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Guest Raidne

It's a truth of Hollywood that only zombies, with or without werewolves and vampires, and viral epidemics (that sometimes create zombies) can wipe out civilization.

Alien invasions are just a cheap excuse to rally together for the holiday.

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Well since the Roman example was supposedly meant to be tongue-in-cheek, I suppose there is no reason to refute it.

Ah, fuck it. Here we go.

"Rome", if one refers to the Western Roman Empire, was less overrun by Germanic peoples than it whithered away due to economic stagnation. The groups that eventually took over what was the Western Roman Empire did so by placating the Roman citizenry. Clovis, for example, converted to Latin Christianity because he meant to rule the Catholic Gallo-Romans that made up Gaul and not simply rule over them. The Visigoths essentially became Romans, adopting their culture, so much that the last remnants of old Roman culture were expressed there, that is until the Muslims took them out. Odoacer became King of Italy but kept the Roman administration intact. It took centuries for people to no longer refer to themselves as Roman, so Rome as a nation in spirit, lived on far longer than 476AD. The point is, Rome was not suddenly invaded by the Germans and was taken over. The Germanic tribes that took over what was the Western Roman Empire were only able to do so because the country was dying. Rome was collapsing, likely for centuries, and it is this that allowed the Germanic tribes to exert influence and later simply take up the power vaccuum. Many Germanic tribes lived in and worked for the Romans as soldiers for years.

In the early Medieval period, the most powerful families in Italy had Germanic roots, but all at least tried to emulate the Roman tradition. Still, many families descending from old Rome still clung to their Senatorial-class heritage.

Oh, and the 'Vikings' were not separate from the Normans. The Normans were actually 'Vikings', the name 'Norman' coming from North Men (i.e. from the north, in this case Scandanavia).

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Guest Raidne

Oh, and the 'Vikings' were not separate from the Normans. The Normans were actually 'Vikings', the name 'Norman' coming from North Men (i.e. from the north, in this case Scandanavia).

Okay. For my part, I'm pretty sure it was a lot different to be invaded by the Duke of Normandy circa 1066 than it was to be invaded by Ivar the Boneless, Ubbi and Halfdan in 865. But I suppose it's a matter of opinion.

As for the rest, well, yeah. I have a few really great books on the subject at home from that seminar I had called something like, oh, Medieval Europe 500-1000. At any rate, although it's less exciting than the zombie apocolypse, I'm pretty sure the collapse of all civilizations is just as gradual and nuanced, right?

So congratulations you have managed to state the (1) irrelevant, (2) obvious, and (3) (I suppose this follows) boring.

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Okay. For my part, I'm pretty sure it was a lot different to be invaded by the Duke of Normandy circa 1066 than it was to be invaded by Ivar the Boneless, Ubbi and Halfdan in 865. But I suppose it's a matter of opinion.

As for the rest, well, yeah. I have a few really great books on the subject at home from that seminar I had called something like, oh, Medieval Europe 500-1000. At any rate, although it's less exciting than the zombie apocolypse, I'm pretty sure the collapse of all civilizations is just as gradual and nuanced, right?

So congratulations you have managed to state the (1) irrelevant, (2) obvious, and (3) (I suppose this follows) boring.

Lol No need to get pissy for getting called on being (1) ignorant and (2) inaccurate.

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You forgot the fast occurring ice age or sudden melting of the polar ice caps rendering most of the world unlivable, Raids, those are good ones too.

Or the inevitable asteroid or comet impact before which we have a lottery that determines who lives in a cave for two years and who dies.

To answer the OP, before the Civil War, we had a much weaker federal government and stronger state governments--it wasn't yet, "The United States is." It was "the United States are." I think we'd break up into regional areas rather than along state lines, although the states, with their own governments, might hold it together for awhile. Federations of geographical areas based on available resources, etc. would eventually spring up.

For example, I don't think Pennsylvania would survive. The western and eastern parts of the state are just too different--different people, different environment, different resources, something we've had since the before the Revolution when both PA and VA claimed it. Geographically, we've been isolated from the east by the mountains. So you have Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and a whole lot of farmland in between. I think the Philly area would go with New England. It's more cosmopolitan and has a lot more in common with New York than it does with Pittsburgh. Philadelphia alone has half the state's population. On the other hand, Western PA is either the eastern Midwest or northern West Virginia/Appalachia. Hell, western PA, West Virginia, western Maryland, and eastern Kentucky were almost one state: Westsylvania. The colonists there thought that the governments of both PA and VA were too far away to govern there effectively and really didn't care what happened because it was just a backwater--the same thing the colonies as a whole thought about the King and Britain.

Anyway, I think any reorganization would be regional. Whether or not they'd all become separate countries, I think in time they would, but it wouldn't happen right away.

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