State of the world

[andrewducker]

In this fifty year period, a massive depression, coupled with the collapse of a key resource, undermines traditional economic models. Even as the global economy recovers, a global war erupts, a horrifying accident triggered by political systems overwhelmed by increasingly rapid communications, a tragedy multiplied by the almost casual use of chemical weapons. The end of this war coincides with the emergence of a pandemic the likes of which the world has never seen, killing millions upon millions -- and, combined with the war, almost eliminating an entire generation in some parts of the globe.

After the pandemic ebbs, a brief, heady economic boom leads many to believe the worst has ended. Unfortunately, what follows is a global depression even more massive than the previous one, causing hyperinflation in some of the most advanced nations, and leading directly to the seizure of power by totalitarian, genocidal regimes.

 

What follows is perhaps predictable: an even greater world-wide war, nearly wiping out a major culture and culminating in a shocking nuclear attack.

 

At this point, you’ve probably already realized that this scenario covers the end of the nineteenth century through the end of World War II.

From.

Comments

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Oh, I was kind of thinking we'd probably be at the first bit and had world war to come 'cos civilisation is kind of cyclical..

half-baked ramblings of an amateur

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I assumed that the mirror was the war we're trailing to the end of now. You have to think in decades here rather than years. The period of depression prior to that was I thought the 80s into the early 90s, along with the end of the tension of the Cold War, which one could argue quite neatly works as a modern analogue for the tension in Europe towards the end of the 19th century caused, more or less by a combination of everyone stockpiling weapons and navies but not getting to use them because Victoria was everyone's auntie and would put them over her knee and spank them if they tried anything. It was also a period of some rather dodgy alliances, and the UK/America gang (I'm pretty sure we're the thicko sidekick who'd be all right if s/he just got away from his/her mean best friend) made some pretty dodgy allies during the last fifty years ourselves.

So there are even more connections than that passage suggests, although that being said they're probably connections you could fine anywhere if you were looking for them...

Not sure what the 'key resource' is for us this time, though. I suppose that was when we first realised we were running out of fossil fuels? That did play a big part in triggering the first Gulf War and things really never settled down since, but although we like to cite oil as the reason for this decade's conflict I honestly think it was far more about using the Other and the buzzword of Terrorism to exert tighter more totalitarian control of our own people. Someone read 1984 too often as a child. Possibly me.

War doesn't work the same way it used to; this "West wanders in and annihilates everyone, their own dead counted on four figures or fewer" conflict is probably as close as we get - thank God, most might say, although if we were at risk of the sort of losses the Brits saw in WW1, or the Russians in WW2 maybe we'd think a little harder about getting into them.

[cybik.livejournal.com]

Yes, war has evolved, but I still think something huge might break out - especially if fossil fuel estimates are wrong and we end up having almost no resources in the near future. In which case I think our government (especially if it's New Lab. or Tories) will happily commit to mass destruction.


I used to think Brave New World was more likely to happen than 1984. Now I think I was wrong, and that scares me.