this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2026
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We are already seeing "civilization ending" events happening across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. To a lesser extent, we're seeing it in Latin America and the Pacific Rim, as well. But a lot of that resulted from extractive oil industry long before climate change really started kicking in. The mass migrations out of the Persian Gulf region, the ugly turf wars over drilling sites, natural disasters knocking out cities that we are no longer able to rebuild... it's all accumulating.
But civilizations don't end overnight. The history books are going to write about this era as a span of decades - even centuries - with the ramp up of the O&G industry dating back to the early 20th century and peaking in the early 21st. We're going to be talking about The American Empire rather than any individual politician or business leader. And we're going to be documenting it in Spanish or Mandarin, because the big English-speaking countries will have walled themselves off from the global business community for so long that nobody knows how to communicate with them anymore.
It really depends on how far away from the imperial core you happen to be. And there will inevitably be events that feel like an end of civilization for a subset of people in a way that eclipses the nation as a whole.
I like to go back to the BP Horizon spill, which fucked up the Gulf Coast for years and still weighs heavily on the regional ecology. Or one of the bigger hurricanes - Katrina or Harvey or Ian - which inflicted property damage that never got repaired and displaced tens of thousands of people indefinitely. I might also point to the Gaza Genocide or the Ukraine/Russia War, which has demolished whole swaths of civilization and killed millions through a combination of active slaughter and social murder. Or the most recent massive earthquake in Caracas, for which relief has been strangled by ongoing sanctions and the threat of military intervention. Or the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 and from which the island still hasn't recovered.
If you live in these areas right now, I don't know if you can see the edge of civilization anymore. It is the End of Civilization for you. And as the impact of climate change expands and accelerates, you're going to see more places on the map that suffer similar fates.
By civilisation I'm more referring to human civilisation not civilisation in a national sense.
Hey they pay me well for extracting said oil and gas why would I complain about something that is making me rich?
These are far away problems for people I don't associate with it's not a problem for me
I absolutely agree!
I disagree English has already become the global language of the human race. Science, programming, a lot of business, etc etc. Its all English. I'm currently in Istanbul the melting pot of culture here is really showing that English is the universal language. Nobody speaks it as a first language but it is the language that almost everyone has in common. For example I was speaking to a group of people from various middle eastern countries and they where speaking English as that was the language they had in common. Side note: The american who joined us was the least educated and spoke the worse English kinda funny lol.
Absolutely. I'm an Aussie we are pretty close to both the american and British imperial core. That combined with our remoteness and material/agricultural richness sets us up very well.
Far away from effecting my life so I don't know much about this and am not too bothered tbh.
The middle east has been a clusterfuck for 3000years best not to get too invested in any particular tribe in the endless sand wars. Ukraine/Russia situation I think is the last of the empire wars of Europe. We have been doing this shit since the dark age. I've been investing into the European aggregates industry in preparation for the rebuild of Ukraine. I think the Russian federation will collapse into many separate nations (similar to the fall of the USSR) due to the misguided decisions of Putin which will overall be beneficial to the west and the idea of democracy.
Again far away peoples of a far away nation. Its nation ending perhaps but not human civilisation ending.
Absolutely agree. But trouble and strife has been the nature of existence since the birth of life itself. One either sees the patterns for what they are and positions themselves to benefit or one dies. This is natural selection on a civilizational scale.
We think we have beaten natural selection but we have only deferred the pressured to the collective instead of the individual. Many other people may die but that is a price I'm willing to pay.
A human collapse is going to begin in the most vulnerable countries and spread. It's not just going to be everyone everywhere failing at once. What we're seeing is the start of a long term, large scale global change with climate as a primary motivating factor.
Sure. Until "Putin meddled in my elections! We need to go to war with Russia!" and "The Haitians are sneaking in to vote for socialism! We need mass deportations NOW!" is the rallying cry of your local party. And then you're bumping elbows with fascism very quickly.
The global language of the human race is Latin. Damn shame nobody still speaks it.
That's not actually true. It is, if anything, a product of a very recent turn in US foreign policy (and subsequent propaganda). The Middle East enjoyed centuries of (relative) stability under the Ottoman Empire. And it was one of the safer industrial stage regions on Earth to live during both World Wars. For most of that 3000 years, it enjoyed an enormous peace dividend as a center of trade and technological advancement, from which imperial powers positioned themselves securely while branching out across the globe. It was Europe before Europe was Europe.
The post-Cold War wave of conflicts is a novelty of colonization and extractive industry. It is the historical exception, not the rule.
We've beaten natural selection with manual selection. The future of the human race will be written by its ancestors' in a way vanishingly few species can claim.
But this isn't a reason for fatalism. It's a recognition that our current trajectory is a collective choice.
I don't necessarily disagree I just don't think that it will result in a total global collapse. I think the most vulnerable will fall and the strong will adapt and overcome same as every other global crisis in history.
As an Aussie I'm sufficiently insulated against european inpieralism and middle eastern sand wars. And fascism doesn't scare me considering that I'm a strait white male with what fascists would consider pure "Arian" ancestry.
It defiantly used to be but I think the penetration on English his suowrceeded its influence.
As I said I am currently in the former seat of power for the Ottoman empire and their treatment of people was anything but peaceful or stable. I WS in the quarters they kept their slaves 2 days ago its was not a pleasant place. The wives of the sultan where by definition taken by force from conkered lands as to avoid giving any particular family any power.
I think the Anzac's would disagree on this point but then again how fan they disagree when they all died at the hands of the Ottoman.
Its was Rome then its was eastern Rome (which I would still consider the true Rome) until the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Conflict has been the default for the entirety of human history everywhere across the globe. The cold war was a solidification event that caused a bipolar consolidation of factions but nothing more than that.
Is that not just natural selection by h a different name. Eatehr selection is natural or it is chosen and if its is chooses the correct terminology is eugenics.
Its a collective choice amongst collectives. You still have free will to decide what collective and who within said collective you decide to associate with.
I don't think there's any difficulty in recognizing the risk of a global economic contraction, given the long history of global market conditions causing recessionary feedback loops. What we want to describe as a "collapse?" Idk. Certainly a global rapid deterioration, as human habitable biomes contract.
Brother you are a product of European imperialism. And you are heavily reliant on the umbrella of NATO, along with a global financial system that transacts in your preferred currencies. Absent globalized institutions like the Bank of England and the ECB and cornerstone lenders like HSBC, you're out begging China, India, and Japan for a cup of fungible credit.
I can't imagine why. Aussies were vacuumed up as cannon fodder for the Pacific Theater within the first year of the war.