> Back on 20th Jan Tom B wrote:
> More interesting questions to me are will the USA endure or will it
WARNING: contains stereotyping and fiction by foreigners. Don't get too
excited, OK?
Another Scottish writer, Ken MacLeod, has the USA fragmented in Cosmonaut
Keep, the first of his "Engines of Light" series.
The split is longitudal, along cultural lines. All the God-fearin'
right-thinkin' clean-livin' folks move to the heartland away from
the decadent liberal socialist metro/homosexual coastal dwellers.
West Coast is California, Oregon, and Washington states. Between them, they
have Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Boeing (civilian bit) and Microsoft. They're
so rich they can buy Oregon as a vacation home. Population is down compared to
the USA as a whole, but all these businesses make a lot of money from foreign
trade, not domestic.
East Coast is the coastal states and big metropolitan sprawl, from Boston to
Baltimore? Atlanta? New York and the stock exchange are the big earner,
especially overseas, but there's a solid base of population and industry.
They're still rich.
The heartland states, except for Texas, are relatively to absolutely poor. And
global warming doesn't help the farmers.
cheers,
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Richard Morgan had a similar split for the US. The Pacific Rim, Eastern States
and Jesus Land.
It's been stated by other non finctional authors that many of the middle
states of the US would ahve 3rd world economies if it wasn't for central
government spending. How that will go with defence and NASA budget cuts
It's also been postulated about how the US would / could fall from it's
position as world number 1.
Either scenarios like the EMP pulse from Dark Angel or a terroist nuking like
Babylon 5. Alternatively look at the American economy. They are the worlds
biggest debtor and the struggle to export and mounting personal debt makes it
harder for domestic consumption to get the economy out of trouble. With the
government struggling to balance it's books as well it's hard to see where the
economic stimulous will come from.
The one thing that the US has going for it is that it is "too big to fail" a
failure by the US economy would have major impacts on their major trading
partners (nearly everyone) and so have ripple effects around the world. People
are far less likely to call in their loans on the US than they might be on
smaller countries like Greece..
it will be intersting to see if Greece can get itself out of the mess or
whether it triggers a domino effect accross the Euro zone.
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Earlier than Jesusland, look for Ecotopia by Callenbach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Callenbach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecotopia
Another possible model: How about Vinge's "Bobble" landscape:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War
Further down the road, but some interesting stuff there.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 3:04 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:
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There was a question about Greece perhaps getting out of its situation or the
domino effect in the Eurozone. First, I suspect if Greece survives, it'll be
because Germany (and perhaps on some days France) paid for that. Second, it
remains to be seen if the massive austerity measures and protests in Greece
cause governments to fall like raindrops which might lead to the mess of a
shattered Eurozone.
Greece is sadly only the worst of the lot. The Med is surrounded by countries
in trouble. And others further afoot (Ireland, even Britain and France) aren't
100% out of the woods. The whole Eurozone could just come apart. Of course,
the other point there is that the aggregate weight on Germany could make her
decide to throw off the chains and then everyone is up the creek.
To the US side, about 1/4 of the States are practically or technically
bankrupt. Canada and the US have states and provinces where state or
provincial debt per-capita exceeds by a sizable amount that of the
per-capita debt in Greece. There are some shell games going on to hide
this fact or ignore it or make it hard to notice (see Eurozone) but that's the
reality of things. Now, people keep touting how much better our economies are,
which is, during booming times, totally true. With the current issues with
exports and domestic markets, I remain unconvinced. And when goes the US, to
some extent also so goes Canada. Ontario, as one example, is getting by on its
good standing in the bond markets to allow its government to operate as if
being so far in debt was a viable fiscal policy. Wisconsin actually had to pay
cash up front to suppliers of ammunition to its prison guards to get bullets.
There are a lot of actually or practically bankrupt municipalities across both
Canada and the US as well.
And that's totally ignoring the massive househould debt that is not to the
government in the US and Canada. If we tack that onto the per-capita
government debt, the per-capita debt situation looks far, far worse.
The worst part is the majority of this situation was brought about by free
markets (with plenty of meddling by the people running the show) and by
people's natural greed to have more, own more, etc. Everyone seemed to think
they had an inevitable right to own outrageously inflating houses, to buy
every new consumer good (iPhone2 trade up for iPhone3!, need a new tablet!,
etc), etc.
I listened to an economist talking about the current situation. He pointed out
that markets do often have imbalances, but he said those typically take
6-24 months to work themselves out. He said that true fiscal crises,
historically, take 7-10 years. And that's assuming we aren't busy
building the next one already.
So, take a rough ride and reduced prospects over the next decade then through
in a couple of other major global crises we didn't see coming as shocks to the
system, and all bets are off on exactly who will fold or what key fiscal
systems in North America will collapse.
And I'm not even really treading into the zone of future history here...
that's just where we are at now and looking at the immediate next
decade....
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Interesting stuff, as you say... following those links also led me to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America
How relevant do folks think these thoughts (from a 1981 book) are to the
situation now and in the near future?
Jon (GZG)
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 3:04 PM, John Tailby <john_tailby@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:
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Always,
> scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being
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I find the idea of "the Empty Quarter" a little surprising. LOTS of mineral
wealth and other resources. Maybe few people, but New England and The Foundry
need Coal.
Michael Brown Sheridan, WY mwsaber6@msn.com
> Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:54:00 +0000
wrote:
> >
Always,
> >scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on being
> textfilter: chose text/plain from a multipart/alternative
I haven't read the book, only found the wikipedia page by following a couple
of links, so I have no idea of the details beyond the very sketchy wiki entry;
I'm assuming (which could easily be wrong, of course) that by "Empty Quarter"
he's referring mainly to sparse population density rather than implying a
worthlessness or lack of any useful resources....?
Jon (GZG)
> Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:54:00 +0000
Always,
> >scribble, scribble, scribble, eh?" (The Duke of Gloucester, on
> >textfilter: chose text/plain from a multipart/alternative
Further to my last post: just read a bit further into the wiki links, and
found a useful summary of the ideas here:
http://www.csiss.org/classics/content/18
which includes this bit:
"....Meanwhile, communities in the Empty Quarter are organized around
extraction of natural resources such as the oil and timber that are their
economic mainstay....."
Jon (GZG)
> I haven't read the book, only found the wikipedia page by following a
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> On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 11:54 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
> Interesting stuff, as you say... following those links also led me to
He is fairly accurate culturally, though he couldn't foresee the division that
grew in the last decade between Canada and the U.S.
As they say, "9/11 changed everything". The U.S. response to 9/11 under
Bush brought Britain closer to the U.S. politically under Blair, but at the
same time it distanced Canada. At one point a Canadian could drive into the
U.S. from Canada with just your birth certificate, and often they wouldn't ask
for that, even. Now you need a full passport. That may be a minor thing, but
there is no political will in the U.S. to give that up now or in the
foreseeable future. That alone kind of negates the idea of a
Canada-U.S. union between certain provinces and certain states.
The response to 9/11 and the early 21st century financial crisis has
laid out the differences between the U.S. and Canada fairly starkly. There's
actually been a loosening of what few gun control laws exist in the U.S.
There's been a massive ideological fight in the U.S. over health care reform,
in spite of the fact that the reform put in place is not a whole lot closer to
the Canadian model, and could well be overturned. While
Canada and the U.S. are very similar culturally -- sports,
entertainment,
consumer goods, etc. -- the last decade has strengthened a Canadian
identity while more clearly delineating the differences between the two
countries. More than any time since World War II, there's a greater feeling of
"us" and "them" among Canadians and Americans.
One area where the two countries are getting closer is the division between
left and right wing politics in Canada, which is becoming as polarized as it
is in the U.S. In Canada, like the U.S., the division is largely
regional, but it's not quite as cut-and-dried as in the U.S. (Though the
U.S. isn't as cut and dried as U.S. media, and their love of the Red
State/Blue State concept, like to pretend.) The U.S. agricultural states
run conservative, while the prairie farmers in Canada may be socially
conservative but lean more to the left politically. If the polarization
becomes more acute, there could well be closer ties between various North
American regions. British Columbia has more in common with Oregon than it does
with Alberta. Likewise, Alberta has more in common with Montana and Idaho
(and, oddly enough, the U.S. South; Alberta is kind of like Texas North).
The author makes the argument that North America is more culturally connected
in regions than the political divisions would indicate. With what I said above
about the divide between the U.S. and Canada taken into account, he's fairly
accurate.
Now, I don't think those nations could ever form, but from a cultural
standpoint he is correct about their connections for the most part. For
instance, his New England nation has five of the 10 most indebted states in
the Union, and most of the poorest Canadian provinces. Culturally it makes
sense, but unless something were to change economically, it would have a hard
time functioning as an independent nation.
There are a number of oddities due to the 30 years of history since the book
came out.
At one point Detroit was the 4th largest city in the U.S. Now good chunks of
it are a ghost town. The idea that Detroit would be a "regional capital"
(culturally, if not politically) makes no sense now. The capital would most
likely be Chicago, with Toronto a second place contender.
I think he underestimates the feeling of "nationhood" that the people of Texas
still have to this day. I'd be very tempted to split Texas off into a nation
of its own, rather than lumping parts of it into the Dixie section.
Mexamerica is spot on, though he didn't count on the illegal immigration
backlash that's seen in places like Arizona. Whether or not such a backlash
spreads is open to debate. Arizona's laws have had a negative effect on the
economy. So have similar laws in Alabama. (One of my employees got back from a
training trip to Alabama. He noted that there were a lot fewer people around
in the town where he was training. The locals agreed, stating that it's
starting to hurt the local farmers and local small businesses. The laws have
driven a lot of illegal immigrants out of the state, but they also drove out a
lot of legal immigrants and Hispanic American citizens.)
The Empty Quarter is just... odd. It's like the author didn't know what to do
with that part of the continent and just decided to throw it into a
catch-all. Saskatchewan, for instance, should be part of the
Breadbasket. The population of this region is relatively small, so I guess
that's what he was getting at, though but I have a hard time reconciling the
culture of Nevada with Idaho or Manitoba. This region is probably the best
off, economically, what with the oil in the Arctic and Alberta, and the
diamonds in the Canadian far north.