Quote from: TDoS on May 17, 2024, 08:41 PMReference to US per capita energy use use since 1965. We've had shrinking per capita energy use here in the US since 1979.

So 45 years of this thing happening, how more farther does the per capita current Kwh or a quantity of additional years/decades before the violence kicks off? And I don't mean run of the mill Watts riots or Rodney King or George Floyd riots and BLM stuff,more like large scale Hooverville based violence, entire towns being taken over so civilians can loot Walmarts and grocery stores for food, the stuff imagined by the survivalist types.

New Orleans after Katrina, that scale, but lasting longer, multiple cities, National Guard needing rolled out to stop the violence, etc etc. 60,000 Kwh/person? 40,000? 20,000? 5 years? 20?

To answer that question, if you had the information of the per capita energy use of the people living in Gaza prior to the growth of Hamas, or that of the Houthis in Yemen, or that of the ethnic Russians in the Donbass region of Ukraine prior to their break from the Ukrainian goobermint and  their call to Vlad the Impaler for help, you might be able to work it out mathematically.

You would also need to know the current per capita energy use of the lowest ~20% of the population of the FSoA today versus what it was 40 years ago, then calculate the estimated rate of change (aka the 2nd derivative) downward of that use.  Then all you need to do is extrapolate the curve forward and see when it becomes as low here as it was in Ukraine when the grand scale violence broke out and you would have your answer.

It is at that point where you have an existential crisis of a significant enough segment of the population that they have nothing left to lose.  If they do nothing they will die slowly, so they resort to violence when peaceful appeals for enough help to stay in the survival zone fail.    They may die quicker, or they may force enough downward pressure on the haves to give up something so they can survive.

So, since you are the one who knows where to find information like per capita energy use for different places and demographic subsets, I set you the task of finding out the relevant information, andthen I'll be happy to give you an educated guess.  Without such information it's just a WAG.

You also have the problem of discontinuity in the 2nd derivative, points at which the rate of change itself changes significantly.  In this case that would be something like a sudden increase in price of oil or NG due to a sudden decrease in its availability.  Perhaps the Russians decide to halt all export of energy to Europe.  Or the Iranians sabotage Saudi production using their Houthi proxies.  Or Chinese hackers bring down the grid in retaliation for trade protectionism.  Any number of scenarios couuld cause a discontinuity and rapid descent to large scale violence.  Extrapolating the smooth curve forward just gives you the best case scenario.

Without good data, I can't make an educated guess.  It would be like going to the track to bet on the ponies without studying the Racing Form to see prior results for the horses in given track conditions.  You're just shooting craps.  Or playing blackjack without counting the cards as they come out.  Only way to gamble and win more often than you lose is if you hve enough information to improve the  odds of picking the right answer.  I don't shoot craps at the casino.  I play blackjack, and I count.  I win more than I lose.  Or I did back in my college days anyhow.

RE