Quote from: RE on Jan 16, 2026, 10:44 AMAs I mentioned earlier, we have reached a  point where we have a new crisis on practically a daily basis.

So now you need a reasonable definition of "crisis". Particularly if you want to stack a bunck of them together to get to "collapse". Idiot politicians doing idiot things could be a crisis....depending on your definition. But we can name plenty of "crisis" going back before you and I were born....remember Rosa Parks and the reaction? Me neither, not old enough to notice. How about The Little Rock Nine? Crisis worthy of tearing the country apart. But doesn't really get to collapse much.

Quote from: REThere's so much mayhem ongoing out there now it's impossible to follow all of it and keep up.  Information overload results in many important stories being missed or overlooked.

Well, information overload is a condition of the internet being available, pumping out everything from bullshit nonsense to good opinions, informed or otherwise, people confusing opinions with fact and suckering in god knows how many..remember peak oil? Yeah, me neither....rarely get a call nowadays.

Quote from: RECurrently, on the macro level there are 3 wicked problems that are leading goobermint toward failure here in the FSoA.  Wicked problems are intractable with no politically palatable answers that polarize opinions resulting in legislative lockup.  The rapidly growing homeless problem, the affordability crisis for the middle class and the immigration problems are affecting large numbers of people in many communities across the FSoA at the same time.

Three reasonable mentions, and okay, let's call them "crisis".

Homeless problem has been here for quite some time, undoubtedly called a crisis by some spanning decades. How long does a crisis have to be occuring with no one really caring before we can decide it must not be a crsis, because otherwise we would do something about it. The affordability problem for the middle class? It is certainly a problem, seemingly intractable indeed, but hardly unsolvable. More like....the pressure applied by those being affected by it doesn't amount to enough pressure on the powers that be. Yet. As far as immigration, I'll make you a bet. That when the next Democan gets back to being President, maybe the rules that the Orange one are inventing on the fly will be kept. Maybe with some small modifications to pretend to be nicer. But most will be kept. Because Americans do seem to back some form of restriction of non white, non-Christian, non "like us" whatever. Call it....Americans don't mind xenophobia in small doses?

Quote from: REYou can't control chaos when the numbers grow large and it's geographically spread out and not confined to a single location.

True. But then you call it a revolution. And they come in small or big sizes...and then maybe that takes care of some of the "political intractability" issue.

Quote from: REI do see a more generalized breakdown of law & order coming out of this with a rise in home invasions in wealthy neighborhoods and increased gang activity in low income neighborhoods.  Possibly also a rise in kidnappings and assassinations of corporate executives along with sabotage of the internet, electric grid and oil production and distribution faciities.  Berlin recently had their elecyricity knocked out for 3 days by sabotage.

Well, maybe a small crisis or two in there. But there certainly is no current spate of corporate kidnapping and assassinations, sabotage of the internet, or folks attacking electric grids or oil production. And oil production is an EASY one, I can come up with half a dozen ways to screw that pooch. And folks have figured out how to bring down grids, the more interesting ones being tranformers at the right spot. Guess what? For as each as these two might be, you just don't see them happening let alone increasing to even the point of noticability.

Quote from: REA lot of this stuff is very difficult to track because it doesn't turn up in the news cycle except in the specific location where it happens.

And because the effects are so small, as in, NYC ain't lost its lights lately has it? Has the EIA tracked a spate of dropping oil or gas production because of sabotage that I've missed? Because if it mattered, folks should be able to see it in the data.

Quote from: RESo you can't track the number of home invasions occuring nationally, for instance or the increases in gang violence.

Because....no one is reporting these crimes to the police, or because no one is tallying them up?

Quote from: REHowever, this would be consistent with everything I've observed about collapse as it has progressed in other countries, so I expect it here as well now.
RE

Oh....so some of these items were straight up spculative? Well....you've been in the doom business since the last century....and we're still waiting for effects from other countries to get around to appearing here?

I'll stick with my ice analogy. Simple, easy to track, has all sorts of your signals mixed into it because of one simple metric, and no need to explain...only need to wait for it to happen and travelers bitching about "gee why can't we find ice anymore when out and about" and we'll know.