[RE]

You only mentioned speed of the ball. How about its velocity? The ball isn't going up the hill linearly, it is spiraling around the hill, on a generally upward trajectory. Every time you look to the top of the hill, you can see it, right there! But then the ball travels laterally along a cone shaped hill, moving dozens of feet for every inch higher in elevation.

First of all, Speed and Velocity are synonymous, although V is a vector quantity with a direction.  2nd, absent any outside force besides Gravity, the ball travels straight up or down the hill, it doesn't spiral.  Third. the velocity increases due to the force of gravity accelerating it down the hill.

Your understanding of Newtonian Mechanics is pathetic.

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[TDoS]

First of all, Speed and Velocity are synonymous, although V is a vector quantity with a direction. teach th

Maybe they don't teach the basics of speed and velocity to idiots in modern high schools, but they aren't synonymous to non-idiots any more than someone like K-Dog would confuse amps and watts. 

Ergo....I knew EXACTLY what I said, and obviously revealed it by providing a directional component to that ball climbing a hill....

2nd, absent any outside force besides Gravity, the ball travels straight up or down the hill, it doesn't spiral.

Good thing I provided a mental image of how it COULD work to negate your particular example, regardless of the how. And it is even a BETTER example than yours....because as an analogy it fits the history of doom proclamations that don't happen, yet everyone seems to think they are X time away...and then a decade after X time has passed, folks claim it all over again!

Thanks for not mentioning anything about how obvious this rinse, recycle and repeat cycle is. It means you know you don't have a way around the obvious history of doom. Be it from Catton, Ehrlich, or everyone in the modern internet age.

Third. the velocity increases due to the force of gravity accelerating it down the hill.

I wasn't discussing going down the hill. That is your interest, and the thing that hasn't happened (but HOPE abounds!). And all of those who came before you....the ball has reached the top of the hill....DOOM!!!  And then a decade later presto...rinse, recycle, repeat...how in the heck did Newtonian Mechanics get me back up the hill! Again!

Your understanding of Newtonian Mechanics is pathetic.
RE

And your ability to counter the underlying thought of rinse, recycle and repeat is worse.

I've mentioned it before, your perspective has been around for a millennium. What is it they say about history? Learn some or be doomed to repeat it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypticism

Newtonian Mechanics to combat a thought experiment....while avoiding the actual point. Which is factual, and therefore impossible to refute.

[K-Dog]

But one that, as a signal of collapse, is defined, and would be undeniable. As compared to the relative, insignificant and imagined ones invented on the internet. I don't know WHY those who, for some reason, REALLY REALLY want to say it is happening. Jim Jones and Ugo snd Gail and Catton demonstrate this regularly. Not so much anymore, and with a far smaller audience is my bet.

No, consider the black death in Europe's middle ages.  A lot of people died but the continuity of civilization continued so you can't call it collapse.

The problem is that your thinking is logically flawed.  Collapse is when something existing (civilization) ceases to exist.  Collapse is the absence of what was.  Attempting to define something that does not exist is a logical can of worms.  Collapse does not exist.  Collapse is when something existing ceases to exist, and defining what that something is means different things to different people.  There is a threshold problem.  Different strokes for different folks.  Our criteria varies.

Defining a state of non-existence using the vocabulary of existence is not so easy to do.

[TDoS]

No, consider the black death in Europe's middle ages.  A lot of people died but the continuity of civilization continued so you can't call it collapse.

Again, definitions. We have been discussing the idea that a collapse can be claimed to be in progress as population decreases. Not some single country, but the species at large. Collapse has NOT been defined as ALL people dying, that is called "extinction".

During the Black death human population is estimated to have decreased from 450-500 million people to 350-375 million. I accept this as within the definition of a species population reduction of significant size to be a collapse. But obviously not an extinction.

The problem is that your thinking is logically flawed.

Always possible. But of the three of us, only one is making a living doing it.

Collapse is when something existing (civilization) ceases to exist.  Collapse is the absence of what was.

Fine. If you want to define collapse as extinction, you can. I stipulate that a really, really, really bad collapse can be extinction. And when all of a species is gone, meeting this condition, it also fits within the definitions AI provides. 

AI Say:
Key Differences:

Species Collapse:Population numbers drop very fast.The group is in extreme danger.Animals or plants still live on Earth.Recovery is still possible with help.

Extinction:Zero living members remain anywhere. The loss is permanent. No breeding can happen.Recovery is impossible.

Population numbers drop in collapse, no population remaining = extinction. So AI says.

Attempting to define something that does not exist is a logical can of worms.  Collapse does not exist.

See above. AI seems to have no problem understanding the difference.

Collapse is when something existing ceases to exist, and defining what that something is means different things to different people.  There is a threshold problem.  Different strokes for different folks.  Our criteria varies.

Hence the use of a disinterested 3rd party.

[RE]

I've mentioned it before, your perspective has been around for a millennium.

My perspective has been around for millenia, the conditions of population size, resource depletion, climate change and environmental degradation are relatively recent.  I was fortunate enough to be born at the right time for my perspective to play out. 😀

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[RE]

EURONEWS.COM 2026-08-13

Millions across Europe swelter through a new wave of extreme temperatures

By Gavin Blackburn Published on 13/08/2026 - 22:34 GMT+2 Share Comments Add Euronews on Google Listen to this article now... Millions across Europe swelter through a new wave of extreme temperatures Advertisement Repeat heatwaves and drought have fuelled a historically hot summer of wildfires, and contributed to the deaths of thousands of people.  Millions of people across Europe, particularly in France, Italy, Spain and the UK, sweltered through a new wave of extreme temperatures on Thursday as the continent's latest heatwave picked up. ADVERTISEMENT  More than 135 million people were forecast to face temperatures above 35C, with parts of France soaring past 42C and the UK recording the hottest day of the year.

ANOTHER Euro Heat Wave! 🥵

The Boiling Frogs analogy takes on a more literal meaning in France these days.



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[RE]

THEGUARDIAN.COM 2026-08-14

Romania shuts its last nuclear reactor as drought-hit Danube river drops to record low

Drought and record-low water levels have deepened fears of an energy crisis across Europe, which is facing a new summer heatwave.  The drought-hit Danube, whose waters cool the Romanian plant in Cernavoda, already forced Nucelarelectrica to shut down ⁠one reactor ​in late July.

Guess sinking barges and blowing up rocks wasn't enough.

On the upside, they don't have to worry about Drones knocking out their power as the war picks up steam.  Power will already be out.

Gonna be tough charging up their clean energy EVs pretty soon.

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[TDoS]

I've mentioned it before, your perspective has been around for a millennium.

My perspective has been around for millenia.....

Sure. As I have mentioned, Apocalypticism has been popular for a long time.

....the conditions of population size, resource depletion, climate change and environmental degradation are relatively recent.  I was fortunate enough to be born at the right time for my perspective to play out. 😀

RE

The conditions of population size, resource depletion and climate change and environmental degradation have been discussed, talked about, hell going back to PLato. Malthus covers the first, Plato was writing about the 2nd in 360BC, Fourier proposed the greenhouse effect pre 1850, 1856 Eunice Foote demonstrated that carbon dioxide absorbs heat, 1896 Savante Arrhenius calculated burning fossil fuels was going to cause global warming.

There are very few things new in this universe, if one only looks. I'm not a history buff, but DAMN did people know shit farther back in time than most suspect. 

[RE]

[TDoS]

When the logic and facts are immutable....DO MEMES!!!!!  I never denied collapse. After all, our Sun is losing mass at the rate of 4 or 5 million tons per second. We are most certainly DOOMED!

[RE]

When the logic and facts are immutable....DO MEMES!!!!!  I never denied collapse. After all, our Sun is losing mass at the rate of 4 or 5 million tons per second. We are most certainly DOOMED!

The meme doesn't specify that you deny collapse.  Nor has the mass of the Sun ever been any part of the discussion and is just a strawman argument.

In any event, you recycle tired and inapplicable historical analogies which we have deconstructed more times than I can count, so I recycle DD Memes which are a convenient shorthand so I don't have to waste time and energy repeating debates I have long since tired of.  You may still find them entertaining, I do not.  Anyone interested can search the archives.

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[K-Dog]

To deny collapse means denying human agency.  It is a slave mentality to think you have no control over events to come.  The totally brainwashed think everything happens according to gods will.  In such a mindset there is no collapse.  All is as it should be. 

But collapse that humans cannot control, random acts of god, have never been an interest of the Diner.  Adults know acts of god are real enough.  You do not even have to believe in a god like the brainwashed do to know that, so move on. 

Collapse in the Diner is always intimately connected to human stupidity.  Collapse which could have, and should have, and would have been avoided if adults were in charge is the only collapse that is interesting.  Acts of god are boring random and tragic.  But if they could have been avoided by human action, then the same acts become interesting.  Human drama makes it so. 

Things won't get interesting enough for TDOS until there is mass death.  But that is like only reading the end of a story.

[RE]

Things won't get interesting enough for TDOS until there is mass death.  But that is like only reading the end of a story.

Indeed.TDoS sets the bar for what he accepts as evidence for collapse so high that when it's reached supply chains will have failed completely, shelves will be bare everywhere, nobody will have reliable electricity, gas pumps will be dry and the only thing Dollars useful for is wiping your ass.

While this level of collapse has reached countries like Cuba and Somalia, it's still a ways off in the FSoA, though Europe seems to be getting there pretty quickly.  Thing is, by the time it does make it here, the process of getting there will be over, it will be history not futurism.  Everyone will acknowledge the reality then.  For those of us who analyze collapse, we'll move on from reporting on collapse in progress to predicting how society will reformulate.  Except of course there won't be any internet and most of us will be dead anyhow.

Anyhow, by the time there's evidence enough for TDoS of Collapse, the show will basically be over.  My interest is in how we get to that point, and what transpires along the way down.

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[TDoS]

To deny collapse means denying human agency.

To deny collapse when it doesn't meet the definition is normal, expected, and called for.

You can no more call it something else and be taken seriously than if you multiply volts times amps and get Pi.

Collapse in the Diner is always intimately connected to human stupidity.

The Diner, and people in general, can make up its own definition, obviously. Just like I can say that Pi=2.
Applying relative definitions to things though makes stuff messy.

Collapse which could have, and should have, and would have been avoided if adults were in charge is the only collapse that is interesting.

I can agree with that. Species collapse on purpose and possible BECAUSE of the species themselves. Global thermonuclear war comes to mind. Climate change as well. But neither of those have triggered one yet, but they could most assuredly cause the required population reduction.

Acts of god are boring random and tragic.

And expected. But how can human induced collapse NOT be tragic as well? We don't own any secrets to the Universe that say us clever monkeys are immune for being stupid, tragic, ignorant, self centered and self destructive in  general. I would venture that humans are so flipping stupid they fall for nonsense, science denying hogwash that sounds good more often than they do scientific fact. Religion being a GREAT example, and peak oil being a smaller and more recent version.

Things won't get interesting enough for TDOS until there is mass death.  But that is like only reading the end of a story.

Collapse isn't collapse without poulation decline. Sorry. But all KINDS of horrible things can happen without population decline/collapse. No one is going to call the Holodomor a good thing, or Pol Pot's stunts, or Mao's Great Chinese famine, etc etc.

Collapse is certainly collapse. It just hasn't happened yet. But there is always hope in the corner of the internet waiting with baited breath. The peak oilers have moved on, currently climate change has my vote for highest probability, with a more thorough cleansing GRB waiting in the wings, but timing unknown. 

[RE]

APNEWS.COM 2026-08-17

Belgian wildfire approaches Germany as Greece probes deadly blaze

A forest ranger from the region told The Associated Press that the blaze could continue for months underground because of the peaty soil.  “What we see here is that the grassland has burned and the fire has gone into the soil to a certain depth, into the peat, and it is still burning,” said Yves Pieper. “It can go down very, very low in the peat layer.”

Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Belgium... basically the whole continent is burning up.  For the Deniers who say "we've always had forest fires", I can categorically state that in the 7 decades I have been around, there has never been a summer where the entire European continent had wildfires burning.

Similarly, since the Hoover Dam was built during thee Great Depression, Lake Mead never went so low it was within 150 feet of Dead Pool level.  If it doesn't drop below this season, next year it's basically guaranteed.  What isn't mentioned is that besides Hoover, there are many other smaller dams and hydro plants that are in similar state.  Some of the lost power may be replaced by increased thermal generation, but that just means still more CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.  The water for agriculture also can't be replaced.

It's not Collapse though, right? 🙄  Maybe by 2032.



RE