Yeah - it is more or less the way that old and previously healthy civilizations generally die. The details differ, but the overall dynsmic is fairly consistent.
As a civilization ages, the broad focus shifts from working to contribute to its well-being to living comfortably off of its established well-being to scrambling to grab as much of its diminishing well-being as possible as quickly as possible. And the US is well into that last phase.
There are only a few ways it can play out from there. The common people can force the civilization into a sort of reset, as the French did in the late 18th century, or the civilization can just go into a long, slow decline like Egypt did or it can collapse under some combination of rebellion from within and attack from without, as Rome did.
The third scenario is far and away the most likely for the US.
Yeah - it is more or less the way that old and previously healthy civilizations generally die. The details differ, but the overall dynsmic is fairly consistent.
As a civilization ages, the broad focus shifts from working to contribute to its well-being to living comfortably off of its established well-being to scrambling to grab as much of its diminishing well-being as possible as quickly as possible. And the US is well into that last phase.
There are only a few ways it can play out from there. The common people can force the civilization into a sort of reset, as the French did in the late 18th century, or the civilization can just go into a long, slow decline like Egypt did or it can collapse under some combination of rebellion from within and attack from without, as Rome did.
The third scenario is far and away the most likely for the US.