"... we all have to prepare for life without much money, where imported goods are scarce, and where people have to provide for their own needs, and those of their immediate neighbours."

Dmitry Orlov gave a long, powerpoint-aided presentation in Dublin, Ireland on June 11th.I've been an Orlov watcher for several years now. He doesn't have all the answers, meaning I don't always agree with him, but he conveys an outsider's view of our culture that stimulates my curiosity. With doomers, the inconvenient subject of sustainable population always comes up, and Orlov has already observed a steep population decline:

"... shocking though this seems, it can be observed that most societies are able to absorb sudden increases in mortality without much fuss at all. There was a huge spike in mortality in Russia following the Soviet collapse, but it was not directly observable by anyone outside of the morgues and the crematoria. After a few years people would look at an old school photograph and realise that half the people are gone! When it comes to death, most people do in fact make it easy on themselves and come along quietly."

Russia is still losing population, and the usual explanations involve crime and heavy alcohol abuse. Both of those are ugly thoughts, but not as fearsome as all your neighbors killing you for your garden, or your government sending you off to camps.

However, Orlov himself notes that it is a mistake to assume that the future will resemble the past, so I don't just assume that Orlov knows the problems of the future because he's seen the Soviet system collapse.