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Comment by lambdasquirrel | Hacker News Reader

Something tells me that if the end of the world comes, this sort of article will be a moot point. The Earth just can’t handle that many subsistence farmers and hunter/gatherer types. So most of us won’t make it.

Besides that, this is a strangely American fixation. You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets. China’s culture has endured the collapse of centralized authority many times over (most recently in the 19th and 20th centuries). Western Europe eventually came back from the collapse of the Roman Empire. If things really fell apart in North America, you can bet that the EU and China would figure out a deal to maintain some semblance of stability near the coasts, for the sake of protecting economic interests.

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Define "came back from the collapse of the Roman Empire".

We only have a few thousand years of recorded human history as a benchmark, but the "Dark Ages" weren't as dark as people think they were. They simply lacked large central authorities with state-sponsored violence used to maintain control.

I would put forward that the biggest hurdle most humans have to get over, and this goes really for most modern societies, is putting preservation before perseverance.

I don't intend to come off as a nihilist, but I suppose there are also very few new thoughts under the sun. The status quo is an illusion in our minds, and to even begin to place any one part of human history in an objective rank of better or worse misses the trajectory of life as we understand it. Evolution does not promise better, it promises continued existence.

Climate change is a human problem, not an Earth problem. Civilization collapse is a me and you problem, not a human problem. To the extent that we put the burden of preservation on ourselves we risk missing the point of perseverance that all life around us demonstrates every day. The unique gift humans give to that equation, which no one can yet explain why we have this gift, is to bring both logic and compassion to our continued existence. Let's remember to keep logic and compassion in balance and live our lives as though we were not going to live forever.

How about we just learn skill for its own sake and hobby?

You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets.

American sure have a strange fixation on doomsday prepping for their own family, but not on a societal level. Prepping on a societal level will likely stave off collapse of society as we know it as opposed to living through a post-apocalypse.

Like, we could use a little bit of prepping for a pandemic that we're currently undergoing through instead of being unprepared every time, like investing much more in learning how to make and test vaccines quickly or keeping more masks on hand.

> You never seem to hear about doomsday sort of things in the same vein from Europe’s news outlets.

https://www.dw.com/en/doomsday-clock-suggests-the-end-is-clo...

Is it me or I see, sometimes regular thrashing of America - which is good if its valid - but I feel like there is some sort of deep bias by Europeans that everything is rosy up in the EU and everything America does is substandard. May be you didn't mean that but I want to mention this bias as part of the HN community as a whole.

The pattern largely is: X seems to be an American issue. We never do X in Europe. It comes off as a prejudice filled opinion - I've met many europeans that come off extremely rude against Americans. Tribalism makes people less pleasant and unproductive in making arguments. We should stop doing this and talk about the issue at hand.

Objectively, America is a young culture - often considered adolescent, as compared to European cultures that have existed for many centuries.

This youthful exuberance has its benefits but it also has more than its share of idealism, naïveté and general lack of big picture considerations.

The survivalist movement is a great example of this.

> Objectively, America is a young culture

This statement simply makes no sense. Americans didn't show up on the shores of New England with their minds wiped clean. American culture stretches back and builds on all of the cultures of the people who came here (or were here already).

It's not any younger than any other places cultures. It may have changed faster because of greater environmental pressure — new physical environment, mixing disparate peoples together — but categorizing it as "adolescent" is simply tribalism. Putting the US down to make yourself feel better about your culture.

I’m not sure I agree. We are a young nation. I remember visiting some people in Switzerland and their home was older than our US history. We think 200 years is a very long time, but I don’t think Europeans and Asians have that same view.

That assumes that there's one linear cultural progression and America is simply a younger version of Europe. I don't think that's necessarily true. It could be that America is on a different cultural arc entirely, driven by differing fundamentals (land vs population, history, economy, etc).

Americans have thought similarly about Asia for awhile now, the thought being that Japan, then Singapore, then China, would adopt more American beliefs about free speech and freedom of the press. That hasn't quite happened to this day. I don't think it would ever happen unless the fundamentals change.

An analogy: The snow fox tells the forest fox that red fur is a liability, and you should have white fur like me to stay safe.

North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc..

Also, many North Americans descend from farmers who actually owned their land, developing very much a communitarian/entrepreneurial attitude.

Also, during the cold war there was a real threat of collapse.

This attitude exists to this day.

While we make fun of these people like this, I don't see it as a bad thing.

Reasonable precautions are good, but also, having a small number of people take 'extreme' precaution is possibly a good healthy as well.

Totally, same with Australia - they've got so much uninhabitable land and a tremendous wild life refuge - thus, we don't say "Austrlians have systemic problem with survivalist mentality". I found the GP comment glib, unthoughtful and somewhat bigoted and condescending.

> North Americans have often lived on 'the frontier' between civilization and the harsh conditions of the natural world. And FYI said conditions are generally harsher in North America than they are in Europe where distances are shorter, the weather is more temperate etc..

Eh? The USA is right in the middle of the world’s most temperate climate zone, some distances are vast but there are vast tracts of very habitable and fertile land. It has non predatory neighbours at both north and south, and fish on its east and west. In the aftermath of WWII, Iowa was producing 90% of the world’s corn.

Throughout its history, the United States has had a level of geographic security unparalleled by any other country in the world. It has never once faced a serious threat to its existence. The US has a geographic endowment like no other. How can you possibly call it living on the frontier?

We are talking about different things.

The climate in the US is generally far more harsh than that of Europe.

The Med has a beautiful, easy-going climate the whole year. There is no winter, there are no severe storms (or at least they are small ie no Hurricanes), and it's generally not brutally hot.

The continent, UK has fairly mild winters and no super aggressive weather.

Even the Scandinavian regions - most of their settlements are near the ocean, which makes them much milder than say, Canada. Montreal is further south than Copenhagen (actually, Montreal is the same latitude as Northern Italy!) but Montreal weathers are crushing compared to anything in Denmark.

All of these European areas will have been close enough to 'civilization' for 1K years, and usually easy access to some ocean port for transport.

The 'New World' was brutal. Winters are rugged, summers can be hot and balmy. Before they could plant crops they had to clear the trees. Aboriginals provided a whole set of other complications (I'm not saying this is fair, just from a certain perspective). Most of South America has it's own harsh charms as well.

And the distances are vast - when you're in what is now 'Montana' a little over 100 years ago - you might as well be on the moon. There's no rivers, roads, very sparse rail - no reasonable way in. Crossing the continent was life-threatening.

But from an industrial perspective, yes, you are absolutely right: much of North America is ultimately arable, there's no Habsbourg / Napoleonic Empire to throw you off, it's perfect for building an industrial agrarian society.

But there's absolutely a 'rugged/independent' nature to North Americans that doesn't quite exist in Europe.

The American Revolution was very different from the French Revolution.

North Americans have always viewed power as a kind of expression of 'independence' whereas Europeans have always viewed it as some kind of entente between the nobility and the plebes.

It's mostly historic, but there are absolutely differences that remain ... Hint: the #1 selling vehicle in the US and Canada is ... a pick-up truck! They don't even have such things in Europe, rather, these little Lorrie/van type things which individuals, for the most part, don't even drive.

Dude, what are you talking about? Are you speaking of the early American Pioneers, who have all died out at least a hundred years ago? A "Rugged/independent nature"??? I just listened to a girl complain to her friend about how the soy milk in her latte leaves a funny aftertaste that she can't figure out how to get rid of. The vast majority of people in the US would be unable to feed, clothe, or sustain themselves if there wasn't a Fred Meyer's or Costco within a 30 minutes drive of their domicile. The USA has the highest percentage of obesity in the world [1].

You mention how us North Americans love trucks, and that somehow supports this rugged view. The majority of people who own big trucks here do so as a status symbol to compete with their neighbors. Don't get me wrong there are still some populations of total badasses here; farming types, country gals/boys, wilderness lovers, hunters, preppers, gun nuts etc... But they make up a very small percentage of our population. Most of us are at the top of the list of helpless metropolitan sheeples.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/obesity

Your points don't help your argument.

- That most Americans 'couldn't survive in the bush' is obvious, but considerably more North Americans already live in very remote and rugged areas, definitely more than in Europe. There is almost no 'open country' in Europe, whereas maybe 1/2 of North America is wide and vast. Living in rural Montana has essentially no parallel in Europe.

- That trucks are 'status symbols' is beside the point - 'everything' is a status symbol (even back in the day), certainly cars are in Europe. The point is they are trucks not cars and they are by and large used quite a lot for 'moving stuff', and travelling on somewhat more rugged terrain.

- Obesity rates are irrelevant.

Obviously New England has been as urban as Europe since basically the Englightenment, but most of the rest of America is barely tamed.

My grandfather was born at the start of the 20th century, most of his relatives and family elders would have lived in the late 19th century when much of North America was still very wild. So much of 'frontier' and 'far rural' North America is just beyond living memory, it wasn't that long ago.

My great-grandfather was still clearing trees on the family farm, before plumbing, electricity, radio. They were several days ride from the nearest village of more than 1K people and there were no waterways or rail. He passed away not that long before I was born.

The ethos of 'way away from civilization, on the family-owned farm, you'd better be self-sufficient' still colours much of the North American attitude today.

Ah I see, you were more focused on the utility of our infrastructure than our individual skill sets and knowledge. My points do help my argument, but from a different point of view than you were arguing from. And obesity rates are not irrelevant; they demonstrate how able people are to keep surviving, both mentally and physically. I think if a governmental collapse occurred in the US, 60-70% of the US population would be dead within 5 years. The major population centers entirely dependent on government infrastructure, regardless of how close to the "frontier" they live. Yes, there is much farmland here, but it is very reliant on water and equipment that only come from a functional economy.

I was a bit hasty in my first comment; I read your argument as "the US is made of frontiersmen, they tamed the continent, and they are hardier and more skilled at survival for it." At this point it is apparent that was not your intent, and I do agree that we'd be better off than many places. One county in the Americas that would do a lot better is Mexico though; full of off-the-grid peoples who are fully self sufficient and happy to be so. Much of the US is just functional because of money.

Mexico is only functional because of US money. The US would rebuild but Mexico can barely function even under normal circumstances.

"you were more focused on the utility of our infrastructure than our individual skill sets and knowledge."

No, I'm focused on the individualist/self-sufficient mentality of Americans, due to their history of being on the frontier, and very remote rural areas.

Sometimes this mentality exhibits itself in material behavior, i.e. building isolated plumbing/water/sewage systems. Owning tractors and such machinery for working around the large plot.

Sometimes the mentality is expressed in behaviour that is really irrelevant, like buying SUVs or Trucks that are not needed and uses for 'status'.

Sometimes it's purely ideological, like voting for a Republican when such individuals might be better served by a specific social policy.

Sometimes it's both - like 'gun laws'. Prevalence of guns makes them easily available to idiots leading to more gun violence. But it also theoretically might save you in a specific circumstance, and, there's that whole thing about 'tyrannical governments'.

The 'attitude' definitely exists.

> That most Americans 'couldn't survive in the bush' is obvious, but considerably more North Americans already live in very remote and rugged areas.

We can argue a bit over what’s meant by ‘very remote and rugged’ but 82% of the US population live in urban areas, compared to 81% in the United Kingdom.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS?most_...

The Intermountain West very much still has a rugged spirit in its rural people (who represent a small % of the US population). To deny this is to deny reality. Your anecdotes about soy latte drinkers does not detract from this.

I think this is a great explanation. The US has a much more recent history of frontiermanship and homesteading than Europe does, and that continues to permeate our culture in many ways. When I was a kid, books like My Side of the Mountain and Island of the Blue Dolphins were required reading. Apocalyptic television shows like Jericho, Lost, The 100, The Last Man, and Revolution are still very popular. The echoes of the 1800s live on in books, television shows, and movies.

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