There will be no "SHTF moment." Things will just get steadily worse.

For a long time I believed that there would be some kind of identifiable SHTF "moment." Something like the flip of a switch, a real event. Maybe it would be another 911-style attack. Maybe the FEMA camp thing. Maybe a true economic meltdown that empties the grocery store shelves. Heck, maybe even an alien invasion, project blue-beam, or one of the more far-out theories. Something that changes the world as we know it forever.

I no longer believe this. Instead, in some ways, the truth is worse.

I now think things will just get steadily worse without there ever being a sudden shift. Rather than the coyote going over the cliff, its the slow boiling of the frog in water. We will gradually adjust to worse and worse conditions until the lives of people in the "advanced nations" are more or less the same as those in the third world. And people will put up with it! Millions live in terrible poverty in China, India and Africa without revolting. Americans, Canadians, Australians, and Europeans will slowly learn the pleasures of the same way of life. The texture of daily life will get worse one day at a time but it will happen slowly enough that people will get used to it.

Any given day will be similar to the one before it and the one after it, but over time the change will come. People will accept the miserable conditions as "the new normal" and if you point it out people will say you are a "doom and gloomer" or at most say "yeah, ain't it a shame, things used to be great when I was a kid..." More riots, more shortages, maybe black markets. Less and less freedom, more and more survalience. Better pharmaceuticals and virtual reality to take your mind off it all. Fewer and fewer opportunities, grimier and dirtier living conditions, more people jostling to get a piece of a pie that keeps on shrinking.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Yea, they learned a long time ago that its easier, just takes longer, to do it this way.

I think it'll come. 'The Moment', that is. It came for the world at least once before and with no real notice. That was 1989 with the fall of 'The Wall' and the CIA didn't know it was happening until bricks hit 'em in the head. I recall watching the initial hours as CNN was kinda my idea of background noise at the time...and the fear being the people approaching the wall and climbing it would be outright machine gunned. It would not have been unprecedented by any means...and the world was a different place then. It changed though and in days. Literally, mere days. Weeks for most of it to really take shape and move to happen.

So I do think it'll come here too. It almost came in 2006 on the Weekend that started the crash. Mega-Billions were moved off-shore in a rush I've never heard properly explained and it's what first spooked Bush like a horse with a prod. Immediately after that was when insane numbers like hundreds of billions for bailouts came to be talked about like it should be normal. Amazing how recently 100 billion, let alone many hundreds of billions, was considered unthinkably large.

...and it did come on 9/11, come to think of it. I went to sleep in my truck being unloaded at 7am and when I woke after the second tower had fallen to go see why I wasn't empty yet, the world had literally changed.

Sigh. Here's a few concepts you should get under your belt and then start thinking about this again:

Punctuated Chaotic Equilibrium
Catastrophe Curves
Anthill Optimization Algorithms (and how they crash)
Positive Feedback loops
Phase Shifts

It's is VERY easy for a complicated system, such as the one we call "civilization", to change smoothly for a while, hit some critical tipping point, and have change spread and grow at exponential speeds; usually in the form of a catastrophic collapse.

Yep. Incremantalism at its finest.

Recall the "war" on smokers, the war on "global warming," 2A legislation, and so on.

I love the boiling frog analogy!

Originally posted by Stunspot
Sigh. Here's a few concepts you should get under your belt and then start thinking about this again:

Punctuated Chaotic Equilibrium
Catastrophe Curves
Anthill Optimization Algorithms (and how they crash)
Positive Feedback loops
Phase Shifts

It's is VERY easy for a complicated system, such as the one we call "civilization", to change smoothly for a while, hit some critical tipping point, and have change spread and grow at exponential speeds; usually in the form of a catastrophic collapse.

Good post

The system will crash in the near future

The world, human development and civilization are all non-linear

Assuming linearity is what simpletons do

I think the OP is right. I used to believe otherwise. However, I've learned that the PTB/NWO really do prefer to push their agenda one little item at a time, because their whole thing is CONTROL. They are CONTROL JUNKIES, so any sudden calamity can have too many things go sideways, too many variables involved, and they don't like the idea of losing control. The other reason is that modern Americans are so entrenched in our culture and relatively still cushy way of life that even if some calamity did happen, I think the strong will for normalcy will make for speedy resolve.

Based on what I've observed in my nearly 50 years on this planet, they say the most likely prediction for future events is recent past events.

I don't believe the boiling frog story. I think they'll jump out.

www.snopes.com...

Mythbusters?