American apocalypse - 5 likeliest scenarios to topple the US

[Xeric]

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American apocalypse - 5 likeliest scenarios to topple the US

Which is your favourite apocalyptic scenario? If you really had to choose would it be the intergalactic stand-off? Zombie plague?

Over on Slate, Josh Levin and Chris Wilson have been asking people to choose - from of an exhaustive list of 144 potential apocalypses - the scenarios that strike them if not as the best, then as the most likely to precipitate America's downfall.

More than half a million people have taken part (with, interestingly, substantial interest coming from Russia) and the results are out.

The five biggest threats to America’s continued existence are popularly believed to be…

1. Loose Nukes: "Taliban fighters wrest nuclear weapons from a destabilized Pakistan.

"Or al-Qaida acquires a small arsenal of nukes from a disintegrating Russia"

2. Israel-Arab War: “All-out mayhem in the Middle East as Egypt, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and more go to war.

"The United States moves to protect Israel and gets sucked into a generation-long conflict that saps the national will and treasury.”

3. Peak Oil: —"Petroleum production reaches terminal decline.

"Oil becomes too expensive to extract, and alternative energies can't maintain our fossil-fuel-dependent lifestyle"

4. China Unloads U.S Treasurys: “Unwilling to finance any more of America's debt, China dumps its investment in American Treasury securities and buys up gold.

"With America a lousy investment, there aren't any other buyers out there. The country goes bankrupt.”

5. Antibiotic Resistance: —"As a result of factory farming and spiking sales of antibacterial hand soap, superstrains of bacteria develop that are resistant to medicine"

Antibiotic Resistance, by the way, beat global warming or economic meltdown in the popular vote. You can see the full list, ranked from most to least popular, here.

Posted by Hattie Garlick on August 13, 2009 at 03:50 PM in American Politics

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This what happens when you let them lose!!

 

[TruthSeeker]

Over on Slate, Josh Levin and Chris Wilson have been asking people to choose - from of an exhaustive list of 144 potential apocalypses - the scenarios that strike them if not as the best, then as the most likely to precipitate America's downfall.

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This what happens when you let them lose!!

If these are the top five they are pretty lame. What makes anyone think that the US would be felled by any of these causes without taking half the world with it? The most likely cause of the "singular" downfall of the US is that it loses it's economic competitiveness by allowing creeping welfare statism to finally tip over it's economy into an internal bankruptcy. That is where the promises made by the Gov USA to it's citizens, in terms of various benefits, cannot be sustained by the GDP. This would result in an internal political war among beneficiary groups that may not be controllable until the US has seriously declined in power and capability. Those of you who are hoping for the "American apocalypse" should be hoping for the continued success of the Obama Democratic Party in co-opting the American economy into Government control. It's your best near term chance to see your dream.

 

[Xeric]

Well these top five choices are lamer then i thought:

Point-1: Why do they believe that the stolen nukes HAS to hit the US, always. There are other soft targets to hit. Moreover, i single Nuke would not wipe the US out of the face of this world, would it?

Point-2: WW-3..?? May be not. Even if did happen, there would many more to perish till it reaches the US.

Point-3: What about the alternative fuel sources that the US talks of, corn, organic fuel etc etc. Again there would be many others to perish before the lack of fuel eats the the US up.

Point-4: would they allow that to happen? They are sitting over the gold even before the WW-1, they arent letting it go that easy.

Point-5: Lolzz... they have been watching too much of Stevin Spilberg lately!