Today, I wanted to share a thought piece I recently submitted to Quora, which I wrote over the course of weeks in reponse to the question, “Is the United States going to finally collapse?“. This is something I wanted to answer because I’ve been pondering it myself for some time. Ever since the days of the Bush administration, I’ve been made aware of the fact that the US was behaving precisely like an empire in decline.
And now, with the current administration, there are fears that this trend will continue until it is too late. That is something I am seriously considering at this point, and I chose to answer the question in the affirmative. Yes, I think that barring a major change in direction, the “American Empire” will collapse. What’s worse, I think it deserves to. Please don’t think this is something I want to happen, absolutely not! But I took that position because it seems undeniable at this point.
Consider it: the United States prides itself on being a land created with individual liberty, constitutional freedoms, equality before the law, social mobility, and the rule of law as its founding principles. But how often now have those very principles been sacrificed for the “good of the country”, or worse, partisan politics? Hell, how often has the violation of these very tenets been tolerated for the same reasons?
It’s not uncommon at all to hear Americans lament the state of their country. And while I am not an American citizen, as someone who has friends, family, and colleagues in the US that are directly affected by what is going on, I honestly feel that I do have a horse in this race. To a person, these individuals are either afraid for their and their families lives, their freedoms, and the state of the nation and the future.
And since we are all part of a global community today, there are no actions – political, economic, military or otherwise – that are not going to be felt around the world. This is especially true of the United States, which is a global leader in terms of trade, technological development, environmental policy, military alliances, and human rights advocacy. So even as a foreigner, I have a right to an opinion about US politics because myself and others will be feeling the effects.
Anyway, in the essay I wrote, I laid out how the process of decline has become apparent over the past few decades, and why collapse is something that may very be due. I do hope people will keep an open mind when reading it, and understand that it is mainly a thought-experiment that was designed to challenge and agitate. Basically, I wrote it in the hopes that it would encourage people to fight against the prospect of collapse.
You can read it here, in it’s entirety:
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-United-States-going-to-finally-collapse/answer/Matt-Williams-61
Stories by Williams 
Before leaving to read your Quora post, I want to leave my opinion. For starters, I could have written that Quora question, truth be told I posted a remarkably similar query on Quora several years ago. This fellow British Columbian shares your trepidation. If you haven’t heard of Michael Ruppert (https://notestoponder.wordpress.com/tag/collapse/ ) I urge you to watch the HBO documentary “Collapse”.
Thanks, I’ll be sure to check it out. I would also recommend Jared Diamond’s book of the same name, if you haven’t already read it (I think there’s a good possibility you would have). Ronald Wright’s A Short History of Progress is also a very good treatment of the subject.