9 Signs We’re Living in the Decline of Modern Society and Living in a Pre-Apocalyptic Society

The world as we know it today is a far cry from the utopi­an visions of the past. I’m a kid of the 1980’s.  While Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan had his flaws, he was the first role mod­el out­side my par­ents I paid atten­tion to.  It was an era of hope, eco­nom­ic turn­around, pros­per­i­ty, and a shift in how the polit­i­cal par­ties were viewed by their con­stituents.  In today’s glob­al cli­mate, I miss hav­ing a Rea­gan to look up to as a naïve kid who knew noth­ing about pol­i­tics.  I’m going to try not to make this polit­i­cal, how­ev­er.

With the ever-increas­ing threats of cli­mate change (the cli­mate is always chang­ing, I’m not a green advo­cate), the threat of man-made pan­demics (call me sil­ly if you like, to me Covid-19 was a man-made epi­dem­ic, right wrong or indif­fer­ent), and polit­i­cal unrest (I think we all see and have expe­ri­enced some of this), it is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear that we are liv­ing in the decline of mod­ern soci­ety. I just read the book “The End of the World is Just the Begin­ning.”  I hon­est­ly believe Peter Zellen, the author is spot on, and will be read­ing this again soon, just to remind myself of some of the points he made.  My belief in the decline is man­i­fest­ed in a vari­ety of ways, from eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty to the break­down of social norms we see on the news.

The fol­low­ing are nine signs where I believe we are liv­ing in a pre-apoc­a­lyp­tic soci­ety, a world that is quick­ly unrav­el­ing around us. From a crum­bling infra­struc­ture, man-made dis­as­ters such as the East Pales­tine, OH train derail­ment (as well as oth­ers), to a fear of the future, these ten signs are unmis­tak­able har­bin­gers of an age that is on the brink of dis­as­ter. As prep­pers, I think it is time for us to take action and ensure that our future is one of hope, not of dread.

Rising Economic Instability

The first sign that we are liv­ing in a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the increas­ing eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty we see com­ing out of the post Covid-19 “Epi­dem­ic.”. From the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis to the cur­rent “pan­dem­ic reces­sion,” the glob­al econ­o­my has been on a roller­coast­er ride for the past decade try­ing to make heads or tails of itself with coun­tries strug­gling to realign them­selves into pros­per­i­ty. This eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty has been fur­ther com­pound­ed by the rise of tech­nol­o­gy and automa­tion, which is replac­ing many low-skill jobs and fur­ther exac­er­bat­ing income inequal­i­ty. As a result, many peo­ple are liv­ing pay­check to pay­check, unable to save or invest for their future.

Glob­al­ly, eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty is fur­ther demon­strat­ed in the grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty. Infla­tion all over is expo­nen­tial­ly grow­ing across all prod­ucts and ser­vices, and In many coun­tries, the gap between the rich and the poor is grow­ing ever wider, with the rich get­ting rich­er and the poor get­ting poor­er. The mid­dle class is dis­ap­pear­ing.  Low­er mid­dle class eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and those strug­gling to make ends meet is one of the dri­vers of social unrest and unrest in many parts of the world.

The eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty is also reflect­ed in the increas­ing num­ber of home­less peo­ple in many cities around the world (think, San Fran­cis­co, Nashville, Los Ange­les, New York City, Austin, etc).  This is not just lim­it­ed to cities.  Cities are sim­ply where they are most vis­i­ble as the home­less tend to con­gre­gate like a dys­func­tion­al lead­er­less tribe. Home­less­ness is a direct and indi­rect result of the mid­dle­class eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and lack of access to resources. Indi­rect­ly, there are those that have made the deci­sion not to go back to work and have low­ered their finan­cial class with the belief the gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to help them with hand­outs.  The lack of access to resources, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty, cre­at­ing a vicious cycle that is dif­fi­cult to break.

Increase in Social Unrest

The sec­ond sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the increas­ing social unrest. From protests in the Unit­ed States to the demon­stra­tions against polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion in Latin Amer­i­ca, peo­ple around the world are tak­ing to the streets to demand change, many times when asked to artic­u­late what they are look­ing for they can­not artic­u­late. This social unrest is a direct result of the eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and lack of trust in gov­ern­ment.

This lack of trust in gov­ern­ment is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the grow­ing num­ber of author­i­tar­i­an gov­ern­ments around the world. From Rus­sia to Chi­na, to unpop­u­lar deci­sions made by our own Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, author­i­tar­i­an regimes are gain­ing pow­er and clamp­ing down on what they believe is dis­sent by those seek­ing lib­er­ty and per­son­al sov­er­eign­ty. This, in turn, has led and will con­tin­ue to lead to fur­ther social unrest and unrest in many parts of the world, includ­ing here are home in the US from time to time..

The increas­ing social unrest is also reflect­ed in the rise of oth­er extrem­ist groups. Dare I say from white suprema­cists to reli­gious extrem­ists, these groups are tak­ing advan­tage of the social unrest to spread their mes­sages of hate and vio­lence where they can. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther divi­sions in soci­ety and a fur­ther break­down of social norms based on a few inter­ac­tions by a few peo­ple with­in the greater protest­ing groups.  Their activ­i­ty can spark mass riots and vio­lence with lit­tle coax­ing.

Deterioration of Infrastructure

The third sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of domes­tic and glob­al infra­struc­ture. From roads and bridges to water and san­i­ta­tion sys­tems all over our coun­try, many of the world’s infra­struc­ture sys­tems are in dire need of repair. This is due to a lack of invest­ment in infra­struc­ture projects by those that are sup­posed to be respon­si­ble for their upkeep, which has result­ed in a dete­ri­o­ra­tion of pub­lic ser­vices.  These are first and sec­ond world prob­lems for sure, how­ev­er, being born with run­ning water, elec­tric­i­ty, heat­ing and cool­ing, and a roof over our respec­tive heads, we’ve become accus­tomed to those ser­vices that we pay for month­ly and depend on them.  If you are look­ing for one spe­cif­ic exam­ple, I can point to the water infra­struc­ture in Detroit.

The lack of invest­ment in infra­struc­ture is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the increas­ing num­ber of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters we seem to see. From floods to earth­quakes, these dis­as­ters are caus­ing wide­spread destruc­tion and dis­rupt­ing the lives of mil­lions of peo­ple. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther dete­ri­o­ra­tion of infra­struc­ture and fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty because the rebuild­ing phase can take so long to accom­plish…

The dete­ri­o­ra­tion of infra­struc­ture is also reflect­ed in the grow­ing num­ber of pow­er out­ages, not to men­tion increased attacks on the pow­er grid we bare­ly hear about here in the US. From Cal­i­for­nia to India, pow­er out­ages are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon, dis­rupt­ing busi­ness­es, schools, and homes. Even here in NJ I have noticed more brown outs and minor pow­er out­ages than we have expe­ri­enced in the last 5+ years.  This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life, espe­cial­ly when many of us con­tin­ue to work from home.  I often say, if every­one in our neigh­bor­hood decid­ed to buy an elec­tric car, we’d blow out the trans­form­ers because our grid is so aged and frag­ile.  We’d black out the entire neigh­bor­hood for at least a week.

Lack of Trust in Government

I know, I know, I try not to be polit­i­cal.  I’ve avoid­ed it for­ev­er.  It is even in our terms here. That said, I believe the fourth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the lack of trust in gov­ern­ment. From the Unit­ed States to the Mid­dle East, many peo­ple are los­ing faith in their gov­ern­ments due to cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment. This lack of trust is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the increas­ing num­ber of author­i­tar­i­an regimes, which are clamp­ing down on dis­sent and sup­press­ing democ­ra­cy, as men­tioned ear­li­er in this post.

The lack of trust in gov­ern­ment is also reflect­ed in the increas­ing num­ber of protest move­ments around the world. From Hong Kong to Chile, peo­ple have tak­en to the streets to demand change from their gov­ern­ments, some­times not so suc­cess­ful­ly. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther divi­sions in a soci­ety and a fur­ther break­down of social norms, which cre­ates more stress.

Anoth­er lack of trust in gov­ern­ment is also reflect­ed in the increas­ing num­ber of cyber­at­tacks coun­tries and large insti­tu­tions are expe­ri­enc­ing. Wars will be par­tial­ly fought with zero’s and one’s going for­ward.  Cyber­at­tacks, in my hum­ble opin­ion, are one of the largest infra­struc­ture threats we face going for­ward.  Imag­ine a cyber­at­tack shut­ting off the pow­er grid, water, or nat­ur­al gas flow to your home, and for days or weeks the insti­tu­tion or gov­ern­ment deliv­er­ing these ser­vices can­not fig­ure out how to defeat the hack­ers.  From ran­somware attacks to data breach­es, cyber­crim­i­nals are tak­ing advan­tage of the lack of trust in gov­ern­ment to tar­get indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life.

Growing Divides Between Social Classes

The fifth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety I can iden­ti­fy is the grow­ing divides between social class­es, as men­tioned above. From the rich to the poor, the gap between the haves and have-nots is grow­ing ever wider. Home prices are still inflat­ed, the aver­age SUV is $40,000 — $75,000 depend­ing on the appoint­ments you are look­ing for, food prices are up, and peo­ple are mak­ing deci­sions to hold onto what they have or eat less, or low­er qual­i­ty less expen­sive foods.  This is due to a num­ber of fac­tors, includ­ing the increas­ing cost of liv­ing, the lack of access to resources, and the grow­ing income inequal­i­ty.  Grant Car­done (if you fol­low him) once said, that the “sin­gle dig­it mil­lion­aire is now the mid­dle class.”  I believe it.  While I am not bitch­ing, liv­ing in New Jer­sey is expen­sive, and it’s all rel­a­tive to how much mon­ey you make.  My par­ents are retired and have an expo­nen­tial­ly low­er income than I have, and they work to man­age every pen­ny.  And I mean EVERY PENNY.  That mind­set (and this is anoth­er blog post alto­geth­er) is part of a mind­set that both helps and hin­ders pros­per­i­ty and increas­es the divide.

The grow­ing divide between social class­es is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty (based on the pover­ty lev­el scale). There are many peo­ple who make real­ly good mon­ey with large fam­i­lies that eat that income up the day the pay­check is cut, mak­ing the rel­a­tive sav­ings divide huge by com­par­i­son their neigh­bor that may make a sim­i­lar income with few­er fam­i­ly mem­bers. In many parts of the world, pover­ty is ram­pant, and unavoid­able based on ones geog­ra­phy with mil­lions of peo­ple liv­ing with­out access to basic neces­si­ties such as food, water, and shel­ter. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and fur­ther divi­sions in soci­ety.  I could go on about how instead of invest­ing in green tech­nolo­gies here at home, employ­ing solar in a 3^rd world coun­try to cre­ate elec­tric­i­ty, move water, pro­vide light, heat, and oth­er ameni­ties may ulti­mate­ly be more impor­tant than wor­ry­ing about it in sec­ond and first world coun­try.  Lift­ing those out of pover­ty with today’s advanced infra­struc­ture tech­nolo­gies should be a pri­or­i­ty.  Not the infra­struc­ture off the cost of NJ killing the whales and dol­phins wash­ing up on shore every week…

Increase in Pandemics and Disease

The sixth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the increas­ing num­ber of pan­demics and dis­eases. From the cur­rent pan­dem­ic (err… epi­dem­ic) to the Zika virus, dis­eases are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon around the world, both man made and nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring. This is due to a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing the break­down of pub­lic health sys­tems, the lack of access to health­care, the increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty, wider spread fast trans­porta­tion, etc.

The increas­ing num­ber of pan­demics and dis­eases is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the ris­ing num­ber of antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant bac­te­ria, since we’ve been using antibi­otics where we can in many dif­fer­ent facets of life.  They are used for infec­tions in humans, cat­tle, poul­try, etc. These stronger, more resis­tant bac­te­ria are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon, lead­ing to the spread of dead­ly dis­eases that are dif­fi­cult to treat quick­ly. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life.

This is also reflect­ed in the grow­ing num­ber of food-borne ill­ness­es. From E. coli to sal­mo­nel­la, food-borne ill­ness­es are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon, lead­ing to ill­ness and death in many parts of the world. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life.  The ques­tion becomes, did 36 mil­lion chick­ens real­ly have to die? I could put on my tin foil hat for a moment, and start spec­u­lat­ing (beef prices, poul­try prices, etc.) but I sus­pect we’re already on the same page.  So I will leave it at that.

Environmental Degradation

Wait a minute, stop yelling at your com­put­er screen.  I’m not a tree hug­ging gree­ny.  I promise.

How­ev­er, the sev­enth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the increas­ing envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. I believe, as humans we have “some” impact on the envi­ron­ment. Chi­na, the worlds worst pol­luter of air qual­i­ty, does not seem to be slow­ing down.  They are build­ing more coal mines than any oth­er coun­try in the world.  From the destruc­tion of the Ama­zon rain­for­est to the melt­ing of the polar ice caps (this is my Al Gore imper­son­ation), the envi­ron­ment is in a state of cri­sis depend­ing on who you ask.

The increas­ing belief in glob­al warm­ing (I am of the opin­ion the cli­mate has been chang­ing on its own for mil­lions of years, or wait, is that a fact?) and envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the increas­ing num­ber of extreme weath­er events. And if we’re talk­ing weath­er events, I won­der how the hydrochlo­ric acid that was released into the atmos­phere by the burn­ing liq­uid in East Pales­tine, OH will affect every­thing?  No envi­ron­men­tal­ists have even com­ment­ed on that yet.  This and more events like this, are what to me will affect the envi­ron­ment… Not to men­tion the Nukes that the Rus­sians keep threat­en­ing to use… This to me is the envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion we real­ly need to be con­cerned with, espe­cial­ly in the short term.

Imag­ine for a moment WW III with tac­ti­cal nuclear weapons used by the super­pow­ers.  Now imag­ine how the Jet­stream car­ries par­ti­cles of nuclear radi­a­tion and fall­out glob­al­ly because the super­pow­ers think it might be okay to have extend­ed use of tac­ti­cal nuclear weapons for a pro­longed peri­od of time.  No Bueno IMHO….

Technology Taking Over Daily Life

Go out­side and play with your friends.  Get out­side, it’s a nice day.  Go play in the woods… These are all things I used to hear as a child, and are some of my fond­est mem­o­ries.  No iPhones, no Inter­net.  Hell extend­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions was your moth­er call­ing out­side at dusk because din­ner was ready, and you heard her from a quar­ter mile away… Which brings me to the eighth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety.  And it is the increas­ing preva­lence of tech­nol­o­gy in our dai­ly life. From smart­phones to vir­tu­al real­i­ty, tech­nol­o­gy has become ubiq­ui­tous in our lives (first and sec­ond world prob­lems again). This is due to a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing the increas­ing afford­abil­i­ty of tech­nol­o­gy and the increas­ing num­ber of tech com­pa­nies that seem to pop up overnight with some new appli­ca­tion that helps you be more pro­duc­tive, save time, waste time, and become more depend­ing on the device you are using.  I mean, this isn’t being typed on a type­writer for a news­pa­per.  It’s on a lap­top with MS Word, and going to be post­ed on the Inter­net… The very thing that is help­ing to kill our soci­ety as well as enable it…

The increas­ing preva­lence of tech­nol­o­gy in dai­ly life is fur­ther com­pound­ed by the increas­ing num­ber of dig­i­tal ser­vices. From online bank­ing (essen­tial­ly a require­ment today) to stream­ing ser­vices (YouTube, Vimeo, Rum­ble), to Con­nect­ed TV, which is essen­tial­ly drop­ping cable TV and using an Ama­zon Fire­stick or Roku device.  You’re uti­liz­ing the Inter­net.  Dig­i­tal ser­vices are becom­ing increas­ing­ly com­mon­place (Ama­zon Alexa, smart TV’s, Smart Watch­es, Etc)., lead­ing to a fur­ther break­down of tra­di­tion­al mod­els of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life.  Imag­ine the Inter­net going down on your 6‑Year-old and they can­not get to YouTube Kids?  Holy $#!&, there would be a melt­down.

The increas­ing preva­lence of tech­nol­o­gy in dai­ly life is also reflect­ed in the grow­ing num­ber of cyber­at­tacks. From ran­somware attacks to data breach­es, cyber­crim­i­nals are tak­ing advan­tage of the increas­ing preva­lence of tech­nol­o­gy to tar­get indi­vid­u­als and busi­ness­es. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty and dis­rup­tion to dai­ly life.

Fear of the Future

I am pret­ty sure the ninth sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety is the fear of the future. It’s one of my favorite top­ics.  We’re prep­pers. We prep because we have a fear of the future for lack of bet­ter ver­nac­u­lar.  We watch what is hap­pen­ing, spec­u­late, and prep and hope for longevi­ty in the event of the zom­bie apoc­a­lypse.  Peo­ple around the world are becom­ing increas­ing­ly fear­ful of the future. This is due to a com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing the increas­ing num­ber of dis­as­ters and the break­down of social norms, and the deci­sions the elect­ed offi­cials are mak­ing on behalf of their con­stituents.  Some­times I think com­mon sense has just damn gone out the win­dow.

From Rus­sia to Chi­na, author­i­tar­i­an regimes have gained momen­tum and pow­er and are clamp­ing down on the reach for indi­vid­u­al­ism, sov­er­eign­ty, and free­dom. This, in turn, leads to fur­ther divi­sions in soci­ety and a fur­ther break­down of social norms as peo­ple make deci­sions on how they need to live.

The fear of the future is also reflect­ed in the increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple liv­ing with low­er finan­cial means. They wor­ry about how to feed their fam­i­ly, keep a roof over their heads, and keep them safe.  I fear for the future of my daugh­ter in the eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal cli­mate we are liv­ing in.

Hope for the Future – What Can Be Done?

Despite all the signs of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety, there is still hope for the future, I think. From the renew­able ener­gy farse to the false glob­al coop­er­a­tion (great reset) con­cept, there are a few solu­tions that can be imple­ment­ed to ensure that our future is one of hope, not of dread.

The first solu­tion is to invest in peo­ple that under­stand peo­ple, their beliefs, their desires, and to help lift them out of the chains they feel they are held down by. By invest­ing in peo­ple, we can reduce our depen­dence hand­outs that chain us to the ground.  Give them the abil­i­ty to build their own futures, and I believe peo­ple will rise to the occa­sion.  I may be wrong,  and I am sure I am wrong about a cross sec­tion of the domes­tic and glob­al pop­u­la­tion, but I believe the major­i­ty of peo­ple will dig ditch­es if they want to dig ditch­es for a liv­ing, and get paid for it.

The sec­ond solu­tion is to invest in infra­struc­ture. By invest­ing in roads, bridges, util­i­ty, and oth­er infra­struc­ture projects, we can cre­ate jobs and bol­ster the econ­o­my.  Where is the mon­ey going to come from?  Good ques­tion.  The gov­ern­ment is spend­ing like drunk­en sailors, espe­cial­ly in the Ukraine at the moment.  I don’t have all the answers, but believe in the reduced size of gov­ern­ment, and let the pri­vate sec­tor sort it out.  If the pri­vate sec­tor could work with local and state gov­ern­ments, coor­di­nate appro­pri­ate­ly, I believe we would have a stronger infra­struc­ture.

The third solu­tion is to invest in health and well­ness. Not pub­lic health­care.  Not uni­ver­sal health­care.  A person’s health is their own respon­si­bil­i­ty.  I believed that 30 years ago, and I believe that today.  I don’t expect two new hips paid for by the gov­ern­ment (real­ly the pub­lic) because of my arthri­tis.  I expect to pay for that myself, at some junc­ture.  I’m not talk­ing pan­demics, epi­demics, etc.  I am talk­ing per­son­al health in good times and bad.  You have a com­pro­mised immune sys­tem, take appro­pri­ate care. You have dia­betes that can be altered with diet, change your diet.

The fourth solu­tion is to invest in edu­ca­tion. By invest­ing in qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion, we can ensure that every­one has access to the resources and skills they need to suc­ceed in life.  Not this equi­ty stuff.  This could be the 10^th sign of a declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety.  Today’s edu­ca­tion­al plat­form in pub­lic schools is con­cern­ing at the very least.  The best you can do is ques­tion what your chil­dren are being taught and help to realign them in the right direc­tion with your own words of wis­dom.  The indoc­tri­na­tors have fig­ured out how to get new recruits via young impres­sion­able indi­vid­u­als and plug them into their col­lec­tive.  Our chil­dren are indi­vid­u­als and need to be taught such, as well as his­to­ry, and how to avoid repeat­ing it in the future.

Conclusion

These signs in our declin­ing mod­ern soci­ety are unmis­tak­able. We are on the downslide… Our soci­ety peaked years ago, and now we’re slid­ing slow­ly in decline.  From eco­nom­ic insta­bil­i­ty to social unrest, the world is quick­ly unrav­el­ing around us, and to a 6‑year-old, it all appears “nor­mal” since they’ve nev­er known any­thing dif­fer­ent.  We need to teach them to be dif­fer­ent.  To be bet­ter.  To be like Rea­gan, in my hum­ble opin­ion.  It is time for us to act and ensure that our future is one of hope, not of dread. we can ensure that our future is one of hope, not of dread. Con­tin­ue prep­ping.  Con­tin­ue stay­ing pre­pared.  Con­tin­ue learn­ing, and con­tin­ue to be who you are.  Dare I say get involved in local pol­i­tics, school boards, etc.  It is how the dif­fer­ence is made at the grass roots lev­el.  At least this is what I am see­ing.  Will it be a fight?  Will it be stress­ful?  I am sure it will be. I leave you with this, and as they say, “All that is need­ed for the forces of evil to tri­umph is for enough good men and women to do noth­ing.” If soci­ety is going to fall, let it fall with us try­ing to make it bet­ter.