Social collapse imminent?

[AdultHumanFemale]

DP and I have just been listening to R4 PM, and the unfolding conflict surrounding tiered regional restrictions. DP reckons we are potentially 6 weeks away from some degree of escalating social collapse in the UK, and should take precautions to insulate ourselves from the impact.
Prudent or unnecessary?
What measures might those of you who may be thinking along the same lines be taking?

Is he thinking something like the London riots from a few years ago but all round the country this time?

Honestly, I'm thinking they'll be a riot or 2 before this is all over but there's not much you can do to insulate yourself. You've no idea where things will spark up.

@speakout

What does "social collapse" mean?

Will we have to eat our children?
Read Hello magazine?

No state support and breakdown in law and order.

If councils go bankrupt that endangers social care.
If people dont observe covid restrictions thats civil disobedience
If people are destitute and in food poverty that leds to rises in crime. Remembering here that councils fund various enforcement services (everything from environmental health to trading standards for example)

Hope not, there are a lot of other countries who are facing famine, war & conflict that haven’t collapsed and they are also battling the pandemic. It’s difficult times but we are in a much better position than a lot of others and we will be able to ride it out.

Sorry op what does your dh think the world was like before?! Roses and kittens? The relative peace you describe has only been true of some first world nations. War, famine and disease have been constants for countless other nations. Largely because of us raking in £££££££££££ in the arms trade.

Civil unrest is a choice we as the population make surely? So if we don't want such turmoil then we need to live peacefully and manage the problems that will arise as a society not as grabby potentially violent individuals.

@Asterion

What does he mean by "social collapse"

A few people sitting in parks drinking cans of Stella and then trying to get on a bus home without their masks carefully cradling their chins, probably. Really socking it to The Man.

And you thought it was a good idea to create a thread about it because.....?
It’s the kind of thought that’s best kept to yourself really.
Nothing more than shit stirring on the same level as the ‘panic buying’ threads.

The collapse of the infrastructure, if it necessitated a return to a more primitive way of life, would be a good thing for every species on the planet except humans. If it happens I will embrace it unselfishly.

Buy loads more loo roll?
Bulk-buying Andrex is the opiate of the masses

That just made my night at work(on my teabreak). @motorcyclenumptiness love - username too!

My DH who lived in a country which was under a military dictatorship laughs at this sort of thread. No we won’t have societal collapse. I think what we will have, as we have seen, is less and less compliance with the rules such that we will be forced into a national lockdown. People also tend not to riot in the bad weather/winter.

i saw a couple walk through the park at lunch time, both had a 9 pack of toilet rolls!

If we start to believe this it risks becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

I believe humans are resourceful, and competent. We will work hard to get through this, we will get as much enjoyment out of Christmas as we can under this pandemic, and then 2021 will see innovation, solutions, and a better future for all.

We are not at the mercy of crappy governments forever. We just aren't.

If you're feeling gloomy about the future, have a read of [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2020/10/11/welcome-to-the-solutions-century/#7ef80c7943a8]]

Trying again with the link: www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2020/10/11/welcome-to-the-solutions-century/#7ef80c7943a8

Hmm, I'll probably just lock the door, sit on my throne made of toilet roll and drink wine. Oh and eat pizza.

Summer 2021? Still COVID? Wallets all fucked? Evictions underway? It's a sure thing.

But Winter? In Britain? 😂 No.

@Pelleas

The collapse of the infrastructure, if it necessitated a return to a more primitive way of life, would be a good thing for every species on the planet except humans. If it happens I will embrace it unselfishly.

Well, i wouldn't.

A recent report said that destitution is becoming common in certain parts of the uk and with it, a rise in prostitution, child poverty, abuse, addictions.

I think it will depend on how long an effective vaccine takes to be rolled out but rest assured, the cons wont be doing anything about it.

They have made a bad situation very much worse.

@Pelleas

The collapse of the infrastructure, if it necessitated a return to a more primitive way of life, would be a good thing for every species on the planet except humans. If it happens I will embrace it unselfishly.

And yet here you are using electricity and the internet.

@PinkPlantCase

What do you mean by social collapse?

Martial law?
Civil war?
Protests?

I think civil unrest could occur but I don’t really know what protesters would trash. The big riots in 2011 trashed shops and pubs etc. I don’t think people would do that now in a time where businesses are really struggling.

They are in America.

What picsinred said.

I do think the economy is collapsing as I speak.
Not so sure there will be an uprising. Vast majority these days are keyboard warriors but not engaged enough to protest anything in real life.

Protests these days seem to be about single issue concerns, people are very focused on their own specific bubble. There seems to be no empathy with wider political issues, and if political groups try to engage with similar issue related causes, infighting eventually takes down the uprising.

Numbers are power.

I thought social media would enable people to group together and engage and fight in larger numbers. Unfortunately it has resulted in ever more extreme groups fragmenting because people don’t get a consensus view. They are able to engage with a tiny group of people who reinforce an obscure and frankly toxic outlook on life.

So no there won’t be an uprising.

I grew up in South Africa during the transition from apartheid to democracy and beyond that surrounded by real political division and unrest. Even then we never needed extra loo roll.
😆 I’m guessing your husband hasn’t lived through anything like that if he thinks this is a recipe for social unrest!

I'll admit, I smirked when I first read the OP. But. If a year ago you'd told me the state we'd be in now, that I'd be in a tier 3 lockdown, schools would have been shut from March to Sept, a whole country lockdown for all but essential work from March to June... I'd have pissed myself laughing.
So I'm going to sit on the fence and say - actually, who bloody knows. Nothing would surprise me for 2020.

At the start of lockdown supermarkets were stripped bare. For no real reason since supply chains hadn't been affected.

However at the beginning of January there's going to be some sort of disruption to the supply chains, so it's not unreasonable to suggest that there'll be some sort of unrest because supermarkets won't be fully supplied all the time and people will start to panic.

Can he define social collapse? Is he thinking, for instance, of....

• Regional devolution? (The SpAD in charge hates the regions, so I can't see that happening any time soon, however much the regions and Home Nations might desire it; I'll be surprised if it doesn't happen in the next few years though)
• Disruption to the food and medicine supply? I'm just grateful my parents taught me 101 ways to cook potatoes as a kid since at least we can grow those here along with other yummy crops like turnips and beetroot
• "I'm all right Jack" to the extreme? (Think that one's already here and has been since at least 1979, just in varying degrees)
• The poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer and richer and richer? (No change there either, but it's much more visible now and the super-rich are much more shameless about parading their wealth)
• The poor getting less and less educated while the richer continuing to call the shots about what constitutes the curriculum, which is like a 1930s throwback in so many ways and barely fit for our current world, let alone the one that's coming (Gove's English literature curriculum is just one example). Meanwhile kids don't learn useful skills at school like home economics or basic sewing and repairs, for instance.
• No-Deal Brexit? (I'm sure I'm not the only one who is experiencing not one whit of surprise at today's announcement. Didn't see that one coming? Anyone who didn't REALLY wasn't paying attention. Please refer to bullet point 2 above....)

And preppers and their friends have been predicting this for ages and denounced as utter Cassandras....I can't see there being civil disobedience without the government bringing out water cannons, tanks, or worse, though. (Scans the sky nervously for drones and tries not to think of that episode in Years and Years where a character literally loses their head...)

Thing is, basic human nature does not change. The only things that do are the trappings: the background, the technology, the costumes, and the method of exchange (money, barter, salt, whatever). In some ways we're less prepared for this than our ancestors. How many people even know how to grow things, or make sure water is fit for drinking, or fish, or skin a rabbit? (We've already told the cats they might have to start keeping us for a change...and I'm only half joking with that comment.)

The virus is real. And probably not the last we'll face in our lifetimes. I'm often amazed people my sort of age have got away this long with not having faced a pandemic, or a war, or a famine. Our ancestors lived with this reality pretty much every day. In many other parts of the world people have lived with this reality for decades. We've been lucky, not as special as we like to tell ourselves we are in the West.

The Human Race continues to survive, in one form or another, to the detriment of pretty much every other species on the planet. In this country, we've survived lots of major upheavals - the Romans leaving, the Vikings and others arriving, and Henry VIII getting his chums to burn down the monasteries. Not to mention the Industrial Revolution, a Depression, Two World Wars.... I'm sure we'll survive this, but in about 18 months our world is going to look very different.

I’m I interested in what your ‘precautions’ would be? Are we talking pasta and toilet roll or guns and petrol bombs!