A collapse map – Week 14 – April 7, 2023 at 09:12AM

Hi fellow collapsniks,

We’re week 14 of my collapse maps.

That map is solely about the collapse dynamic, not about the general standard of living or happiness in the country.

As an example you can consider Namibia, a relatively poor African country: it is green under a collapse perspective, because it does not suffer any crisis (currently). It has a stable status, even with a low GDP and a not wealthy population.

On the other hand, the US is yellow, because it does suffer a crisis in multiple areas (politics, inflation, housing, healthcare, localized food/meds shortage…). But obviously it’s still in general better to be living in the US than in Namibia, because the US is overwhelmingly richer.

As a reminder, I’m making this map every week, it is color coding countries regarding their collapse status. It ranges from green (the country is functioning & far from a collapse) to black (the country has totally collapsed). Details of the color ranges are at the bottom of the post. The collapse status is different from the standards of living, wealth, happiness, or political regime (even if it is related).

– That map is not a forecast nor its intent is to forecast collapse. It is a glimpse on the immediate, current state of things.

– This is also not meant to be “the ultimate truth” about collapse for every country. It’s only my personal point of view on the collapse situations in the world. In the end, you may agree or disagree with the colors and I’m always happy to discuss and debate, still the point is not to get to an unanimous agreement, but more to trigger the discussion.

– Please note that having a far right or even dictatorial government has nothing to do with collapse directly. It may even be the opposite: authoritarian measures, on the short term, are ensuring the stability of a society, thus preventing immediate collapse. To be clear: I’m not advocating for those measures or this type of government. But still, it is a temporary shield against collapse.

Updates since last week:

– Chile: Is turning green again. I put it in yellow at the beginning of this year because it was suffering huge wildfires, some towns were evacuated etc…

– Argentina: Turning yellow instead of green. It’s been a while that it had a huge inflation (>100%); by itself it’s not a crisis. But that is added on top of a record drought (impact on local crops), and poverty is growing more and more. In my mind since there is still no massive civil unrests it’s still greenish-yellowish, but it’s been a few times people advocated for it to turn yellow.

– Afghanistan: Turning red instead of black. The Talibans government, while being at the very least questionable in terms of Human Rights, is still a functional (and now sort of stable) government. Women rights & LGBT rights are not even a thing anymore, but the economy is slowly stabilizing, and I don’t consider the country as “collapsed” anymore. Still on the verge of collapse, situation remains fragile. With some time and years passing, it may go back to yellow (I doubt it, lethal heatwaves & geopolitics will certainly hit before).

– New Zealand: Staying green as of now, despite the first social contestations (teachers strikes…).

– Ireland: Also staying green, the housing crisis even at the nation scale is not yet putting the entire country into a major crisis.

As usual please give me your comments, critics, and please challenge my classifications!

​

https://preview.redd.it/1q50q21qfgsa1.png?width=6438&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a1889769c710252d423299439402cfff2c1d222

Reminder of the colors meaning:

– Green is a functioning country. That does not mean the country is a good country to live in. North Korea is green, in the sense that it is functioning and it does not look like it will collapse anytime soon. Still, I know, it’s one of the worst dictatorships in the world, with concentration camps, nuclear threats on their neighbors, and population being more or less enslaved, malnourished and brainwashed. But unfortunately the regime there is pretty strong and stable since a while, so it is green under a collapse perspective. Same kind of reasoning applies for oil-blessed Middle East countries: Human, women and LGBT rights are not a thing there, still those countries are (ultra) rich and functioning correctly, as of today. Green examples: Germany, Qatar, Israel, Japan.

– Yellow means the country is in a serious crisis. There are large-scale troubles ongoing that are altering the normalcy of the daily life for most of the population. Still not a catastrophic state for the population. Nationwide protests in the streets are not a crisis; but if it leads to civil unrest at a significant scale (like overthrowing the parliament – as in Suriname or Brazil), then it could be a crisis.

Fuel or food shortages for a significant part of the population are a crisis, if that is a new thing. Having a poor/malnourished population since years or decade is not a crisis per se, because it’s the normal (read stable) state of things there. A unexpected and sudden full government change may or may not be a crisis, depending on how it’s happening. Canada is yellow, as it suffers multiple “small” crises at the same time: housing, healthcare, inflation, homelessness, climatic…

The crisis in yellow countries is not that major that it may trigger a full collapse in the short term. Examples: US, UK, Russia, Brazil, Suriname.

Adding a note for a country to go from green to yellow: the “crisis” has to be recent. If a country is in an ongoing economic crisis with some fuel shortages, or suffering gang wars, but steadily since 2009, then it’s not a crisis, it’s the new normalcy for that country. In that case it is green as it is still a functioning country, despite the bad (but stable) conditions there. Most of Latin American countries are in that case. Take Colombia: it is suffering from gang wars since decades. And it hasn’t collapsed since then. Those gang wars are a shame, but it’s part of their normalcy.

– Red means the country is close to collapse. It has major structural issues and ongoing crises and could collapse quickly, under a few months or weeks. Examples: Libya, Myanmar, Pakistan.

– Black means the country has collapsed already and completely. Whether it’s economically (Venezuela), societally/structurally (Haiti), or suffering a full scale civil war (Yemen), or all at once… Examples: Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria. So far 9 countries in the world are considered collapsed on this map.