[Subjectivist]

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MXUDLTH/

Just read this based on a recomendation. Fast read, interesting story, but a bit heavy handed in some of te philosophizing.

In my minds eye I can see some, perhaps even many of these eventscoming to pass post peak oil. If nothing else many folks are stubborn enough to cling to failed plans well past the point when they should be discarded in favor of some different plan that might succeed better.

On the other hand I think the author is too invested in a post modern civilization. A lot of the solutions he proposes are either valuable, or potentially useful, but they pretty much discount anyone maintaining a high technology situation without abundant fossil fuels. I dissagree, but I doubt either mysef or Greer will be alive fifty years hence to determine which of us are closer to an accurate prediction of the future.

If you have not read it yet give it a shot, I am sure the moderate doomers will love it and the uber doomers will claim it is hopelessly optimistic. After all this book predicts life goes on fifty years from now instead of near term extinction.

[ROCKMAN]

Sub - I hope you're getting a commission on any sales you generate. Being cheap I just read the synopsis:

"The year is 2065. Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-US America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums—but one of the new nations, the Lakeland Republic of the upper Midwest, has gone its own way, isolated from the rest by closed frontiers and trade embargoes."

But that gave me an idea for an even better book AND more probable future. That synopsis:

"The year is 2065. Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into two new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-US America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums. But one of the new nations, the UST (United State of Texas) has gone its own way, isolated from the rest of the states by closed frontiers and trade embargoes. And, of course, the most secure border fence in the world designed by the great grandson of a former POTUS. He won his UST citizenship card by coming in first in the fence design contest."

[Subjectivist]

Sub - I hope you're getting a commission on any sales you generate. Being cheap I just read the synopsis:

"The year is 2065. Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-US America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums—but one of the new nations, the Lakeland Republic of the upper Midwest, has gone its own way, isolated from the rest by closed frontiers and trade embargoes."

But that gave me an idea for an even better book AND more probable future. That synopsis:

"The year is 2065. Decades ago, the United States of America fell apart after four brutal years of civil war, and the fragments coalesced into two new nations divided by economic and political rivalries. Most of the post-US America is wracked by poverty and civil strife, with high-tech skyscrapers rising above crowded, starving slums. But one of the new nations, the UST (United State of Texas) has gone its own way, isolated from the rest of the states by closed frontiers and trade embargoes. And, of course, the most secure border fence in the world designed by the great grandson of a former POTUS. He won his UST citizenship card by coming in first in the fence design contest."

ROCKMAN the Texas republic plays a prominent role in the book, check out these maps.
http://skrifennow.blogspot.com/2016/07/ ... t-map.html

BTW the bulk of the story takes place in Toledo, where I was born. How could I possibly resist, we finally get top billing we have deserved for centuries!!!

[Ibon]

I read the book a year ago, I enjoyed it. I would recommend it for its entertainment and as an insight into some of the dynamics of a divided nation that fractures along different strategies around technology. Lot's of good details on the cultural identity of the nation in the midwest that embraced a lower level of technology. Worth reading.

[ROCKMAN]

Sub - Mucho thanks. We can have fun the maps.

First I see Texas + OK + part of NM. But I would have included La. We would want to hang in to New Orleans: good cooks and easy women.

I can see NW FL hooked with Miss/Al/Georgia. But not southern FL. Just yesterday a comedienne saying FL was designed backwards: northern FL was southern and southern FL was Yankee Land.

And not sure about N Dakota. More likely to be a territory of the UST like Puerto Rico is with the USA. LOL.

And parts of New Jersey more likely isolated itself. Like the Kalaupapa peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, home of a still active leper colony.