People have been predicting this kind of thing for a long time. Society will route around problems. Things might get turbulent, but it's unlikely to get anywhere nears as bad as "the end of finance" or "the end of the world". IOW, chill the fuck out.
I think it will be very much like the collapse of the USSR but not quite as bad because the average person today has a lot more resources and opportunities available (thus ability to adapt) to them than the average Soviet subject had.IMO you are badly wrong on this one. This would be understandable since you likely was not a "soviet subject" at the time and rely on "brainwashing" standards of CNN/BBC and other Murdoch's products. The simple fact is that "soviet subjects" at the time were significantly more resilient than you think. Many large industrial conglomerates had loads of reserves and were effectively mini-cities, with most infrastructure run "in house" from kindergartens to transport and food production. Most of population had some kind of small time agricultural thing going on growing crops for own consumption, most of population lived in 3 generation households with close ties with extended families. Most of population had no debts whatsoever. This gave them load of resilience and ability to survive for years while shops were effectively empty.
Now in UK, for example, reportedly there is only 3 days worth of food in supermarkets, most families are nuclear, have no reserves whatsoever and live hand to mouth with huge proportion of population relying heavily on government handouts. There is statistics that an average UK household has less than one month worth of financial reserves and otherwise are heavily in debt. Soviet style collapse will be much more difficult for the West. The supply chain works on just-in-time supply paradigm, once the machine stops it will be a catastrophic collapse in one-two weeks time.
+1 You are most likely right.
But, if such a breakdown happens there are ways to deal with it in the West as well. Examples are the Great Depression in the US with open soup kitchens and the enormous Welfare programs of the time aka The New Deal. Germans chopped off trees in parks and the city in post WWII in order to heat asnd cook. There are enough water supplies and all kinds of natural resources in Central Europe, and infrastructure is well-built. There are huge silos with wheat reserves for many months, gas reserves for 3+ months (thank you Russia). Solidarity among neighbors isn't as bad as one may think. Not only in Europe I would claim that families would reunite in times of great emergency. Memories of War are still quite fresh with most families having lost some family member/grandparent in that greatest clusterfuck of the 20th century. Many families in Central/Eastern Europe still remember what it means to live in scarcity from the times of the Cold War very much like in Russia. I suppose since the US is one of the world's biggest agricultural producers, many families would move back to the countryside and try farming for survival. But you are right, this generation would be already puzzled over how to charge their smartphones in case shit hits the fan.
