Yeah, nobody really knows the future, obviously. I personally see the Deagel projection happening, but not to the extent Deagel says, ie, 65 million. One thing with Deagel being right about is the Soviet losses after Communism collapsed. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/09/02/dying-russians/ https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/did-privatization-increase-the-russian-death-rate/ (two totally mainstream sources talking about the spike in the death rate of post-Soviet Russia...)

"In the seventeen years between 1992 and 2009, the Russian population declined by almost seven million people, or nearly 5 percent—a rate of loss unheard of in Europe since World War II. Moreover, much of this appears to be caused by rising mortality. By the mid-1990s, the average St. Petersburg man lived for seven fewer years than he did at the end of the Communist period; in Moscow, the dip was even greater, with death coming nearly eight years sooner."

So it's something to consider. I obviously think the population decreasing by 70% like Deagel claims is a bit too out there. I also think collapse isn't quite the right word, in any kind of scenario. You never actually recognize collapse when it happens, only after. For example, with 9/11, we can certainly recognize it as a turning point, and in history, the times we are living in now (assuming no singularity/Matrix/one world government slave state thing, which hey, never know, but kinda unlikely seeming to me) will be known assuredly as the 9/11 Martial Law era. But because of normalcy bias of humans, we always recognize the current situation as normal, even if it's not, to keep our sanity some. But for anyone that's been around, even as a kid in the 90s, we know it's not normal. But you have to think now there's an entire generation now that doesn't know life without war, terrorism, heavily armed police with troop carriers and APCs, etc. It's normal to them. This is the way it is in any crisis. And the other obvious thing besides normalcy bias is things happen gradually. You won't wake up one morning and just see "the entire Western financial system collapsed" in the newspaper. And even if so, then what? You still gotta go to work and do whatever, right?

One thing however, with the Deagel and other models, is the idea of mainland China, having its shit together, for lack of a better way to put it. For all the talk of "CHINA WILL OWN USA!!!!" and all that fun stuff, it's a bit crazy to me. China has a 330% debt to GDP ratio compared to USA's little over 100%. One interesting proposition I've heard is the ghost cities are actually meant for the foreign influx after the Deagel style collapse. Some people point out that China's investing a lot in infrastructure with said debt compared to us, and this might be true, but the quality of Chinese infrastructure at least from what we see in the West seemingly is not built to last at all, with a lot of emphasis being placed on how flashy it is compared to it not falling down or apart. Even what some people see as "ancient houses" are actually just 50-60 years old, thanks to wonderful Mao era construction. So to me, I do wonder if mainland China too will collapse like the rest or not, and mainland China does even seem to be in panic mode regarding capital leaving, foreign immigration, etc. China focused itself on being the lowest bidder for stuff, but now there's other lowest bidders who can fill the role better than China that have much better (for business owners and investors, anyway...) and easier to work with governments that actually want foreign investment and cooperation, like Vietnam. But then at the same time, China unlike the real ROC China (Taiwan...) or other countries like Japan who initially made crappy stuff, didn't try to actually clean up the quality of stuff it produces. It's gonna take a long time to get "Chinese quality" in people's heads, if ever (though Mainland China can make fantastic quality stuff...) A bit unrelated, but Russia actually is a possibility of the future. Russia has a super low debt to GDP ratio, about 11%, which is insanely good. Russia hasn't produced as many piss away money projects to look cool like China has. No idea really on Russia and its role in this Deagel style collapse.

Anyway, let's hope to God there is in fact no sudden Deagel style collapse, as that would be quite terrible, and I'd certainly not want the majority of people I know dead. However, Deagel's trend and observations on post-USSR Russia are quite astute.