Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? (2019)

Perhaps not entire civilization collapse, pending nuclear arsenals unleashed, but I think we are edging ever closer to massive social upheaval, what shape of this I am unsure about. To quote an adjacent article that was mentioned in this one: <i>How Western Civilization Could Collapse</i><p>&gt; <i>Eventually, the working population crashes because the portion of wealth allocated to them is not enough, followed by collapse of the elites due to the absence of labour. The inequalities we see today both within and between countries already point to such disparities. For example, the top 10% of global income earners are responsible for almost as much total greenhouse gas emissions as the bottom 90% combined. Similarly, about half the world’s population lives on less than $3 per day[0][1]</i><p>This is from 2017. This has gotten, in my view, much worse and is not continuing to alleviate itself, and I believe climate change is only making this worse over the next 5-10 years as wealthier nations and their wealthiest citizens try to insulate themselves further from its effects at the expense or perceived expense of the poor. I don’t think the current political climate is going to prove its sustainable.<p>Couple that with serious economic pressures as in part, a result of globalization and coming shortages and issues of natural resources and it’s a recipe for real disaster<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;future&#x2F;article&#x2F;20170418-how-western-civilisation-could-collapse" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.com&#x2F;future&#x2F;article&#x2F;20170418-how-western-civi...</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;academic.oup.com&#x2F;nsr&#x2F;article&#x2F;3&#x2F;4&#x2F;470&#x2F;2669331&#x2F;Modeling-sustainability-population-inequality" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;academic.oup.com&#x2F;nsr&#x2F;article&#x2F;3&#x2F;4&#x2F;470&#x2F;2669331&#x2F;Modelin...</a>

“By 476, the empire’s reach was zero.”<p>I stopped reading right here. The Western Empire fell in 476 (for many reasons). The Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) lasted until 1453. Even that isn’t a perfect way of articulating it, given the continued influence of the Catholic Church had well into the 1500’s (Luther).<p>In some ways one could argue civilization has never ended, but paused in different areas of the world. Also, taking a myopic view on civilization focused on the western civilization ignores the inter-continental trade that existed around Africa, Asia and Europe, doesn’t seem fair to the history.<p>I know that’s a reductive argument, but I do think global civilization has been continually making progress, all be it with some slow downs and set backs along the way. Yes some empires went away, but we still read writings from Ancient Greece, so is it correct to say even that civilization ended?<p>Long way of saying, “no” but things might change, and it could be uncomfortable for a while.

I&#x27;m an amateur historian at best, but I&#x27;m not aware of any era that has not expected the world to end soon.<p>The Christians have done it for 20 centuries now, as one example.<p>During my life, it has always been a common expectation, though the expected cause has shifted a few times.<p>My hunch is that maybe we&#x27;re hard wired to expect the world to end, for some undiscovered reason.<p>Again, I remind you of my amateur status!

Of course we are, this too shall pass. There is a constant struggle to keep things afloat, people seem to forget that at times, especially the rent seeking class who place little to no value on infrastructure, both physical and societal.<p>If we get another FDR style reset, things should be good for a generation or two, if not... the horrors of history will rhyme once again.<p>Edit&#x2F;Update: The New Deal provided a social safety net which greatly relieve the inequality that ripped apart Germany and other countries.<p>It also provided the infrastructure that just happened to make it much easier to out-manufacture the rest of the world in WWII, and benefitted society for decades later.

I don&#x27;t think we appreciate the difficulties of a post-Peak-oil world.<p>For the latter part of the past-decade Hubbert&#x27;s theory was rubbished because of new supplies from fracking and tar-sands, but the basic hypothesis: that there is a finite supply of cheap oil remains.<p>There is little doubt that this resource will run out soon, putting an end to cheap transport, cheap agri (fertilizers, mechanization), and pretty much everything else we take for granted in the new &#x27;modern&#x27; world.<p>It&#x27;s unclear how the world can support 10B population in this scenario, even taking into account the developments in electric and hydrogen vehicles etc. In fact, one wonders if the first world will be worse off because of its extreme reliance on this.<p>This is a far bigger reason for the eco push, much more so than Global Warming IMO.

On an unrelated note, the author is a &quot;researcher based at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge&quot;.<p>Just imagine the atmosphere at that workplace, must&#x27;ve been very heavy and brooding.

The graph showing the lifespan of ancient civilisations seems to have ignored the Indus Valley civilisation, which apparently lasted from about 3300 BC to 1300 BC. It is also a good example of climate change leading to collapse, according to experts.

Aren’t we always?<p>On a microscopic view of a single life, at best we can cross our fingers and hope that we live through a calm bit.

Yes, everyday, in any civilization. Keeping any civilization alive takes collective will, work and adaptation.

Civilization requires trust and fairness. Saying someone theoretically has a fair shake therefore an unfair outcome is fair won&#x27;t keep getting it.<p>There&#x27;s also this strange idea that government itself is a bad thing (from Thomas Payne&#x27;s <i>Common Sense</i>?), when the problem would be bad government. Someone has to make the big decisions, so if it&#x27;s not the government, then presumably it&#x27;s whoever has the most power?<p>Then there is the general abandonment of spiritual values in the west? (If you think the U. S. is a religious country, just try getting Sundays off - I probably didn&#x27;t get hired at a grocery store once because of this - in the Carolinas.)

Of course we&#x27;re always on the road to civilization collapse. Life is an unending struggle against entropy. The entire history of human civilization is the struggle of keeping it together.

Sure the west is in decline, but a decline or collapse doesn&#x27;t mean going back to living in caves or so. No the west will most likely experience a soviet style collapse where it will need multiple decades to recover.<p>I do feel that Europe will probably find its own way after the collapse and the US will go from a global hegemon to a regional super power. A collapse of the west is still decades ahead of the average state of being in the global south.

I think we&#x27;re on the path of a new cold war between &#x27;the west&#x27; and China, if not mildly there already.<p>Since China currently make almost everything, that could certainly cause some collapse-like symptoms, as key equipment becomes unavailable. Just look at some of the covid supply-chain issues for a taste.

Its not a civilization crisis its a governance crisis (which is an important but small fraction of what constitutes a &quot;civilization&quot;). The adage &quot;we have the politicians that we deserve&quot; is true in the long term average but it may well not be true at each time-step.<p>The political system that produces governance is in itself a piece of social technology (set of laws, procedures, morals, behaviors etc) and it can easily become unfit-for-purpose. Why? because one of its primary tasks is to perpetuate an existing order. If it overdoes this &quot;stabilization&quot; task (that is, ignores material shifts in reality) it can hold society hostage. That period of disconnect between what society needs and what its organizational tech is offering can feel gut-wrenching and surreal.<p>All of the dysfunctions of the current era, e.g. environmental un-sustainability, absurd levels of inequality, rampant surveillance capitalism are well recognized and studied and, by-and-large, blueprints for solutions exist. Dig to find what is standing in the way and it is invariably i) an aged male politician and&#x2F;or corporate leader who ii) has built a long career over decades knitting power networks with similar &quot;winners&quot; of his generation iii) is incapable of reinventing &#x2F; invalidating himself and iv) will only be forced away from the cookie jar.<p>Maybe what is happening is not civilizational collapse but enormous resources and human talent (world-wide) are hostage to near idiotic (as in: non-adapted) political arrangements.

I feel that &quot;American Psychosis&quot;[0] provides a reasonable and rational overview of the situation worth contemplation and discussion.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;293802639" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;293802639</a>

A talk on the topic by Jonathan Blow: <i>Preventing the Collapse of Civilization (2019)</i>, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko</a>

I liked seeing this concept<p>&quot;as government loses control of its monopoly on violence.&quot;<p>but I can&#x27;t articulate why...<p>Maybe something to do with a comparison to organized crime as a competition to a (possibly separately corrupt) government?

I&#x27;m still kinda surprised that there are people that actually question that premise. Yes; our civilization is going to collapse and it&#x27;s going to collapse quite soon-ish, in the next 30 to 50 years.<p>I think people are a) hard-wired to expect the tomorrow to be the same as the today and b) socially trained to just keep our heads down and not stir the pot, even in face of calamity.<p>Because of a) and b) we&#x27;re still - as a society - acting as if everything was fine and so we continue to ignore the real and present danger of a total systemic collapse.

As surely as we are all going to die. Question is who long and perilous that road is.

The correct answer to every news headline that ends with a question-mark is: no.

&gt; Are we on the road to civilisation collapse? Only for those without money

&quot;Nobody knows.&quot;

Well obviously, all civilizations collapse bar none.

When in doubt, it is better to ask someone who doesn&#x27;t belong to your country, race, religion, gender what their views are. If they don&#x27;t agree, it could be a false alarm.

As the people in the last decades of the Roman Empire said: no.

Of course we are!<p>It&#x27;s been obvious for years, at least to anyone in my circle. Even my boss has said as much. We can feel it in our bones. Things are getting worse, not better, and it&#x27;s accelerating.<p>We did this to ourselves, with our own greed and indifference, and now it&#x27;s time to reap our rewards. Even now, rich nations are hoarding vaccines for themselves.<p>We have learned nothing and we will learn nothing, until it is too late.

The &quot;collapse&quot; happens over 100 years. We could already be in it.

The West is descending as the East ascends.

I don&#x27;t think there is any problem with inequality. Inequality may be increasing within individual countries, but it&#x27;s decreasing worldwide because of decreasing inequality between countries.<p>Similarly, i can&#x27;t see a problem with East&#x2F;West divide. &quot;Eastearn&quot; civilisations are rising only as long as they adopt Western principles. It&#x27;s not as much of a disadvantage of a Western civilisation, it&#x27;s simply that it&#x27;s losing it&#x27;s exclusive position, because it WON: there is no alternative to market capitalism in today&#x27;s world, no one even pretends there is.<p>There are alternatives to democracy, but success rate of democracy is a mixed bag in the West itself, and it may be simply an outdated form of government for the post-industrial world, and universal democracy where everyone votes was a short (&lt;100 years) experiment anyway, so it&#x27;s not a big deal if it ends. Democracy the way it was implemented in 200 years ago USA when 3% of people - actual stakeholders - could vote, would be the most sustainable form of government today, and it&#x27;s more or less the way China is governed (where 6-7% of population are in the Party and can meaningfully vote).

We&#x27;ve come unacceptably close to a nuclear war, multiple times. The danger still exists, with China&#x27;s blatantly illegal colonization project in the South China Sea.<p>Beyond that, the interconnectedness mentioned in the article allows hysterias to spread globally at an alarming rate. By some estimates, the reaction to covid did 100X more damage to society than it mitigated:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfu.ca&#x2F;~allen&#x2F;LockdownReport.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sfu.ca&#x2F;~allen&#x2F;LockdownReport.pdf</a><p>We saw childhood obesity rates skyrocket:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2783690" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jama&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2783690</a><p>Education attainment levels plummet:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mckinsey.com&#x2F;featured-insights&#x2F;coronavirus-leading-through-the-crisis&#x2F;charting-the-path-to-the-next-normal&#x2F;30-to-40-percent-of-minority-and-low-income-students-werent-learning-during-lockdowns" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mckinsey.com&#x2F;featured-insights&#x2F;coronavirus-leadi...</a><p>But the hysteria surrounding covid has made any kind of rational discussion on the costs of covid mitigation strategies impossible.