Philosophy Now Forum

It's not a question of if, but when.
I'm not talking about a particular civilization, like western civilization, but civilization itself.
Civilization itself has collapsed twice already on record, the first time happened around 1000 BC, dubbed the 'bronze age collapse', the second time happened around 500 AD, dubbed the 'dark ages'.
It wasn't just Mycenaean Greece that fell around 1000 BC, or the Roman Empire around 500 AD, civilization everywhere declined, starkly.
Rome fell to Germanic barbarians and Huns, Persia fell to Arabic Barbarians AKA Muslims, and China was taken over by Northern Barbarians.
These things happen in cycles, every 1500 years or so.
My prediction is the next collapse will occur sometime within the first half of this millennium, the 3rd millennium, and probably within this century.

the next collapse will leave the cockroaches as the dominant species...

-Imp

I assume when you refer to the fall of Rome in 500BC you mean 500AD. And you mean Western Rome given that the richer half of the Empire remained intact, and even got to enjoy another century or so of war with the Persians before that empire fell in 651 AD to be replaced with a largely sumilar one in most details other than religion.

So what was the equivalent thing in India at these times? And who are the invaders poised to sack all our cities this century?

How do we work out this 1500 year cycle as something which must happen again, given that two historical seasoons are not statistically significant, no causal mechanism is proposed, and the entire cycle is really just something you declared on the basis of cherry picked data points?

It's been happening for a while. Just look at the US for a fly-on-the-wall view.

With in 20 years USA will fall, and most of the world as we know it! Many big countries and nations will be split up.

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:12 pm the next collapse will leave the cockroaches as the dominant species...

-Imp

Agreed, and I'm sure they'll make a better job of it than we did.

Gloominary wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:15 am

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:12 pm the next collapse will leave the cockroaches as the dominant species...

-Imp

Agreed, and I'm sure they'll make a better job of it than we did.

They've been doing that since they started...long before the human race began. The downtrodden - never thinking it would be cockroaches - will inherit the earth after all. If they could only laugh!

Impenitent wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:12 pm the next collapse will leave the cockroaches as the dominant species...

-Imp

Is there a 'dominant species'? That's a silly human concept. See how 'dominant' you are when attacked by several million army ants.

HexHammer wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:25 pm With in 20 years USA will fall, and most of the world as we know it! Many big countries and nations will be split up.

Have you been reading the tea leaves, Hex? You left out the part about a dark stranger.

Here is a list of predictions for the end of the world. Dozens. Hundreds. All either wrong or speculative. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_p ... _the_world

Everything ends, but predictions as to how and when are all just guesses. Further, very large and damaging events (major wars and natural disasters) can feel like doomsday - and there have been many - but at least some civilisation has remained. Given that primitive Homo sapiens survived an ice age that almost rendered them extinct, you'd think that, if worst came to worst, then at least some modern technologically-enabled humans would maintain at least the basics of their civilisations from which to rebuild when the dust settles.

Then again, I don't see the Great Filter hypothesis to explain the Fermi Paradox as much more than traditionalist thinking and disapproval of the kind of future humanity is shaping. This is understandable because we were born during a time of rapid ecological decline and technological growth so the anticipated conditions of the future are necessarily a very long way from the conditions of our youth, to which we are best adapted.

Those darn techno whippersnappers :)

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:40 pm I assume when you refer to the fall of Rome in 500BC you mean 500AD. And you mean Western Rome given that the richer half of the Empire remained intact, and even got to enjoy another century or so of war with the Persians before that empire fell in 651 AD to be replaced with a largely sumilar one in most details other than religion.

So what was the equivalent thing in India at these times? And who are the invaders poised to sack all our cities this century?

How do we work out this 1500 year cycle as something which must happen again, given that two historical seasoons are not statistically significant, no causal mechanism is proposed, and the entire cycle is really just something you declared on the basis of cherry picked data points?

The eastern Roman empire AKA the Byzantine empire quickly became a shadow of what Rome was.

Capitalism/consumerism is unsustainable, eventually/inevitably it'll lead to (non)renewable resource shortages: coal, gasoline, oil, uranium, food and water.
Rain forests are diminishing, the soil is eroding, ecosystems will collapse and give way to global warming, desertification and climate change.
The sea level will rise and cities, especially coastal ones will be flooded.

All this will probably lead to WW3, as stronger nations such as the USA, the EU, Russia and China molest weaker nations for their resources much more than they already are, which'll probably bring the stronger nations into direct conflict with one another, resulting in WW3, and the potential extinction of the human race and life as we know it, or at the very least civilization as we know it.
Stronger nations will adopt increasingly oppressive and totalitarian measures to maintain their grip on their increasingly rebellious and wayward populations.

Crime rates will soar, and so will anarchists of every creed and survivalists.
Many doomsday cults and ideologies will spring up, and some of them might takeover.
Immigrants, Muslims in Russia and the EU, and Mexicans in the USA will stage coups, and some of them might be successful, as their host populations will be weakened from centuries of decadence and degeneration.

If humanity survives, and there's any civilization left, it'll be a whole new world, where the USA and the EU have splintered, some regions dominated by Mexican or Muslim warlords, others by some of the new cults and ideologies that've sprung up, and some might remain loyal to older ways of thinking, at least ceremonially, it'll be impossible to carry on as they were by/large.
The number of autonomous zones, places no government can claim or control, but where some people may live, will vastly increase.

China, if it still exists, will have shrunk, it'll have lost all its western territories: Tibet, areas dominated by Muslims/Turks, Mongols.
Russia, if it still exists, will have shrunk too, it'll have lost all of its eastern territories, and any territory it claimed that doesn't have Russians as the dominant demographic.
Similar fates will befall Australia, Brazil, Canada and India.

All in all Hundreds of millions if not billions of people will die of famine, pestilence and warfare, and nature will have finally made a comeback.

In all likelihood, nothing humans build is permanent, and humanity itself may either go extinct, or (de)evolve into something else, maybe something better, maybe something worse or just different, for everything that rises sets.
essentially the same conditions that'll lead to the collapse of our civilization were present during the collapse of previous civilizations, on a smaller scale.
Some modern technologies will be preserved, but many more will be lost to us, perhaps forever, or until they can revived at some point in the distant future, centuries or millennia from now, when humanity regains its footing, and attempts to ascend again, scale that steep and perilous mountain of riches and power, science and ingenuity.

This cycle takes approximately 1500-2000 years to complete itself.
It has happened at least twice before, thou some speculate civilization in some form or another has been around for a lot longer than we think we know, and so this cycle may have happened many, many times before.
The cycle can be divided like the year into seasons: it has a spring, a renaissance, followed by summer, where civilization peaks, fall and winter or a dark age.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 28, 2017 10:48 pm It's been happening for a while. Just look at the US for a fly-on-the-wall view.

Indeed.

Greta wrote: ↑Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:41 am Here is a list of predictions for the end of the world. Dozens. Hundreds. All either wrong or speculative. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_p ... _the_world

Everything ends, but predictions as to how and when are all just guesses. Further, very large and damaging events (major wars and natural disasters) can feel like doomsday - and there have been many - but at least some civilisation has remained. Given that primitive Homo sapiens survived an ice age that almost rendered them extinct, you'd think that, if worst came to worst, then at least some modern technologically-enabled humans would maintain at least the basics of their civilisations from which to rebuild when the dust settles.

Then again, I don't see the Great Filter hypothesis to explain the Fermi Paradox as much more than traditionalist thinking and disapproval of the kind of future humanity is shaping. This is understandable because we were born during a time of rapid ecological decline and technological growth so the anticipated conditions of the future are necessarily a very long way from the conditions of our youth, to which we are best adapted.

Those darn techno whippersnappers

Right, it's highly unlikely the world itself will come to an end, or any deity will come to rapture the 'elect', but many will pray for one.
Humanity might survive, in some form or another, but he may look very different than he does now, psychologically, sociologically, perhaps even biologically, we may hardly even recognize him.
What I present here in this thread is not what I know, for sure, but merely my best guess, a possibility to explore.

All in all, if people want to survive, whether they choose to remain in urban areas in search of scraps, flee to rural areas or transform suburban areas into rural areas, they're going to have to live a simpler, more subsistence life.

The world will get bigger, industry, commerce, transportation and communications will breakdown.
Modern conveniences will be largely a thing of the past, we'll lose our ability to manufacture, distribute and even repair many of them.
Air and sea travel will be rare, space travel, unthinkable.
Working appliances, automobiles and computers will belong exclusively to the wealthy and/or lucky, or a handful of them will have to be shared by whole villages/entire towns.
People will have to make due with food and things that can be made more locally and greenly.
Few cities will really remain, perhaps important cities like London, Paris and Rome will still be around, able to manufacture and distribute some stuff, maintain some semblance of order, if they haven't succumbed to chaos, violence and the rising sea level that is.
Needless to say the world will be far more dangerous, average life expectancy will plummet 10-20-30 years, but after people get settled, they may actually be healthier and heartier, as modernity has made us all rather sickly.

Fundamentalist Christianity will make a comeback in some regions of North America, the EU and Russia, but it'll have to compete with Muslims, anarchists, and various doomsday and back to nature cults.
Crime will run rampant, war will be commonplace, divergent, rival groups will often be too hateful or suspicious of one another to conduct trade, long distance travel will be perilous.

Gloominary wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2017 7:57 pm Fundamentalist Christianity will make a comeback in some regions of North America, the EU and Russia, but it'll have to compete with Muslims, anarchists, and various doomsday and back to nature cults.
Crime will run rampant, war will be commonplace, divergent, rival groups will often be too suspicious of one another to conduct trade.

And then he wrote:

Fundamentalist Christianity will make a comeback in some regions of North America, the EU and Russia, but it'll have to compete with Muslims, anarchists, and various doomsday and back to nature cults.
Crime will run rampant, war will be commonplace, divergent, rival groups will often be too suspicious or hateful of one another to conduct trade.

Which suggests some copying, pasting and screwing up has taken place. There's something disturbing about you, Gloomy.

All in all, if people want to survive......

If civilisation is to prevail, the first step must be for mankind to give up drinking coffee.