
Are We on the Road to Civilisation Collapse? - pseudolus
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse
======
Hypx
> Collapse is often quick and greatness provides no immunity. The Roman Empire
> covered 4.4 million sq km (1.9 million sq miles) in 390. Five years later,
> it had plummeted to 2 million sq km (770,000 sq miles). By 476, the empire’s
> reach was zero.

And what about _that other empire_? You know, the one that also calls itself
the Roman Empire, consider itself Roman citizens, had control of both Rome and
Ravenna, and covered 3.9 million sq km in the year 555?

Interesting side-note: Christopher Columbus was already alive by the time
_this other empire_ finally went to zero.

~~~
vickyks
Are you referring to the Holy Roman Empire ruled by Charlemagne? They weren't
strictly the same as the Roman Empire. There's a decent explanation on reddit
on the differences.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/124kmx/whats...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/124kmx/whats_the_difference_between_the_roman_empire_and/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Are you referring to the Holy Roman Empire ruled by Charlemagne?

No, that didn't exist in 555; he's talking about the “Eastern
Roman”/“Byzantine” Empire.

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peapicker
Weird article. The eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) went on almost 1000 years
longer after Rone fell and this article acts like it was all over in the late
400s.

~~~
woodandsteel
One of the features of language is that many words or phrases have more than
one meaning, and people determine which meaning is meant by context. In
particular, the phrase "Roman Empire" can mean either Eastern and Western
branches, or just the Western one. In this case it is obvious it is the latter
that is intended.

However, it is good to bring up Byzantium since so many people are completely
unaware that it was the Eastern Roman Empire.

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mark_l_watson
Well written article. I hope the answer is ‘no’ but we do face some possible
existential threats.

I think that empires eventually expiring is natural: when a large fraction of
citizens feel complacent and stop producing and as power becomes centralized
and corrupt, it makes sense that a civilization/empire will expire.

~~~
mcv
The article equates empire with civilisations, but that's not entirely
correct. Sometimes the collapse of an empire coincides with the collapse of a
civilisation (like the Western Roman Empire), but sometimes it doesn't (HRE,
Austrian, British). In fact most European empires' collapse haven't hurt
European civilisation in any way, because these empires didn't dominate the
continent and had lots of contact with surrounding countries.

So will modern western civilisation collapse? There's certainly a number of
red flags. Not just the rising inequality and oligarchy in the US. More
worrying to me is the rise of authoritarianism, decreased trust in democracy,
and decreased commitment and understanding of our rights and values.

Authoritarianism is on the rise all over the world. China will inevitably
overtake the US as the most powerful economy at some point in the future, and
China is deeply committed to remaining unfree: no free expression, press or
elections. Russia's democratic revolution after Gorbachev and Yeltsin seems to
have failed with Putin. The Arab Spring only really succeeded in Tunis; the
other Arab countries just ended up with either their old or a new dictator, or
otherwise became violent and unstable. South America seemed to become more
democratic, but is getting more authoritarian again in Brazil and Venezuela.

And most importantly, the US and the EU themselves are struggling with
authoritarianism from within: Trump and his supporters, Hungary, but EU
technocracy doesn't exactly inspire confidence either.

I do think that these are developments we need to turn around. Lately I've
started to fear that maybe these past few centuries of enlightenment may have
been a fluke.

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cylinder
So the Roman Empire collapsed. Big deal. All the land is still there. Italy is
there and still gorgeous and largely functional. Rome is there and still a
great place.

The British Empire basically collapsed. The Pound has retained its value the
whole time. It's still a first world country.

~~~
mikhailfranco
I think you'll find the value of the pound has plummeted in the last century,
during the decline of empire, decoupling from the gold standard, inflation of
the 70s, printing during QE and the BRexit vote.

Since 1900 the GBP price of gold has risen 250x, from 4.25 to over 1,000
today.

[https://www.chards.co.uk/gold-price/price-of-
gold](https://www.chards.co.uk/gold-price/price-of-gold)

~~~
rodiger
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that stat seems pretty meaningless if they aren't
controlling for inflation

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alexgmcm
For me, civilisation collapse is like the Bronze Age Collapse when multiple
civilisations fall due to a multitude of factors.

Not just a big empire fading away.

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donatj
No.

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cleaver
According to Betteridge's Law of Headlines, no.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

