
Studying the demise of historic civilisations - pitzahoy
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse
======
dagaci
Many of these great "empires" were simply extended looting machines, once they
ran out of looting opportunities they collapsed in the same way that a Ponzi
collapses when it run out of new "investors". While things were good, it was
all golden, glitter and glam, and many tall buildings.

Loot of course takes many forms, gold, silvers, the work of serfs, the work of
slaves, monopolies on trade routes, monopolies on trades itself and of course
looting of weak environments itself.

The aftermath is what is sustainable, but this difference between the glitter
and the sustainable is very boring and what the historians call a dark age or
dark period because its not newsworthy even thought it is actually the origin
of the next age of expansion.

~~~
Jedi72
I think this is a fantastic point, but it leads to the next question which is
that are the current world powers any different?

~~~
tim333
There's less looting these days and more making stuff.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _more making stuff..._

Well, they must make stuff out of other stuff.

Those raw materials have to be extracted from Mother Earth at some point I'd
imagine.

------
bilbo0s
Does it seem to anyone else that they have conflated "civilization" and
"political entity" for lack of a better term?

Serious question. It just seems that a lot of entries on this list are
actually part of the same civilization. In the same way that I would consider
the Spanish Empire, the British Empire, and the American Empire to be really
all a part of the same Western Civilization. But maybe my thinking is totally
wrong and that's not what "civilization" means?

~~~
geowwy
>>> Does it seem to anyone else that they have conflated "civilization" and
"political entity" for lack of a better term?

They even got that wrong. The Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and the
Byzantine Empire are the same political entity.

Arguably the Ottoman Empire was as well, since the Ottomans basically left the
Byzantine bureaucracy intact. The Sultan even used the title Caesar and
declared himself protector of the Eastern church.

~~~
mcv
They share their origin in the same political entity, but have clearly
different cultures and developed in different directions. The collapse of the
Western Roman Empire had a massive impact on Western Europe.

There's also the medieval Holy Roman Empire which was officially a
continuation of the Western Roman Empire, and at odds with the Byzantine
Empire because they considered themselves the only legitimate Roman Empire,
and these are all related but clearly different cultures.

And then there's the vikings which were clearly a different culture, arguably
a different civilisation, but infused themselves in every corner of Europe,
from England to Russia to Sicily and Byzantium.

Civilisations do not have clear boundaries, both geographically and
temporally, and you certainly can't equate them with empires. I think
civilisations rarely truly collapse (except under the impact of invasion or
colonialism maybe), but they do change, and sometimes dramatically. The
collapse of empires is sometimes dramatic, as in the case of the Western Roman
Empire, and sometimes barely noticeable, as in the case of the Holy Roman
Empire.

~~~
simonh
This reminds me of a conversation I had yesterday with one of my daughters
about species, specifically Homo Sapiens, but generally as well.

She was asking who the first Homo Sapiens was. I suggested that if there was
such a person, if an anthropologist had been there they wouldn’t have seen
anything special happening. The way they would have categorised hominid
species would depend on the populations they saw at that time.

It’s the same with civilisations. How we categorise them is temporally
dependent and is in fact an artefact of language. Reality doesn’t care if our
linguistic categorizations make sense, or how they are limited.

~~~
reader5000
Continuity existing between separate categories doesn't mean categories are
arbitrary nor artifacts of language. For example adults and children really
are separate categories for many important purposes yet there is never a
single day when a child becomes an adult.

~~~
JackFr
That's an excellent analogy. How a society differentiates adults and children,
is often more a reflection of societal norms than it is an objective
biological distinction.

Similarly, analyses like these cannot help but be a reflection of the society
that produced them. This article features a callout in the middle with weirdly
axis-ed charts about climate change, inequality and environmental degradation,
it's difficult not smirk knowing that within the context of our current
society, there was no way it could be otherwise. One wonders 50 or 150 years
ago what the cultural bugbears were and what the callout in the middle of the
page would have featured. Overpopulation? Nuclear war? Out-of-wedlock births?

~~~
mcv
It's a decent analogy, but not a great one. Most people grow up in a fairly
similar way. Every civilisation develops differently. Also, it's clear where
one person ends and the next person begins. With civilisations, that's not so
clear.

------
xiaodai
Is it true to say that China is the longest surviving civilization? They seem
to think that Shang and Zhou are different civilisations? Instead of a
continuity as they like to call it in China. There are good reasons why they
should be considered continuations because they shared a similiar script for
writing.

~~~
dak1
The script has changed considerably over time between different dynasties, and
different areas have had mutually unintelligible languages, even if sharing
similar script.

For example: Japan shares many characters with Chinese, and Korean and
Vietnamese both used to use Chinese characters, but they are all separate
languages. Similarly, numerous "dialects" in China are less mutually
intelligible than many different Western languages. Compare Portuguese and
Spanish to Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese (Hokkien), Fuzhounese, Shanghainese,
etc. Not to mention languages like Mongolian (see the Yuan dynasty). And that
doesn't even begin to get into even more ethnically diverse regions like Tibet
and western China.

Then there's also the "warring states period" when, for over 250 years, no
fewer than 14 different independently governed states made up what is today
eastern China.

Claims that China has always been one civilization are politically expedient
versions of history that glaze over an enormous quantity of inconvenient
facts.

Did you know that after the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople, Sultan
Mehmed viewed himself as the successor of the Roman Empire and declared
himself "Caesar of Rome"?

China today is as much a continuation of those previous states as Turkey is of
the Roman Empire.

~~~
hungryhobo
honestly this is just not?true.

the Chinese script have evolved, but one can still look at inscriptions from
thousands of years ago and understand it.

it might be hard for people to understand different dialects in China but they
all use the same writing system, standardized in the Qin dynasty.

Same with the borrowed Chinese characters in Japanese and Korean. A native
Chinese speaker would have little problem reading those, although the
pronounciations might be a little different

~~~
prevedmedved
Are you seriously claiming that you can understand seal script inscriptions?

Are you Indiana Jones?

~~~
hnnmzh
Yes for me. Of course I don't know every single character by heart but with a
little bit practice and the help of a dictionary you can read a lot. You can
even download some seal script fonts and make all the Chinese websites shown
in seal script.

~~~
hnnmzh
Some additional thoughts.

With some training, people can read seal script inscriptions because the
structure is already fairly close to regular script which is what people use
today.

The radicals are written in slightly different styles from today. It actually
makes sense. Seal script is a very artistic form of calligraphy, so people use
it for their seals hence the name.

An example of the "drum" character:
[http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zixing/yanbian/11208mb/](http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zixing/yanbian/11208mb/)
The horizontal arrow is the time line, starting from oracle bone script. The
4th one of the first row is seal script and the last regular script.

The idea depicted here is hitting a decorated drum on a rack with a drum stick
holding in the hand.

------
titanix2
The full article is here: [http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-
the-road-...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-
civilisation-collapse)

'Interestingly' the first two listed factors are ecology related, and the
biggest thread to the European civilization is not explicitly stated.

~~~
dang
Ok, we've changed the URL to that from
[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-the-lifespans-of-
an...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-the-lifespans-of-ancient-
civilisations-compared). Thanks!

------
neom
Absolutely fantastic book:- Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power,
Prosperity, and Poverty

[https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-
Prosperity/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-
Prosperity/dp/0307719227)

------
mmjaa
I'm quite disappointed that the aboriginal cultures of Australia are not
factored into this. Bias against the idea that they might have been a
civilisation?

Oldest oral traditions of any human culture. Oldest, still being worked,
mining operation of any human culture. A hippocratic oath encoded in their
culture while we, white Europeans, bled people to their deaths.

I think this report, while interesting - is not quite as complete a view of
human civilisation as it could be. Australian aborigines throw out the whole
idea - until white guys came along and genocided them, they were the oldest,
longest-running civilisation of humankind, ever.

~~~
bloak
Perhaps I'm being too literal and etymological, but to me "civilisation" means
towns and cities.

Towns and cities lead to economic specialisation, a legal system, civil
service, taxation, and so on. Nomads and people living in villages may have a
complex culture but it's rather different from city life, even a low-tech city
life like in ancient Egypt, for example.

------
serkanyersen
Ottoman empire lasted 624 years and it's not mentioned in this article. They
mention 'Western Turk (70)' and I've no idea what that means.

~~~
barberousse
Politically my guess is modern Turkey but 'Western turk' is legit term to
distinguish, culturally, from Eastern turks such as Siberians, Kazahks, etc
whom the Turkish language, spoken in Turkey, descends from

------
stareatgoats
> While there is no single accepted theory for why collapses

This kind of reasoning rests on the success of disciplines like physics and
chemistry where scientists have found general laws upon which they can build
solid models of reality (within some extreme limits). History doesn't lend
itself well to this kind of thinking IMO, and only serves to cloak the
innermost nature of history: it's uniqueness. Instead we should realize the
unique characteristics of our culture vs all preceding (and similarities too,
by all means). It is a much more difficult exercise, but also much more
rewarding since it _can_ lead to a much better understanding of our
predicament.

One thing that comes to mind is our complete interconnection and dependency on
a few points of failure like no previous civilization. Our demise might not
take several decades like the Roman empire, it might be over in a few days if
we don't change course(s) and build better resiliency.

------
rafiki6
My take on this is that once an economic model begins to fail, the society
that is based on it will inevitably also fail. Eventually wars breakout
(usually resource wars), and a new dominant player emerges and their economic
model gets implemented until it fails. Usually what causes the failure is that
the economic model has reached it's growth or sustainability limit.

I actually think company life cycles are very analogous and can teach us much
about societies and their growth and decline but on a faster timeline.
Companies operate very much like mini-societies with their own culture,
beliefs and ingrained practices. They have business models which are
constantly evolving. Most if not all of them grow and eventually decline if
they fail to adapt.

I'm of the opinion we are experiencing this now with whatever economic model
we have in developed nations. It's a never ending cycle, at least until the
human species evolves or is eradicated.

------
drallison
Ignoring the difficult task of actually deciding when a civilization starts
and stops, is there some theory that suggests that duration is the right
measure? Don't we need a reasonable model of how civilizations work.

It would be interesting to incorporate and merge the data from Joseph
Tainter's _Collapse of Complex Societies_ with the data presented here.

------
pattisapu
These are awfully contested dates. Hun: 100? Vedic: 1000? Etc. These
statistics obscure more than they explain, I think.

~~~
noopnoop
I can speak to the Vedic dates. Those are contested but only due to their
novelty, meaning they are MUCH older than what western media gives them credit
for. And the Vedic civilization exists to this day in India as Sanatana Dharma
followers or as the ancient Greeks & the modern Western world calls it -
Hindus.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Though most varieties of modern 'Hinduism'/Sanatana Dharma are rather
different from 'Vedism'.

~~~
noopnoop
That's quite unreasonable to say the least. In any case, I am not familiar
with the term "Vedism". Vedas are not the only concept but a very critical
pillar of Sanatana Dharma.

~~~
_emacsomancer_
Why do you think it's unreasonable?

In general we don't expect religious systems to be static.

Certainly -- although Vedic deities are not entirely absent from modern
Hinduism/Sanatana Dharma -- the prominence of different deities is very
different. The Rgveda focusses largely on Agni and Indra, and yajna rituals
(as opposed to modern puja-type worship) have a central importance. Shiva,
assuming he can be identified as Rudra, is not invoked, but rather (being
feared) appeased. And so on and so forth. So while modern Hinduism is not
unrelated to the practices/beliefs of the Vedas (which I'm referring to
vaguely as 'vedism'), it largely pays only lip-service to the Vedas. People
might read the Gita, Ramayan, Mahabharata, but rarely the Vedas, which really
only make an appearance in special ritualised situations (e.g. marriages
involve some Vedic hymns).

------
chx
The Kingdom of Israel and Judah? While Wikipedia is not a credible source,
it's a good summary
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(united_mona...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_\(united_monarchy\))

> In contemporary scholarship the united monarchy is generally held to be a
> literary construction and not a historical reality, pointing to the lack of
> archaeological evidence.

See The Bible Unearthed for a more authentic source. I am slightly biased
because I have been to Tel Hazor after and because of reading that book. (No
matter who ruled at the time but a 25 x 21 m citadel with two-meter thick
walls built three thousand years ago is just jaw dropping.)

Also, Vedic Civilisation [1000]? What evidence do we have that calls for this
period to be called a single civilisation...?

------
supernova87a
You know I lately think that, ok, we're mostly past the age of empires
physically conquering one another, we're in the age of economic ebbs and flows
of established countries.

And in this kind of age, the thing that sinks a country is not aggression by
others, but indifference and lethargy as a country "gets old".

"Getting old" means the political desired and inertia of a rich, settled
population get to dominate the goals and priorities of a nation, and it loses
its drive to be scrappy, make sacrifices, and do the innovative things when
one does when young and poor. You have generations who want to extract the
gains put in by past generations. Or it costs too much to change people's
behavior.

That's what I think is happening to western Europe and the US. Too many rich,
old, soft people who now have settled and moneyed lives, and don't want to
make the same sacrifices that the generation previously were forced to, by
unfortunate circumstance. Too happy with their 2nd homes and retirement plans.

Unless you have a really conscious and socially adept mechanism to force a
people to renew themselves, this sets in. Sometimes, as sad as it is to
imagine, I think you need a good war to refresh a country...

~~~
digitaltrees
Get rid of multi generational transfers of wealth. Make each generation start
from scratch. I know it's easier said than done as not all assets are fungible
or distributable (social networks, geography etc) but it would make a
difference. I read recently that the same families that controlled most the
wealth in Florence in the 1600 still control most the wealth now, that's
probably not good for scrappy innovation.

~~~
glerk
What is the point of accumulating wealth over this short life if I can’t leave
anything to my children?

~~~
marssaxman
What is the point of accumulating wealth over this short life?

~~~
agent008t
For one, society benefits from it.

You generally get wealthy by providing goods and services to others. The more
you satisfy people's wants and needs, the wealthier you get. The wealth means
that these people now owe you.

If you accumulate wealth instead of consuming it, you never take them up on
it. You are basically acting altruistically - instead you use their IOUs to
provide even more goods and services for others (not yourself) by managing
your wealth instead of consuming!

I think it is actually an amazing feature of our civilisation. Wealthy people
generally don't use their wealth to build massive monuments to themselves -
they tend to invest it into economically productive enterprises that make
society wealthier overall.

------
foreigner
_we have the unique advantage of being able to learn from the wreckages of
societies past_

Why do we have that unique advantage? Plenty of civilisations had historians.

~~~
rvn1045
the number of recent discoveries in just the last 100 years is astonishing.
the Indus valley civilization was not even discovered until 1929. We have a
fuller picture of human history than ever before.

------
laythea
I just started researching this subject recently. Graham Hancock is a very
interesting speaker regarding the subject. I highly recommend that anyone
interested in this subject to have a listen.

Seems we are on a cycle of occasional doom and gloom, caused by nature. Think
ice age cycles.

------
aetiusflavius
Sir John Glubb analyzed this in The Fate of Empires:

[http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf](http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf)

------
En_gr_Student
This clearly has outliers from fantastically ancient civilizations. Give it a
qqnorm and you would see.

The median age is much more interesting than the mean, and more relevant for
today.

------
budadre75
The US lasted 243 years. Is it the oldest modern nation? I wonder, how will
the modern nations different from the ancient ones?

~~~
yks
it is not, case in point: Great Britain

~~~
Dirlewanger
I think judging by the oldest extant constitution (or other equivalent legal
document), the US is the oldest.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Depends on your definitions. Great Britain has a "constitution" which is not a
single, written document. The Magna Carta is part of it, and dated from 1215.

------
tlhunter
It looks like the U.S. has another 93 years to look forward to!

~~~
baroffoos
Thats assuming all civilizations don't collapse before then due to
environmental destruction.

------
skookumchuck
Now that the citizens have discovered they can vote themselves money out of
the treasury, and politicians vie to outdo each other in promising free stuff,
we'll see how long the US lasts.

------
Tomminn
Alternative title: The average length of time an ancient civilization had to
last in order to be noticed by us is 336 years.

------
bsanr
Let me throw a wrench into things with a provocative statement (which I have
no intention of citing support for):

The affluence of Western Europe and the US was not built on hard work and
ingenuity so much as the exploitation of cheap labor and the sudden access to
deep veins of basic resources or economic/industrial efficiencies which were
either already extant but inaccessible without a critical mass of capital, or
else were inevitable on an imminent timescale given past development.

Have at it.

~~~
ddxxdd
I don't think a King George Washington would preside over a young America as
affluent as President George Washington did. Tyranny has a way of sequestering
innovative spirit.

~~~
pjc50
Washington was a slave owner. Tyranny, but only for some people.

------
dgudkov
I'm surprised the article doesn't mention destructive ideologies. Early
Christianity contributed to the demise of Roman empire. Marxism and fascism
destroyed quite a few nations.

------
KorematsuFred
Typical western garbage. Applying vague nation state ideas to civilization.
Hindus for example have seen thousands of years as their own unbroken history.
Many mantras that I chant today are at least 1500 year old.

~~~
quaunaut
You understand that an "average" means that many skew higher, often much
higher, right?

If anything, this shows most ancient civilizations were measured in decades,
not centuries. But some did go thousands.

~~~
KorematsuFred
Yes but they have given specific numbers like Harappan -> 800.

