[Tapper]

Aptorius, on 07 July 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

Kanese S, on 07 July 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:

Yep. Of course our civilization will end. Everything ends, eventually. That's just the way of the world, and really, the universe. Nothing lasts forever.

Is it really inevitable? Do we have to end? I mean, as a way of life, I could foresee the US or Europe crashing hard in the wake of a natural/biological disaster and the economy collapsing, but as a Civilization? You'd need something that made a permanent and irrevocable dent in our environment and culture for us to end as a Civilization. Humanity is constantly moving closer and closer towards a global civilization. Borders are falling, economies are merging, cultures are getting assimilated.

Civilizations have fallen before but I doubt it would be easy to destroy the one we are currently living in out right. You might be able to destroy it by changing it into something else but unless you count Aliens, I don't really think there is any barbarians that can storm our civilizations gates.

Even if a civilization falls, it is usually suplanted or augmented by something foreign. Not necessarily as advanced, quite often very, very different, but still order of sorts. As such, I guess we in the west have more of a chance to become household slaves of Chinese, Indian or African masters than we do of walking a nuclear wasteland.

[Salt-Man Z]

D, on 09 July 2012 - 07:29 AM, said:

Steven Erikson said:

I worked as anarchaeologist for eighteen years

This spelling error needs to be turned into a post-modern political thesis.

Anarchaeologist = A former archaeologist who goes around disturbing dig sites.

[Aptorian]

Salt-Man Z, on 09 July 2012 - 03:47 PM, said:

D, on 09 July 2012 - 07:29 AM, said:

Steven Erikson said:

I worked as anarchaeologist for eighteen years

This spelling error needs to be turned into a post-modern political thesis.

Anarchaeologist = A former archaeologist who goes around disturbing dig sites.

There's a saturday morning cartoon series and toy franchise in here somewhere.

Potsherd! Dustbrush! Rockhammer! Suncream! Shovel! BY YOUR POWERS COMBINED I AM CAPTAIN ARCHAEOLOGY!

Team Humanist Nerdsquad fights the evil Pottery Barn.

This post has been edited by Aptorius: 09 July 2012 - 05:29 PM

[Ivan Kersovic]

I think the "everything ends" thing is a bit of an illusion really. Most of the endings were in fact periods where one form of rule or civilisation was slowly supplanted by another. In the few cases of massive civilisational crash, like the indiginous depopulation of the Americas, they were quickly supplanted by Europeans. Short of a massive plague of death I don't see a sudden collapse of modernity as being very likely, and even in that situation humanity is far more educated than it was then, and so the survivors would be far more likely to be able to maintain a vestige of civilisation and quickly re-reach old heights - perhaps within a few generations.

I do think the "too big to fail" argument holds a lot of weight too. In the past internal/external pressures were the main cause of civilisational collapse, but in those days (right up until the collapse of the USSR) we had many different isolated civilisations, whereas to a large extent we now live in one huge globe-spanning civilisation. Sure there are political differences, but the economic system is more or less global and each state relies on global stability for its own success. It's got to the point where states which are practicing self-destructive tendencies are in fact "targetted" by the rest of the global community for intervention/regime change/correction and this is largely seen as being acceptable behaviour.

Although Erikson talks about natural causes (such as a plague killing people) as a possible cause of a civilisational collapse, I think it's far more likely that economic reasons would be at the heart of it. Shortage of resources and slowly changing attitudes towards internationalism have meant that people no longer consider the future of their own country as paramount above that of others. Wars over oil, food-even water are the most likely causes of civilisational collapse, and even then it would be localised.

A common end-of-the-world scenario is that the West/developed nations, seeing the depletion of resources as a direct threat, grow ever more tyrannical in their control, leading to an end of our value system and therefore a decent into the kind of self-destructive system that killed the central american civs (in SE's essay) admittedly with less brain smashing. In the UK if you work in the Houses of Parliament you have to sign a disclaimer saying you won't try to overthrow parliamentary democracy (no, really). The basic principle is that you will, whatever your views, try and implement your plans through the current infrastructure, rather than smash the state. I think that short of a global catastrophe of epic proportions, the changes that come to our civilisation will be creeping not sudden, and will be viewed in terms of slowly changing and accepted attitudes rather than a massive doomsday.

To underline all of that rambling nonsense, the main difference between all of the civs we're digging up and the one we're trying to bury is that the one we have now has no serious external enemies, a system where power is based on mutual recognition and an economic system that demands stability and mutual support. Even the prospect of war is unlikely for the first time- not because we're less aggressive than before, just because there are few advantages to it.

[Ulrik]

Well, fall can be slow degradation. I´ve just read interview with one Slovakian economist (pretty smart guy, advisor to World Bank) saying that current stream of debt leading into another debt will crumble society as we know in three years. But there will not be anarchy with charismatic leaders and new states. Just few social clashes and everyone except for those most rich will be thrown back for about ninety years. Because there wont be money on all that shiny stuff we like and do not need. Inflation will destroy your savings, entertainment will get huge blow. People will spend money on food, clothing, gas... Simply no apocalypse, but going back to times of our grand grandparents. He was pretty optimistic bout that "nobody said that people with less shouldnt and couldnt be happy". So, I propably will play all those games on X360...

[D'iversify]

I think the issue of debt is a red herring as creditor countries exist in a symbiotic relationship with the major debtor nations (US, Europe, etc), as their lending allows debtor nations to maintain inflated levels of consumption which are the main means by which creditor nations enlarge their economies through export. The main problem as I see it is actually that this consumption is resource-wise and ecologically unsustainable, especially as the consumer base of the developing world is being constantly increased as part of the feedback mechanism of this symbiosis, necessitating further production at home and import from abroad.