History is littered with fallen civilizations as archeologists can show. The two best scholars regarding studying this are Jared Diamond who wrote “Collapse” and Joe Tainter, who wrote “The Collapse of Complex Societies”. Diamond’s book was more a focus on sociological problems and Tainter was more a focus on technical ones.
At this point we are doing just about everything wrong a society can do. IMO, we are in late stage collapse now. It’s like we have lockjaw of the brain or something. Diamond pointed out probably the most profound observation of societies that avoided catastrophe. They made an acknowledgement that certain cherished core values were no longer helping them but were the cause of their problems. We have quite a bit more adversity before we do that, but it will come.
Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how — if we see it in time — we can prevent it.
Note that he mentions the conflict of interests — when Elites “insulate themselves from the consequences of their decisions, advancing their own short term interests against the interests of overall society.”
Collapse, if and when it comes again, will this time be global. No longer can any individual nation collapse. World civilization will disintegrate as a whole. Competitors who evolve as peers collapse in like manner. Tainter, 1988, p214
