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Page added on August 22, 2014
Lessons From The Last Time Civilization Collapsed
““Consider this, if you would: a network of far-flung, powerful, high-tech civilizations closely tied by trade and diplomatic embassies; an accelerating threat of climate change and its pressure on food production; a rising wave of displaced populations ready to sweep across and overwhelm developed nations.
Sound familiar?
While that laundry list of impending doom could be aimed at our era, it’s actually a description of the world 3,000 years ago. It is humanity’s first “global” dark age as described by archaeologist and George Washington University professor in his recent book .
1177 B.C. is, for Cline, a milepost. A thousand years before Rome or Christ or Buddha, there existed a powerful array of civilizations in the Near and Middle East that had risen to the height of their glory. Then, fairly suddenly, the great web of interconnected civilizations imploded and disappeared.
The question that haunts Eric Cline is why. What drove such a complex set of societies to all perish almost all at once? The answers and its lesson, Cline argues, are a story we moderns should not ignore. When I asked him about the parallels between 1177 B.C. and A.D. 2014, Cline responded:
“The world of the Late Bronze Age and ours today have more similarities than one might expect, particularly in terms of relationships, both at the personal level and at the state level. Thus, they had marriages and divorces, embassies and embargoes, and so on. They also had problems with climate change and security at the international level. These are not necessarily unique to just them and us, but the combination of similar problems (climate change and drought, earthquakes, war, economic problems) at the very same time just might be unique to both…””
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There have obviously been other collapsed civilizations since then, but the points and lessons here are still valid. It will be all the same old shit happening again this time around, just on steroids, with environmental collapse and climate collapse pushing our species to extremes faster, and with nukes sitting around waiting for bad enough circumstances to finally get used.
7 Comments on "Lessons From The Last Time Civilization Collapsed"
Plantagenet on Fri, 22nd Aug 2014 12:25 pm
All late Bronze age civilizations did not collapse in the year 1177 BC. This is utter BS. The Minoans, for example, were wiped out by the Santorini volcanic tsunami six hundred years before 1177 BC, for example, while the Pharonic Egyptian civilisation went on for 1100 years longer.
Makati1 on Fri, 22nd Aug 2014 7:55 pm
Plant, you are correct. Another author trying to sell his latest book. No civilization collapsed in one year. Most took decades or centuries, as will the current one. Decades at least. I don’t think we have centuries, but then, we did start the decline about 40 years ago, at least.
The difference is that this civilization has the ability to actually destroy itself in one year, or maybe even one day. About 20,000 nukes would do it many times over. As for the next civilization … maybe there will not be one. We shall see.
Keith_McClary on Fri, 22nd Aug 2014 11:46 pm
Plant:
The Egyptians still had the Nile.
Santorini was an isolated event which is not relevant to the argument.
Davy on Sat, 23rd Aug 2014 7:16 am
Naa, the game is changed. We are in a Mega global predicament of multiple inclusive and converging predicaments with a global population in extreme overshoot with diminishing by the day carrying capacity. There is no comparison to previous civilizations in scope and degree. Maybe some of the typical human traits involved but not the systematic implications. The potential for a complete end of civilization we have known for 10,000 years is now a reality. There has never been a global interconnected world and probably with never be again. We will never have the resources again. We have burned through the resources necessary for a global civilization. We may not have the climate soon to support the required agriculture. The BAU world we are in is a slow motion train wreck. The cornucopians should enjoy life while they can because the fuse of collapse has been lit. Maybe we can continue on for some years but the end of this global hyper complex life is near. Anyone that believes technology, knowledge, and substitution will overcome through democracy and capitalism is very optimistic in my book. There are precisely the structures that have got us to a Mega Predicament. The best we can do is manage the fall in the randomness of descent of global civilization that will be ugly, painful, and unfair. Reality is what it is not Hollywood or the wonderful ads we see on TV. Civilization, if we can call what we have now civilization, is at its zenith in extreme disequilibrium and entropic decay. The equalizing breaks that normally occur in complex systems have been delayed by abundant energy, favorable climate, and knowledge. These conditions most likely will end. When is a question none of us know. But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it is not the sun light it is the train of consequences from an unsustainable lifestyle of excess on a global scale. There is no escaping overshoot.
longtimber on Sat, 23rd Aug 2014 3:13 pm
Interview of the Author – Collapse 1177BC
http://www.johnbatchelorshow.com/podcasts/2014/08/12/fourth-hour
energyskeptic on Sat, 23rd Aug 2014 3:31 pm
The author doesn’t claim all nations collapsed in one year in the book, and goes to great lengths to say there is a lot that still isn’t known and may never be known, but what’s interesting is that this civilization was more similar to ours than many others in terms of the “globalized” interdependence on trade and how quickly major disruptions could bring down nations very very fast with centuries of “dark age” before the next civilizations arose.
DMyers on Sun, 24th Aug 2014 12:16 am
We can gather that we are at the end of an age. That was also the message of 2012.
I would speculate that the next age will be transhumanism. That will fail, in spite of great plans and faith in a greater side of humanity, and humans will devolve, never to evolve again.
Good comments on this string There does seem to be a parallel between this past complexified world and our own. We haven’t escaped, we’ve only repeated.