[Nikas777]

ping

[ClearCase_guy]

I haven't read this long article, but I skimmed at bit.

For those who have an interest in science fiction, the Neal Stephenson novel "Anathem" may provide some enjoyment. A central concept is that civilizations suffer horrendous collapses every few thousand years or so. In the book, there are monastery-like structures scattered around the world in which virtually no technology is allowed, but within which, enormous learning is encouraged and preserved. Mankind, thus, never loses basic knowledge and a recovery from a catastrophe can be managed in a shortened amount of time.

The book has some interesting ideas.

[the invisib1e hand]

an awful lot of words here competing for my acutely short attention.

However, the premise is relevant -- these are times like those. So I probably should read it.

But I wish someone would just read it for me...

[Larry Lucido]

Peak bronze?

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

These days if sociological collapse occurs, it seems to me, that eventually other forms of collapse would follow, particularly nuclear devastation. These days there may be a number of ways to start the downwards decline but inevitably there is a single common pathway. If resources become critically scarce, those with means to procure those resources will inevitably make use of those means.

[BenLurkin]

Read later

[dangerdoc]

bump

[brityank]

Interesting thesis, not without relevance to our situation today.

Civilized people go about their lives on the dual assumption of institutional permanency and a continuity of custom. The assumption that plans made today will see their fruition tomorrow belongs to the background of organized existence and contributes to motivating our purposive behavior. The same assumption can lapse into complacency, however, so that, even as signs of trouble emerge on the horizon, a certain denial disarms people from responding to looming disruption with sufficient swiftness and clarity. People take civilization for granted; they rarely contemplate that it might come tumbling down about their ears. Insofar as the historical record has something important to teach ordinary people who are not specialists in the subject, it might well be the lesson that all known societies before the modern society have come to an end. Some of them have come to an end abruptly and violently.

In our complacency we have allowed the vandals and charlatans free access to our halls of power, and as the 9-12 March showed folks are waking from that complacent somnambulism. Meanwhile the powers-that-be prepare to acquire more Bread & Circuses, and ignore the coming conflagrations. There was a reason that traitors heads were stuck on pikes at the entries to the cities - we should encourage that again.

[B-Chan]

How will our civilization end? One need only look around. Neither war nor natural disaster has destroyed a single city in our day (New Orleans, after all, still stands), yet cities and parts of cities across the nation lie in ruins: East St. Louis, Philadelphia, Newark, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and above all Detroit. No asteroid has fallen upon them, no artillery shelled them, yet there they lie in ruins.

What have these cities in common? Answer that question and you will answer also the question of how our civilization will end.

You will also find yourself banned from Free Republic. For even here, the truth dare not be spoken aloud.

[happygrl]

The Brussels Journal, which chose to print this article, focusses on the impact of Islamic immigration on Europe, and its effect on Europe.

It may be that it is from this perspective that leads to concern about a collapse of civilization.

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Nikas777. It left cities in smoking ruin, their wealth plundered; it plunged the affected regions into a Dark Age, bereft of literacy, during which populations drastically shrank while the level of material culture reverted to that of a Stone Age village. The author mildly overstates his case. :') To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[Question_Assumptions]

Ping for later.

[ApplegateRanch]

The suitors resemble Hesiod’s fifth men, the phase of humanity to which Hesiod sees himself as belonging: this is the age inaugurated by the “race of iron.” Envy or resentment, disregard for law and civilized achievement, and a strong proclivity to violent expropriation of other men’s chattels constitute the chief traits of the Hesiodic “Iron Age.”

Thank the gods and heroes that such decadent and boorish behavior never occured at the end of the Stone Age, when copper & bronze were discovered, and only used for peaceful and benevolent purposes!

Calling the start of the Iron Age "The Catastrophe" beggars belief. Spoken like true Luddites, still worshipping at the feet of The Noble Savage, denouncinging that most evil of all evils, the Mother Gaea raping iron plow.

My hat is off to any thinking person who can stand reading both Part I and Part II in their entirity, without gagging: they get the Iron Stomach Award with Bronze Cluster.

[zeugma]

Great article. Thanks for posting it. FreeRepublic rocks!

[Lurker]

bfl

[aruanan]

Neither geological nor climatological but rather sociological in character,

I wouldn't be too sure about that. The big swings of civilization map pretty well onto climatological/geological/astronomical changes.