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I feel technology has little to do with it.

The problem is the human heart. Sir Tyler nailed it when, over 200 years ago, he wrote:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesses from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

IMHO, we are in the "from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency" stage. Much of the Katrina mess was caused by apathy. And look at all the government entitlement programs creating dependency (being a retired Soc Sec recipient, can I still complain? :). And yet Congress is raring to go to add more (DREAM act, SCHIP, etc.).

A good a summation as any. The inevitable decline of a human ‘tribe’. We are predators and territorial animals by nature. Once we have attained territory and sufficient means to prosper we lose purpose. Our declining birth rate supports your case - “”from apathy to dependency””.

Our form of socialism has removed the need for parental importance from the equation. Once born, children are effectively wards of the State. With Western technology sperm and egg donation we are almost at the point of biological redundancy.

Would disagree with Tyler's 200 year average lifespan for the world's greatest civilizations--he probably included a bunch of European states are full-fledged civilizations in their own right.

The older the civilization, the longer it seemed to last. Ancient India, Egypt, China, and Babylon lasted at least a millennium being civilizations of considerable power.

Later ones, such as the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire (technically still the Roman Empire, by commonly considered separate) lasted for around half a millennium in power. The civilizations of the Americas (primarily southern Mexico and Central America) lasted for around a few centuries, fitting in with your mentioned lifespan. The Inca only lasted around one century, but that was because the Spaniards cut them short. Similarly, the European powers' cultures (as opposed to civilizations) seem to have been strong for only around a century. Hence referring to the fifteenth century as the Portugeuse Century, the sixteenth century as the Spanish Century, the seventeenth century as the Dutch or Swedish Century, eighteenth century as the French Century, the nineteenth century as the British Century......and the twentieth century as the American Century. However, of these European countries (excluding the United States), the British and the Spanish had considerably large empires and ruled over large populations.

In contrast, it doesn't look as though American 'rule' is going to be preeminent for even a century. So it might not even measure up to some of the modern Western European countries, much less a civilization as strong as Rome's.