[rsj_hn]

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas, and pretty much all civilizations that flourished in the past. There are many attempts to study this and many different takes on it, for example Tainter's Collapse of Complex Societies.

I'm not sure that this should be terrifying, civilizations come and go, it's a question of when rather than if, unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others. But I don't think people should stay awake, worrying about civilizational collapse. Our own individual life is much more fragile, so maybe worry about getting enough exercise instead.

But this point doesn't seem very profound or interesting to me, nor do I believe it is Burke's central thesis, which I really believe is about the connections between different technological advances. That is, how does technological process happen, and specifically, how did it happen in the West? History of technology is fascinating to me.

I love this show, it's really a masterwork and a great learning program for young students as well as entertainment for us geezers.

[joe_the_user]

That the breakdown of civilization is possible is clear from the Bronze Age Collapse, the Collapse of the Roman Empire, The Incas,

I would note that "the collapse of the Roman Empire" was a very relative thing. The Western empire split and East empire kept going. Things that seemed collapse-related happened; the Vandals lived by looting civilization for quite a while, population and cities shrank, and Vikings also plundered for hundreds of years. But agricultural society and a number of social/technological innovations continued and in ways made progress. And Eastern Roman/Byzantium continued until conquered by a more advanced society. Mentioning this 'cause the classical collapses of the Maya, precolumbian-society or bronze age societies apparently didn't do this. People left, died, went back to hunting and gathering. Those could be called "true" collapses.

Which is to say that even Roman may have been at the point that a classical Tainter collapse couldn't quite happen. And today, while our create multiple disasters, we seem be well past a point where you could talk about a rise and fall of civilization. What we're looking at is the direction of the explosive expansion of market/technological/social progress. Even a disaster wiping out, say 90% of the human population on earth would see a rebound in a terrifying short period of time, historically speaking.

But anyway, I agree with the rest of what the parent says.

[djmips]

> unless you think our civilization is unique among all the others.

I don't think there is even a question that it's unique considering how far it's come in understanding physics math and engineering. To lose all of that would be a great disaster.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Why do you believe it would be lost? Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed? I humbly suggest that we did not ....

[npunt]

For the peoples living in the decline and aftermath of those collapses, yes they absolutely lost a lot of knowledge. What was common knowledge or specialized in different trades was replaced with ignorance. They didn't know how to farm in the same way or manufacture the same goods, they didn't understand the principles behind the infrastructure that was now crumbling around them, etc. They lacked the engine of broadly perpetuating knowledge we call civilization. Sure, there were individuals in certain places that possessed a fair amount of knowledge, but that knowledge was not widely distributed, and thus it was fragile.

For those collapsed civilizations, it was only that there were sufficient remaining resources in the earth and that their civilization was geographically limited that after centuries and many injections of knowledge from elsewhere that they were able to slowly bounce back, to rediscover what they lost.

The risk today is that we're so interconnected, we've extracted so much of earth's resources, and we've set ourselves on a path towards permanent environmental change, that we may not get another chance at civilization. It may be we recede back to ignorance permanently.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Yes, that is a risk, but ...

1) the amount of valuable resources sitting above ground is now immense. What's currently missing is a good way to "harvest" them. Necessity being the mother of invention ...

2) Problems with "sufficient remaining resources" are only really relevant if population levels do not decline dramatically. It seems likely to me the civilizational collapse in our era would also be accompanied by substantial population declines, some through the death of the living, some through reduced life expectancy of newly born people, some through reduced birth rates.

3) In the long run, it doesn't matter if individuals lose knowledge, only if the knowledge becomes lost to all and needs to be discovered anew (from the world, rather than from some sort of cultural artifact).

[bsder]

> Did we lose a substantial amount of previously developed knowledge when the Greek or Roman civilizations collapsed?

We lost an enormous amount of knowledge in those time frames.

It took six hundred years for the Romans to reach the same technical level as the Athenians. It then took almost one thousand years for the Italians to again reach the same level as the Romans (this time being greatly increased by the shenanigans of Catholic church).

That was the whole point of the rediscovery of "classical" knowledge from the "ancients" in the Renaissance.

[Mediterraneo10]

> It took six hundred years for the Romans to reach the same technical level as the Athenians.

When we speak of Ancient Greek technical innovations, we're usually talking about the Hellenism era. That was after Athens had begun to wane as a major intellectual center, and much closer in time to the Romans' ascent in the Mediterranean.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

I think we need to differentiate between several different things:

  * the social organization and structures required for technologically complex societies
  * the knowledge required for certain technologies
  * the loss (or otherwise) of knowledge by humanity, as opposed to local loss of knowledge

[mymythisisthis]

When Copernicus was working out the solar centric system, he was using 1000 year old star charts dating to Ptolmey. They were the best Europe had at the time. The Alfonsine tables were just being compiled and printed as Copernicus was working.

[alexvoda]

Can you elaborate why you suggest we did not?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

Mostly the Arabic civilization(s) next door, which managed to retain (and extend) much (not all) of the knowledge of the Greco-Roman civilizations for several centuries.

[EDIT: Along with various libraries throughout Europe that also acted as repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge ]

[WalterBright]

> repositories for Greco-Roman knowledge

True, but a lot of that stuff was re-invented only to be later discovered that the Greeks/Romans had done it first.

[space_ghost]

There's a wonderful podcast [1] on Youtube that deep-dives into the collapse of various historical civilizations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT6Y5JJPKe_JDMivpKgVXew

[AareyBaba]

I second this recommendation. Really well done - I'm on the Sumerian civilization episode. The episode on the Khmer Empire was outstanding.