[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.