[michaelpb]

> Even the historic concept of "collapse" is ill-defined. It's widely accepted today that the Western Roman Empire (probably the most written-about "collapse" event) didn't really collapse at once as much as it slowly changed from within and without. Is this "linear collapse"? I mean maybe, but it may just be the process of change itself.

I love to point out how the symbolism of many modern governments is the result of a sort of cargo cult of Roman Republican culture. Government buildings to this day copy the dull gray ruins of Roman buildings, just as many 18th/19th century governments declared popular authority from a Latin-imitating "Senate", filled to the brim with Roman symbolism.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that many today believe the 18th/19th century's "fall of Rome" and "barbarian invasion" myths as a sort of predictive weak-spot of modernity. If you view civilization as a linear path, a story of how the intrinsically superior empires of the Greek/Macedonians and Romans successively lifted the world out of its natural, primitive barbarian state, and the shifting power centers of the 3rd-8th century as a "turning back of time to the Dark Ages" or linear regression along the same path, then the "collapse" narrative is as plain as day. This view on history is pure fantasy, of course, which is why the collapse narratives set in modern days seem so fantastic as well.