All Societies Can Collapse Simultaneously

IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE.

1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed |

In the 12th century BCE the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean—all of them—suddenly fell apart.

Their empires evaporated, their cities emptied out, their technologies disappeared, and famine ruled.

Can we learn from them?

Consider this. All the societies in the world can collapse simultaneously. It has happened before. In the 12th century BCE the great Bronze Age civilizations of the Mediterranean—all of them—suddenly fell apart. Their empires evaporated, their cities emptied out, their technologies disappeared, and famine ruled. Mycenae, Minos, Assyria, Hittites, Canaan, Cyprus—all gone. Even Egypt fell into a steep decline.

The Bronze Age was over.

The event should live in history as one of the great cautionary tales, but it hasn’t because its causes were considered a mystery. How can we know what to be cautious of?

Above: Possibly the first corporate tax exemption in history

In this fascinating presentation,Eric Cline has taken on the mystery. An archaeologist-historian at George Washington University, he is the author of "1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed." The failure, he suggests, was systemic.

Above: the “Sea Peoples” have had bad press. Climate Change was one rogue wave of the perfect storm that caused global collapse 3200 years ago

The highly complex, richly interconnected system of the world tipped all at once into chaos. "1177 B.C.: When Civilization Collapsed" was given on January 11, 2016 as part of Long Now's Seminar series.

Above: From globally connected trade at a level historians are only beginning to grasp, to a global collapse not seen again for over fifteen centuries

The series was started to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers.

Listen to this in the car or on your next jog. Lots of others have found it valuable.

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“The Long Now Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to fostering long-term thinking and responsibility. Our projects include a 10,000 Year Clock, endangered language preservation, thousand year+ data storage, and Long Bets, an arena for accountable predictions.”

Above: The Cutting of International Trade Routes (sound familiar?) Tin and copper made Bronze, the “oil” and lifeblood of the ancient world. Fun fact: the only substitute for tin is arsenic, which is not recommended as workers comp will not cover it;)

The LBA collapse of globally connected separate countries is far more similar to our situation today than the collapse of the monolithic Roman Empire that Edward Gibbons so famously and eloquently wrote about.

Thoughts?