There is extensive research on social collapse, it’s not just shock and awe social media language. (From me…
There is extensive research on social collapse, it’s not just shock and awe social media language. (From me anyway.) Previous societies have been extensively studied, to identify causal factors.
Here are 4 key indicators of collapse, seen today. /1
https://t.co/lLtiT31rOo https://t.co/5Xrwx41kLC
I posted the timeline of the collapse of the Roman Empire yesterday just to illustrate how a culture or society can go from seeming an eternal all-powerful force, to total collapse, in only a few decades.
Nobody expected Rome to fall. And especially not this fast. /2 https://t.co/SK2ZzX7fgi
This is what I mean by a reality-based politics. Societies that focus only on their daily imitative rivalries, their team sports, are completely oblivious to wider patterns in play.
That ‘complexity’ metric is particularly interesting. /3 https://t.co/JB67cZSTXZ
Meaning problems become too complex to solve, things become so interconnected that a break here causes collapse in multiple other places.
We’re seeing that right now. It’s not just public health failing. Education, environment, energy - you name it. Things are collapsing. /4 https://t.co/Uuqp8OsUB8
I’ve done a few threads on how connection, which we crazily think of as a warm and cuddly intrinsic good, actually dramatically magnifies the violence in societies. Because the basis of sociality is competing desires, rivalry.
It also can make societies much more fragile. /5
That’s what we saw during ‘lockdowns’, how completely interdependent all of our social processes are. Hilariously the ‘there’s no such thing as society’ libertarians were most offended of all, by lockdowns.
But lockdowns revealed we are HYPER social. /6
We’re the exact opposite of the libertarian dream. Their markets and economies are hyper social connectedness.
All of it is now falling apart. If you work in essential services you’re seeing it every day. It’s not lockdowns. They just made it visible. /7
If we zoom out and look at the patterns of all societies, in history, there are clear ways to show when social collapse is coming. We’re in the red zone right now.
We’ll think we’re masters of the universe right up until the day the whole lot implodes. Like the Romans. /end https://t.co/EmXVnX5anE
