Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » Many ancient civilizations flourished once upon a time. Some slowly died out. Some disappeared overnight. A singular cause or varied?
RosieG

Many ancient civilizations flourished once upon a time. Some slowly died out. Some disappeared overnight. A singular cause or varied?

How many turned on one another and took themselves out? As we are obviously doing today.

When will our civilization become extinct? The Don Guano has hastened the demise but I don't know by how much. It will depend upon when his adoring worshippers die out. Any idea when that might occur?

Posted - June 14, 2021
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Responses


  • 3719
    There have been many reasons.

    Natural causes such as diseases and long-term droughts, man-made ones like external and civil wars or general decay... The Roman Empire faded away largely due to its own degeneration, but it was also becoming increasingly difficult to maintain its far-flung empire against invaders. 

    What is likely to be our civilisation's demise - looking beyond the USA's febrile internal politics which only affect the USA anyway?

    Well, the SARS-Covid-19 virus and its offspring are having a good go at it, and do show what pandemics can be capable of; but I think the far greater threats to ourselves will be are ourselves, by:-

     - the major effects of climate-change,
     - increasingly rapid depletion of natural resources with no satisfactory long-term replacements,

    with those two answered by knee-jerk reactions that do not seem based on rational thinking that also looks more than a couple of decades or so ahead;

     - greed and intolerance between different nations and cultures,
     - poverty and injustice,
     - and the one the politicians dare not mention, or do so only very quietly, but is implicit in all those above: human population.     
      June 15, 2021 4:21 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    Several years ago a then-Mugger who was a long-time internet pal from my Answerbag days told me that the final straw would be lack of potable water. That would be the undoing of us. Fighting wars over water. I know we know how to make saline water potable by filtration and things. But there is a limited amount isn't there? As icebergs melt the seas rise but what happens after all of them are gone? We are not making more water. We're just experiencing a change from its frozen state to liquid. Is there any projection of how long it will take to use up all the water or will that never happen? It hardly ever rains in some places. What if it never rained again? Oh. Okay. I'm going to ask that question. See what comes out of it. Thank you for your reply m'dear. The hate groups are proliferating and in some areas seem to be "winning". Bummer! :(
      June 16, 2021 2:49 AM MDT
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