Kurzgesagt
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NEW VIDEO: Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse?
🕑 Added 2022-08-16 14:03:59 +0000 UTCAt its height, the Roman Empire was home to about 30 % of the world’s population, and in many ways the pinnacle of human advancement. Rome became the first city in history to reach one million inhabitants and was a center of technological, legal, and economic progress. An empire impossible to topple, stable and rich and powerful.
Until it wasn’t anymore. First slowly then suddenly, the most powerful civilization on earth collapsed. If this is how it has been over the ages, what about us today? Just as Europeans forgot how to build indoor plumbing and cement, will we lose our industrial technology, and with that our greatest achievements, from one dollar pizza to smartphones or laser eye surgery? Will all this go away too?
Comments
Bram Bulger
Just going to throw in a plug for a book called Civilized to Death by Chris Ryan. He makes the argument that civilization was a mistake, and that our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived much happier, more fulfilling lives than most of humanity does today. Also worth checking out his podcast, Tangentially Speaking. Good stuff if you liked this video.
Gilbert
Let's give them time and love. Their team does an excellent job at creating intertaining educational content for free! They already sound low-key revolutionnaire in their videos and I like it
Aaron J. Shay
A huge issue! This video has no class analysis. TBH, that's a problem with so many of Kurzgesagt videos. It's like reading a book about biology but they never mention the word "evolution," they just keep talking around it. Class conflict has a lot to do with why civilizations collapse! Weird to skip over it.
Gilbert
Sure! But how do we organize without seeming like complotist lunatics? I mean, corruption is a real problem that most are aware of, and against, but once you start talking about organizing any form of resistance, you sound like an extremist. I mean, i just don't want my children to live in a world that is getting shittier by the year, to a point where I don't even want to bring a human to rmthis world (as said in Kurz's vid).
Mecharic
There are thousands of us for each of them. Viva la Revolution?
Gilbert
How do we end up winning over the super-rich? They clearly don't want the world to get better
Poker Chen
This episode sounds like there's a great opportunity for a future crossover with the Fall of Civilisations podcast.
ghostman
Such an inspirational video. Thank you so very much for these!
Cory Hammerschlag
Man, I got this notification + email 2 hours ago, now that I'm home from work the poster is ALREADY sold out?! That's gotta make you feel good. Hope they're back in print soon!
Daniel Turner
Another awesome video.
Simon Wright
So, you briefly touched on something I've always wanted more detail on with this particular thought experiment - besides coal, what other resources would be essentially out of reach after a full collapse? I think of Johannesburg, where 80% of the history's gold comes from - it was first discovered and mined on the surface, but now mines are up to 4km deep. The low hanging fruits are gone, could we recover without them?
