Thursday, May 24, 2007

Societal Collapse

I just finished the recent book by Susan Wise Bauer entitled The History of the Ancient World. It's a very good read and puts in one volume an compact overview of ancient history up till the time of the Roman emperor Constantine. Ancient history is fascinating for me. I could hardly put the book down.

I did notice that toward the beginning of the book, the chapters tend to be shorter. That's mostly because the further back in time one goes there is less and less that is known for sure.

I must say, after reading about the Roman Empire and how its emperors actually operated, for the Church to have cozied up with Constantine seems even more appalling to me than it did before.

Formula for Societal Collapse
After studying Susan Wise Bauer's book on ancient history, it wasn't too hard for me to come up with a formula for societal collapse:

B × ( D + I + C ) = Societal Collapse Metric

Where
  • B = Breakdown of internal civil order, lawlessness, etc.
  • D = Disease, pestilence
  • I = Massive and unstoppable infiltration by outside invaders
  • C = Climate disruptions, often producing famines

Now lets tally this up for the U.S.:

  • B…increasing internal dissension, laws not enforced…check
  • D…increasing number of drug resistant diseases…check
  • I…unstoppable mass migration from Mexico…check
  • C…Climate change, long drought in Western U.S.…check

I guess it all tallies up. Of course, societal collapse doesn't happen overnight. But Rome wasn't destroyed in a day either.

So please continue with your usual shopping plans.