Road to Civilization Collapse

Pyramid in Egypt - Image by Cesar Salazar from Pixabay 

1. CLIMATIC CHANGE: When climatic stability changes, the results can be disastrous, resulting in crop failure, starvation and desertification. The collapse of the Anasazi, the Tiwanaku civilization, the Akkadians, the Mayan, the Roman Empire, and many others have all coincided with abrupt climatic changes, usually droughts.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION: Collapse can occur when societies overpass the carrying capability of their environment like excessive deforestation, water pollution, soil degradation and the loss of biodiversity as precipitating causes. 

3. INEQUALITY AND OLIGARCHY: Wealth and political inequality can be central drivers of social disintegration, as can oligarchy and centralization of power among leaders that causes social distress and handicaps a society’s ability to respond to ecological, social and economic problems. 

4. COMPLEXITY: Societies eventually collapse under the weight of their own accumulated complexity and bureaucracy. Societies are problem-solving collectives that grow in complexity in order to overcome new issues. 

5. EXTERNAL SHOCKS: War, Natural Disasters, Famine and Plagues are deadly epidemics that can lead to collapse. 

6. RANDOMNESS/BAD LUCK: Collapse is random and independent of age. If species are constantly fighting for survival in a changing environment with numerous competitors, extinction is a consistent possibility.

Based on: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisation-collapse