Are we on the road to civilization collapse?

Are we on the road to civilization collapse?

By Luke Kemp, 19th February 2019

 In the article ‘’Are We on the Road to Civilization Collapse?’’ by Luke Kemp, 19th February 2019, there are lots of civilizations that collapsed in the past, and according to Luke Kemp, civilizations that collapsed have various causes. On the other hand, civilizations can cause their extinction. Luke Kemp also notes that collapses are rapid, and destruction is instant. Nevertheless, empires that collapsed can be revived again or collapse can be permanent. In addition, in the modern age, we are developed technologically, and Luke Kemp thinks that it can be an advantage, or it can be a disadvantage spreading crisis if it is existing. Although there is not any theory that is deemed, there are some explanations about the cause of collapses in the past. Such as climatic change, environmental degradation, inequality and oligarchy, complexity, external shocks, randomness, and bad luck. Finally, despite the causes of collapse Luke Kemp suggests that collapse can be done by societal resilience. 

 Climate change is one of the most important points to maintain life because the inappropriateness of a region to live climate can cause migrations. Climate change causes disasters like desertification, windstorm, and tsunami. For this reason, throughout history, people have migrated constantly. Some of them could adapt, and some of them could not. Moreover, In the article ‘’Are We on the Road to Civilization Collapse?’’ by Luke Kemp, on 19th February 2019, Akkadians one of the empires collapsed because of climate change and windstorms. Social instability, and desertification that results from climate change, made life standards harder. In this way, Akkadians could not adapt and collapse. In the modern age, With the development of technology people can measure the weather, and wind direction can be a signal of a storm thus, people can take precautions. Also, with the development of architecture, building designs are designed according to the weather conditions. In modern architecture, uses reinforced materials chosen by architectures to build external structure. For example, fibrocement panels which is the last technology is waterproof and fireproof. These panels preferred by people in most of residential area. Thence, it is impossible to collapse a civilization in the modern age. People choose their own residential area according to the weather conditions and climate of the area. However, some of places are today still facing migrations such as china, India, Philippines. According to the reports of UNDP and IDCM in July 2018, between the year 2008-2018 265 million people have migrated the other countries because of natural disasters and climate change. Tsunami is also effects on migrations. In the regions of tsunami people must move from coastal areas to city center. For example, in December 26, 2004 in Indonesia, tsunami caused the dead of 230 thousand people. In the past time, it would be the end an empire. Despite the tsunami is still dangerous, in the digital age risk analyzers can do geological, geotechnical and hydrogeological measurements and it is possible to predict a disaster. Besides, analyzers can measure level of the sea and people choose residential area according to the sea level. Consequently, In the modern age, communities are bigger than empires and development of technology provides the people disaster prediction and protection.

 Throughout history people have fight and murdered the others or destroyed the other communities to stay alive, to be Super Being or to gain force. Also, there were always wars between empires because thought of dominance and land conquest represented the power. In the article ‘’Are We on the Road to Civilization Collapse?’’ by Luke Kemp, 19th February, 2019, Luke Kemp shows that as an example of collapsed empires, ‘’ The Aztec Empire, for example, was brought to an end by Spanish invaders.’’ It was easy to collapse for Aztec Empire because they were just consisted of 250.000 people and it was difficult to find food and water sources. For this reason, in the past times capturing a land was easier than modern times by comparison. In the modern age, with the development of technology, people dropped out the making a war and capturing a land by catapults or arrows. Countries developed new techniques like asymmetric war. Political unities attack each other with small war unities to do psychological pressure. If it works, the enemy retracts. Additionally, if a country is militarily weak, it can use the social media as a power, and it can take other countries behind itself to gain force with propagandas by media. Moreover, people stopped shedding blood and they got into a psychological war. On the other hand, there is a global power in the world in 21st century and people have been getting the same cultures and the world has been gathering under a roof. For this reason, if there was a war in a country, people would migrate and adapt easily. For instance, there is a civil war in Syria. People have migrated to Turkey from Syria and they adapted easily because of globalization. Accordingly, making a war is not easy 21st century because of technological propagandas and countries cannot predict the end of the war, civilizations are bigger. For this reason, results might be worse in contrast between the old wars. 

To sum up, a lot of civilization collapsed because of diverse reason in the past. However, in 21st century, it is impossible to exterminate a civilization because civilizations have more force with technology and empires are bigger than in the past. Despite a possible collapse, people can undergo a renewal process and they can adapt quickly because civilizations gained a force with technology. As a result, evolution and revolution is easy, disappearing is difficult in the modern age.