NASA predicts the end of Western civilization
By News.com.au March 17, 2014 | 1:29pm
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Loving life? Well, lap it up because the days of driving around in comfy cars, feasting on fancy food and enjoying an air conditioner-cooled existence could be numbered.

With rising population, depleting natural resources and stretching social divide, civilization could be facing collapse within the next few decades, according to a scientific study funded by NASA. And if you think this is a load of scaremongering, it’s happened before. Remember the Roman Empire?

In the report conducted by applied mathematician Safa Motesharri, his “Human And Nature Dynamical” (Handy) model claims “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.”

“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.”

Our modern world might appear to be pretty sure of itself, with advanced technologies helping people live longer and revolutionizing everyday life, but this might be to blame. Using his theoretical model, Motesharri explored several factors and ran different scenarios that could lead to the collapse of industrial civilization, and found a breakdown of society could arise from rapid global population growth and unsustainable resource exploitation.

And as resources are depleted, they will become more expensive. This is where he further states that “economic stratification” — where society is further divided based on wealth — will create “Elites” (rich) and “Masses” (poor), with the Elites being responsible for over-consuming, leaving the Masses in famine.

But before you start hoarding resources, the study does conclude that this scenario is not inevitable. In order to prevent such catastrophe, it calls for action by the Elites to share the wealth and to do their bit in restoring balance.

“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”

It does serve as a wake-up call that if we don’t want to face disaster, we need to seriously consider how we manage resources, population growth and wealth. The end is not yet nigh … if we can help it.

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Comment: the age we live in, which is still defined by our 2T, and NOT by the ridiculous 3T that followed (but which most people here assume to be reality), is one in which we are called to transform. The empire that is to fall, has already fallen; only its dead remains exist above ground. These dead remains are what most people assume to be today's civilization. But we can sweep them away.

We can cast Republicans out of power, and make Democrats and independents do our bidding, and thereby end the "economic stratification." (especially if Bernie Sanders wins and sweeps in a "revolutionary" change in congress; but if not, then in the 2020s it will be done).

If and when this is done, we can speed up our current and now-irreversible transition to a sustainable relationship with Nature; reduce our population boom, restore habitat, stop and reverse global warming, end pollution, change our energy sources, etc.; speed it up enough, at least, to avoid catastrophes of the worst kind and thus keep civilization going.

We can change the purpose of our civilization, bringing it back to our real heritage from mostly (though not entirely) non-USA sources, and learn from Europeans, Asians, "native" American peoples and others: discover and treasure the great art of the past, learn from and embody our neglected spiritual traditions, release our science from its materialist straight-jacket, break down the walls between people, redesign our cities so they are people friendly, end our corporate lifestyle, devalue violence and its national and personal tools, and restore the value of artists and architects and encourage/support real creative quality in all the arts, so that today's renaissance, inspired by our recent 2T, can finally flourish as it was meant to. Golden ages almost always happen in times of turmoil and transition, leading into a new age; not in stable and complacent times. A new golden age was meant to be, NOW. Let's do it!

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Theory regarding civilizations. Note discussion of interregnums.

Was pondering this. For an interregnum there seems to be at least two possible patterns: 1. Collapse of the old civilization, followed by a feudal period. 2. Instead of a complete collapse, there is a stop gap society.

I'm wondering if number 2 is where we are, or soon will be.

Where we are appears to be: the old civilization has collapsed (the holocaust). We aren't sure we can make the new one work yet, or unfold its potential. But the sixties offered a chance that we blew. We may yet have others.

It occurred to me that some of these prehistoric societies-even if they had no writing-might have had an alternative. For example, the Inca Empire kept records in the form of knots in strings.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Perhaps the old civilization/old culture has sort of faded (like the MilSaec), and the present is a sort of ghost?

Absolutely; I have called it something like that for over 40 years.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I suspect that this will be part of the shift to a neo-Luddite model in the next 2T. We have a private side and a public one. Most of us protect our private side. Though the Millies seem less interested in that than prior gens, I doubt that will hold for the long haul. We all need a sense of self, and that's hard when we are all part of the hive. Count on the neo-Prophets to make that more than plain. Then again, domination of the Millies by the ones wielding the power derived from universal knowledge and too much money could create a backlash even sooner.

It's why I expect the next 2T to involve a move into the rest of the Solar System--just to get far enough away from Earth that real time communication becomes impossible and societies can be built beyond the reach of Earthside governments. 2Ts are known for pushes to get away from more organised civilisations if that is possible. The Colonial Great Awakening saw increasing migration to the New World, particularly by Scots-Irish, though that didn't crest until the 3T unravelling. And the Transcendental 2T saw a great deal of migration into what became the Midwest and West including the organised Mormon migrations that started from Ohio to Missouri in the 1830s, thence to Nauvoo IL and finally to Utah. The Missionary Awakening had people becoming Missionaries. It was only the Boomers who had no place to go. Space travel did not appeal to Boomers because it required cutting edge technology that was monopolised the government and carried out by their Civic parents. Think "The Right Stuff". The next 2T will likely be quite different. Because when possible, exploration and settlement of outer spaces and exploration of inner space go hand in hand.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Was pondering this. For an interregnum there seems to be at least two possible patterns: 1. Collapse of the old civilization, followed by a feudal period. 2. Instead of a complete collapse, there is a stop gap society.

I'm wondering if number 2 is where we are, or soon will be.

That feudal stopgap could be filled by a return to smaller nation states after the collapse of attempts at globalisation. Calls in this election season for protectionism (not limited to the US) may be a harbinger of this.
And then there is the refugee volkswanderung coming mainly out of the Mideast but also out of Africa and parts of Asia that may reshape Europe and possibly even the Americas the way the 5th-6th Century volkswanderung did Europe.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

Was pondering this. For an interregnum there seems to be at least two possible patterns: 1. Collapse of the old civilization, followed by a feudal period. 2. Instead of a complete collapse, there is a stop gap society.

I'm wondering if number 2 is where we are, or soon will be.

There always is a stop-gap of some sort. The late and post Han society of China had huge loss of life (as much as 3/4 of China's population by some estimates). It also had successor dynasties that were short lived for about 300 years. Europe had local Christian states, the rise of Islam and of course, the survival of a diminished Eastern Roman Empire that was not diminished until much of it got taken over by Islam after a ruinous war with Sassanid Persia.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire by Michael Grant. For Classical civilization, this was the last post-classic phasebefore disintegration. Marked by a change in political organization-the Tetrarchy. Reconsitution of the army, notably by adding calvary. Reform of coinage.

The Tetrarchy did pave the way for the Eastern Roman Empire, which persisted for another thousand years, though greatly diminished by the rise of Islam. And the rise of Islam, it is now thought was caused by the combination of a volcanic winter in 538 AD caused by the explosion of Santorini that may have been large enough to separate Java and Sumatra and the Plague of Justinian--Bubonic Plague which reduced the population of the Mediterranean region by at least a third. But for that double blow, Roman civilisation (albeit Christian Roman civilisation) would likely have bounced back enough to reconquer Europe the way Chinese civilisation bounced back after a 300 year interregnum period.
And too, there was global cooling in the 4th and 5th Centuries that made agriculture impossible in Germany and points north and east which seems to have propelled the volkswanderung.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

It's why I expect the next 2T to involve a move into the rest of the Solar System--just to get far enough away from Earth that real time communication becomes impossible and societies can be built beyond the reach of Earthside governments. 2Ts are known for pushes to get away from more organised civilisations if that is possible. The Colonial Great Awakening saw increasing migration to the New World, particularly by Scots-Irish, though that didn't crest until the 3T unravelling. And the Transcendental 2T saw a great deal of migration into what became the Midwest and West including the organised Mormon migrations that started from Ohio to Missouri in the 1830s, thence to Nauvoo IL and finally to Utah. The Missionary Awakening had people becoming Missionaries. It was only the Boomers who had no place to go. Space travel did not appeal to Boomers because it required cutting edge technology that was monopolised the government and carried out by their Civic parents. Think "The Right Stuff". The next 2T will likely be quite different. Because when possible, exploration and settlement of outer spaces and exploration of inner space go hand in hand.

FWIW, you're about one saeculum short of being able to move off-earth.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

The Tetrarchy did pave the way for the Eastern Roman Empire, which persisted for another thousand years, though greatly diminished by the rise of Islam. And the rise of Islam, it is now thought was caused by the combination of a volcanic winter in 538 AD caused by the explosion of Santorini that may have been large enough to separate Java and Sumatra and the Plague of Justinian--Bubonic Plague which reduced the population of the Mediterranean region by at least a third. But for that double blow, Roman civilisation (albeit Christian Roman civilisation) would likely have bounced back enough to reconquer Europe the way Chinese civilisation bounced back after a 300 year interregnum period.
And too, there was global cooling in the 4th and 5th Centuries that made agriculture impossible in Germany and points north and east which seems to have propelled the volkswanderung.

According to Spengler the Crisis of The 3rd Century was when the Roman Empire shifted from being the last political phase of the dying Classical society to being a polity in the rising Near-Eastern Magian society. He calls Diocletian the prototype of the Caliph.

Also, according to Spengler, the fall of the Western Empire was the exception, not the rule. Cultural "mummification" (hardening was the term he used) like in China, Mesopotamia after Hammurabi, Egypt after Ramses, and India after the Mauryans, is the norm, so this is the likely fate of the West.

Originally Posted by Odin

Also, according to Spengler, the fall of the Western Empire was the exception, not the rule. Cultural "mummification" (hardening was the term he used) like in China, Mesopotamia after Hammurabi, Egypt after Ramses, and India after the Mauryans, is the norm, so this is the likely fate of the West.

In the case of Mesopotamia, there were minor cultural accomplishments during early "mummification", under Kassite rule.

Not too bad, considering.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

The Tetrarchy did pave the way for the Eastern Roman Empire, which persisted for another thousand years, though greatly diminished by the rise of Islam. And the rise of Islam, it is now thought was caused by the combination of a volcanic winter in 538 AD caused by the explosion of Santorini that may have been large enough to separate Java and Sumatra and the Plague of Justinian--Bubonic Plague which reduced the population of the Mediterranean region by at least a third. But for that double blow, Roman civilisation (albeit Christian Roman civilisation) would likely have bounced back enough to reconquer Europe the way Chinese civilisation bounced back after a 300 year interregnum period.
And too, there was global cooling in the 4th and 5th Centuries that made agriculture impossible in Germany and points north and east which seems to have propelled the volkswanderung.

-- uh how could a Greek island (Santorini) affect Indonesia (Java & Sumatra) but not anywhere else in between?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

It's why I expect the next 2T to involve a move into the rest of the Solar System--just to get far enough away from Earth that real time communication becomes impossible and societies can be built beyond the reach of Earthside governments. 2Ts are known for pushes to get away from more organised civilisations if that is possible. The Colonial Great Awakening saw increasing migration to the New World, particularly by Scots-Irish, though that didn't crest until the 3T unravelling. And the Transcendental 2T saw a great deal of migration into what became the Midwest and West including the organised Mormon migrations that started from Ohio to Missouri in the 1830s, thence to Nauvoo IL and finally to Utah. The Missionary Awakening had people becoming Missionaries. It was only the Boomers who had no place to go. Space travel did not appeal to Boomers because it required cutting edge technology that was monopolised the government and carried out by their Civic parents. Think "The Right Stuff". The next 2T will likely be quite different. Because when possible, exploration and settlement of outer spaces and exploration of inner space go hand in hand.

Besides the fact that livable environments beyond Earth are centuries away, real time communication is possible already between Earth and the rest of the solar system, considering the fact that we communicate with satellites sent out to the planets. There may be only minutes or hours delay; that's not enough to get beyond the reach of US governments, just as a satellite cannot get beyond the reach of base control.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

FWIW, you're about one saeculum short of being able to move off-earth.

The tech is there or can be scaled up. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7009118.html , http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/VASIMR. And the "treasure" (high value low volume products as gold and spices were in the 16th Century) such as platinum https://www.rt.com/news/310170-plati...d-2011-uw-158/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining http://www.planetaryresources.com/as...steroids-intro are to be found in near Earth orbit asteroids. There is already a mission scheduled to one by NASA for 2020, if a change in Administration dosen't postpone it. And the Chinese will do this whether or not the US does. And the US already has a law on the books enabling mining claims to asteroids that supersede UN conventions on the use of space http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...gold-mine.html . Even our relatively internationalist current president was willing to sign that law.
Because as expensive as those resources are to develop, military action to secure resources at a time when military capabilities are becoming more and more equalised are far more expensive.
Spain and Portugal did not start out able to have mass migration to the New World. But the capability to do so built upon itself surprisingly quickly, logarthmically in fact. All it took was the technology to use prevailing winds rather than oars which required large numbers of men who needed large quantities of water, to be able to sail literally anywhere on the planet there were oceans not blocked by ice.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Besides the fact that livable environments beyond Earth are centuries away, real time communication is possible already between Earth and the rest of the solar system, considering the fact that we communicate with satellites sent out to the planets. There may be only minutes or hours delay; that's not enough to get beyond the reach of US governments, just as a satellite cannot get beyond the reach of base control.

If one can get far enough away that a police or naval vessel or drone cannot reach you in real time (or with ample time for countermeasures against such vessels) , the ability to communicate becomes academic. The mother country then either rules with the consent and sufferance of the colonists (as Great Britain did with Australia and Canada) or loses control if it loses that consent (as the UK did with the US). And the ability of space colonists to go farther and farther from Earth once the technology to live self-sufficiently in space becomes reliable is literally infinite, as we are seeing with the discovery of more and more Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects.
Which is a good thing. If we would have peace on Earth it would behoove us to enable the un-peaceful to seek their karma off Earth.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

In the case of Mesopotamia, there were minor cultural accomplishments during early "mummification", under Kassite rule.

Not too bad, considering.

According to archeologist Ian Morris China came very close to having an industrial revolution in the 1100s, but was fucked up by invasion, first by the Jurchen, and then by the Mongols.

Originally Posted by TimWalker

In the case of Mesopotamia, there were minor cultural accomplishments during early "mummification", under Kassite rule.

Not too bad, considering.

We know a lot more about Mesopotamia than Oswald Spengler did. From Sumerian city states to the Agade(thought to be under Bagdad, thus the name) of Sargon and Naram-Sin with contemporary empires in Syria at Ebla and Aleppo and Mari to Amorite invasions to Hammurabi's Babylon to Elam to the Kassites to Assyria (twice), Mitanni and Hatti (Hittites) not to mention city states on the Med., the Mideast was a busy place. Basically, every saeculum saw the rise and fall of a new Empire. Even in Egypt, dynasties would rise and fall as saecula. Even Arabia had oasis city states rising and falling from 2000 BC on, including Yemen. Rather like the Mideast today.

Originally Posted by Odin

According to Spengler the Crisis of The 3rd Century was when the Roman Empire shifted from being the last political phase of the dying Classical society to being a polity in the rising Near-Eastern Magian society. He calls Diocletian the prototype of the Caliph.

Also, according to Spengler, the fall of the Western Empire was the exception, not the rule. Cultural "mummification" (hardening was the term he used) like in China, Mesopotamia after Hammurabi, Egypt after Ramses, and India after the Mauryans, is the norm, so this is the likely fate of the West.

Diocletian the prototype of the caliph (as Pontifex Maximus, no doubt). Now that IS an insight on Spengler's part.
Islam is an interesting religion and society. Hindus claim to recognise Hindu rites in the Mecca rituals of Islam. See http://hinduism.stackexchange.com/qu...ndu-connection http://haribhakt.com/kaaba-a-hindu-t...en-by-muslims/ . Which is believable since pre-Muslim southern Arabia had major commercial and thus cultural ties to India just as Southeast Asia did. (Though Muslims will, of course, never admit such a thing).
But if the Mecca rituals are Hindu in origin, the foundation myth of Islam is Abrahamic Judaic (Hagar and Ishmael) and so is Islam's legal structure. Sharia is modeled after Jewish Halacha. And the overall authority structure is apparently Roman, as well as the distinction between citizen (Muslim, member of the ummah) and dhimmi non-Muslim. Jizya is modeled after the Roman fiscus judaica . It even reached the point of the Seljuk and Ottoman Empire calling itself "Rum" (Rome).
And as for Shia Islam in Iran, the separation between ulema and state is very Indo-European and one can see the "experts" of Iran as an Islamic version of the Sassanid magi.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

The tech is there or can be scaled up. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7009118.html , http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/VASIMR. And the "treasure" (high value low volume products as gold and spices were in the 16th Century) such as platinum https://www.rt.com/news/310170-plati...d-2011-uw-158/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining http://www.planetaryresources.com/as...steroids-intro are to be found in near Earth orbit asteroids. There is already a mission scheduled to one by NASA for 2020, if a change in Administration dosen't postpone it. And the Chinese will do this whether or not the US does. And the US already has a law on the books enabling mining claims to asteroids that supersede UN conventions on the use of space http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...gold-mine.html . Even our relatively internationalist current president was willing to sign that law.
Because as expensive as those resources are to develop, military action to secure resources at a time when military capabilities are becoming more and more equalised are far more expensive.
Spain and Portugal did not start out able to have mass migration to the New World. But the capability to do so built upon itself surprisingly quickly, logarthmically in fact. All it took was the technology to use prevailing winds rather than oars which required large numbers of men who needed large quantities of water, to be able to sail literally anywhere on the planet there were oceans not blocked by ice.

Obama has been a Godsend for NASA. He's the best President in this regard since LBJ. At long last, the bullshit Nixon started has ceased (e.g. "it is immoral to go big on space while we have so many problems on Earth" - a sentiment shared widely during the mid to late 2T by folks ranging from Nixon to my 1960s radical parents ... ). Next decade will rock for NASA assuming their efforts don't get interrupted by WW3. But in a way, WW3 would if any thing accelerate the efforts. NASA would be ordered to combine efforts with the secret space program of the Air Force.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Obama has been a Godsend for NASA. He's the best President in this regard since LBJ. At long last, the bullshit Nixon started has ceased (e.g. "it is immoral to go big on space while we have so many problems on Earth" - a sentiment shared widely during the mid to late 2T by folks ranging from Nixon to my 1960s radical parents ... ). Next decade will rock for NASA assuming their efforts don't get interrupted by WW3. But in a way, WW3 would if any thing accelerate the efforts. NASA would be ordered to combine efforts with the secret space program of the Air Force.

I think a big part of the reason Obama is doing this is that China is going big on space. The last thing the US wants is to have China alone on the Moon, the sole nation that can launch meteors at Earth. And if there is one thing Bush accomplished, it was to end NASA"s monopoly on US space launches. Having private companies like Space X launching payloads into space has really opened the field up. A lot of the antipathy to space exploration during the latter part of the 20th Century (or at least the lack of urgency for space exploration) was based on the assumption that if the US didn't engage in manned space travel, no one else would. The Russians weren't taken all that seriously even when they orbited Mir.
For all that Obama has done, the US is still having to hire Russian Soyuz as cabs to get US astronaunts to the International Space Station.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

If one can get far enough away that a police or naval vessel or drone cannot reach you in real time (or with ample time for countermeasures against such vessels) , the ability to communicate becomes academic. The mother country then either rules with the consent and sufferance of the colonists (as Great Britain did with Australia and Canada) or loses control if it loses that consent (as the UK did with the US). And the ability of space colonists to go farther and farther from Earth once the technology to live self-sufficiently in space becomes reliable is literally infinite, as we are seeing with the discovery of more and more Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects.
Which is a good thing. If we would have peace on Earth it would behoove us to enable the un-peaceful to seek their karma off Earth.

I guess then the Earth's chief export would be war and pollution. I imagine the other residents of the cosmos would not take kindly to that, and send those colonists back to Earth where they belong.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

That feudal stopgap could be filled by a return to smaller nation states after the collapse of attempts at globalisation. Calls in this election season for protectionism (not limited to the US) may be a harbinger of this.
And then there is the refugee volkswanderung coming mainly out of the Mideast but also out of Africa and parts of Asia that may reshape Europe and possibly even the Americas the way the 5th-6th Century volkswanderung did Europe.

There was quite a bit of instability at the time of the outbreak of the Reformation. In the civilization cycle, we are at an analagous point. That's why I predicted this vast migration to start exactly when it did, AND for the reasons it did.
https://youtu.be/oKmyB1q3H68

It is not a sign of imminent collapse. Because like the Reformation, it was part of a period that was also a Renaissance.

Globalization is not an "attempt." It is an inescapable fact, and is irreversible. Live with it, or be caught in the receding tide of crumbling out-of-date irrelevance.

What has been happening, in part, is that peoples of the third world, whose expectations for a better life are rising, have been crossing borders as if they didn't exist, or should not exist. That's been happening with the Mexican border and the USA for some time; in fact the problem was declining because of the Recession and Obama's border control policies. Yet Trump is making a big deal out of it anyway. But meanwhile since the drought and the Arab Spring revolt in Syria and elsewhere, millions of migrants are pouring into Europe as if they have a right to go there. The West ignored the Syrians and others and refused to prevent genocide being perpetrated upon them, whereas in Libya The West acted, raising hopes it would act elsewhere. But instead we were afraid weapons would fall into terrorists' hands, or we didn't know who they were, or claimed they were just engaging in ethnic and religious battles. So we are reaping the whirlwind of our bad policies in the Middle East (whether it was too much or not enough intervention), as well as the droughts that we created by voting for Republicans here in the USA and thus causing global warming.

The bottom line is that borders are breaking down. Globalization is inevitable, and global consciousness is required to help those in trouble and to stop global warming. This is just what I predicted in my video.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

The tech is there or can be scaled up. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7009118.html , http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/VASIMR. And the "treasure" (high value low volume products as gold and spices were in the 16th Century) such as platinum https://www.rt.com/news/310170-plati...d-2011-uw-158/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining http://www.planetaryresources.com/as...steroids-intro are to be found in near Earth orbit asteroids. There is already a mission scheduled to one by NASA for 2020, if a change in Administration dosen't postpone it. And the Chinese will do this whether or not the US does. And the US already has a law on the books enabling mining claims to asteroids that supersede UN conventions on the use of space http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...gold-mine.html . Even our relatively internationalist current president was willing to sign that law.
Because as expensive as those resources are to develop, military action to secure resources at a time when military capabilities are becoming more and more equalised are far more expensive.
Spain and Portugal did not start out able to have mass migration to the New World. But the capability to do so built upon itself surprisingly quickly, logarthmically in fact. All it took was the technology to use prevailing winds rather than oars which required large numbers of men who needed large quantities of water, to be able to sail literally anywhere on the planet there were oceans not blocked by ice.

The limitation is the human being. How do we make the trip and arrive in decent-enough shape to colonize the planet (or large moon)? Next, we have to actually live there. That's a basketful of unknowns. In 80-100 years, we'll have enough knowledge and experience to pull it off.