Recent prescriptions for rescuing civilization from collapse involve extending our human capacity for empathy to a global scale. This is a worthy goal, but several indications leave grounds for cautious optimism at best. Evolutionary biology interprets non-kin helping behaviors as products of natural selection that rewarded only the transmission success of resident genes within ancestors, not t...

Environmental problems have contributed to numerous collapses of civilizations in the past. Now, for the first time, a global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.

We propose a mathematical nonlinear model for the Tiwanaku civilization collapse based on the assumption, supported by archeological data, that a drought caused a lack of the main resource, water. We evaluate the parameter of our model using archaeological data. According to our numerical simulation the population core should have decreased from 45,000 to 2000 inhabitants due to lake surface co...

Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures Back Close Full Screen / Esc This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Earth System Dynamics (ESD). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in ESD if available. Abstract Introduction Conclusions References Tables Figures Back Close Full Screen / Esc Abstract In a prior study (Garrett, 2011), I introduced a simple ther...

Historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, authors of Merchants of Doubt, have written a new book as ambitious as it is concise. The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future is told from the perspective of a Chinese historian several centuries in the future, looking back at our current time and attempting to explain to readers the irrationality of our behavior. In the ...

In this paper we consider a mathematical model for the evolution and collapse of the Easter Island society, starting from the fifth century until the last period of the society collapse (fifteen century). Based on historical reports, the available primary sources consisted almost exclusively on the trees. We describe the inhabitants and the resources as an isolated system and both considered as...

Because of concerns that ongoing climate change could lead to a possible collapse human civilization, the topic societal (civilization) has emerged as especially relevant, not least for futures-oriented studies. While this led extensive research on collapse, there is lack consolidation and synthesis research. The purpose article thus systematize extant suggest future directions. This offers sys...

The rise of civilizations involved the dual emergence of economies that could produce surplus (“prosperity”) and states that could protect surplus (“security”). But the joint achievement of security and prosperity had to escape a paradox: prosperity attracts predation, and higher insecurity discourages the investments that create prosperity. We study the trade-offs facing a proto-state on its p...