I think comparing modern day civilization to the rise and fall of the Roman empire is a mistake, particularly European civilization. We learned our lesson. We’re not building empires, not waging expensive wars, not succumbing to armed revolution. People are for the time being mostly happy and prosperous.
That isn’t to say we don’t face challenges, but they’re fundamentally different from those of the empires of old. Something changed with true global markets, and mutually assured destruction.
I'm using ancient empires as an example because pretty much everyone agrees on what happened in ancient history. It's not a controversial / political issue to talk about Rome falling because nobody who was involved in those empires is alive today.
> We learned our lesson. We’re not building empires, not waging expensive wars
I don't know where you live, but here in America we've been at war with various Middle-Eastern nations for the last 2 decades. About 90% of the history of our nation has been spent involved in some kind of a war. Those are expensive wars too. We've spent trillions on Afghanistan alone. We have around 800 formal military bases in 80 foreign countries.
I think that we are far more imperialistic than the Romans, even though our culture doesn't acknowledge it.
> global markets, and mutually assured destruction
Yeah, we have better technology too and a very different financial system. However, this hasn't saved us from expressing many of the same symptoms that ancient collapsing empires had... Especially the social issues that this article talks about.
That isn’t to say we don’t face challenges, but they’re fundamentally different from those of the empires of old. Something changed with true global markets, and mutually assured destruction.