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At its height, the Roman Empire was home to about 30 % of the world’s population, and in many ways the pinnacle of human advancement. Rome became the first city in history to reach one million inhabitants and was a center of technological, legal, and economic progress. An empire impossible to topple, stable and rich and powerful. 

Until it wasn’t anymore. First slowly then suddenly, the most powerful civilization on earth collapsed. If this is how it has been over the ages, what about us today? Just as Europeans forgot how to build indoor plumbing and cement, will we lose our industrial technology, and with that our greatest achievements, from one dollar pizza to smartphones or laser eye surgery? Will all this go away too?

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Is Civilization on the Brink of Collapse?

What We Owe The Future is available now — you can get 50% off and drive sales to local independent bookstores by using the promotion code KURZ50 at the following link: https://bookshop.org/books/what-we-owe-the-future/ Sources & further reading: https://sites.google.com/view/sources-civilization-collapse/ At its height, the Roman Empire was home to about 30 % of the world’s population, and in many ways the pinnacle of human advancement. Rome became the first city in history to reach one million inhabitants and was a center of technological, legal, and economic progress. An empire impossible to topple, stable and rich and powerful. Until it wasn’t anymore. First slowly then suddenly, the most powerful civilization on earth collapsed. If this is how it has been over the ages, what about us today? Will we lose our industrial technology, and with that our greatest achievements, from one dollar pizza to smartphones or laser eye surgery? Will all this go away too? OUR CHANNELS ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ German: https://kgs.link/youtubeDE Spanish: https://kgs.link/youtubeES French: https://kgs.link/youtubeFR Portuguese: https://kgs.link/youtubePT Arabic: https://kgs.link/youtubeAR Hindi: https://kgs.link/youtubeHI Japanese: https://kgs.link/youtubeJA Korean: https://kgs.link/youtubeKO HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT US? ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ This is how we make our living and it would be a pleasure if you support us! Get Products designed with ❤ https://shop-us.kurzgesagt.org Join the Patreon Bird Army 🐧 https://kgs.link/patreon DISCUSSIONS & SOCIAL MEDIA ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ TikTok: https://kgs.link/tiktok Reddit: https://kgs.link/reddit Instagram: https://kgs.link/instagram Twitter: https://kgs.link/twitter Facebook: https://kgs.link/facebook Discord: https://kgs.link/discord Newsletter: https://kgs.link/newsletter OUR VOICE ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Kurzgesagt voice is from Steve Taylor: https://kgs.link/youtube-voice OUR MUSIC ♬♪ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ 700+ minutes of Kurzgesagt Soundtracks by Epic Mountain: Spotify: https://kgs.link/music-spotify Soundcloud: https://kgs.link/music-soundcloud Bandcamp: https://kgs.link/music-bandcamp Youtube: https://kgs.link/music-youtube Facebook: https://kgs.link/music-facebook The Soundtrack of this video: Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3JZJqMu Bandcamp: https://bit.ly/3zYselJ If you want to help us caption this video, please send subtitles to subtitle@kurzgesagt.org You can find info on what subtitle files work on YouTube here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734698?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=7296214 Thank you! 🐦🐧🐤 PATREON BIRD ARMY 🐤🐧🐦 ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Many Thanks to our wonderful Patreons (from http://kgs.link/patreon) who support us every month and made this video possible: Lauritz David Jr, sploop146, Jun Mr., Bill L., IamTooth, Osvaldo Laurido, 예은 정, Jacob Charles Carino, Mathew Kleppin, Vivaan Gupta Reddy Vaka, Sujasha Gupta Vaka, PhD., Peter Kvalsvik, Amrith Prasad Vengalath, Connor Foster, Kurtis Odom, Liam Cartwright, 宗次 佐山, Adv3ntur0us, 갈치 금, David Baum, Dodge Ostrander, Mokking, Óscar Díaz, Kyle Vondra, Alexis-Walid Ahmed, Logan Schultz, Leonardo Shinagawa, Soupy, Cormac, Norman, mastermate, Cyrus, Justin Rosenberg, Psychosadistic, Cezar Munteanu, naliquinra, MikhailTalsQueen, Ben Mann, Alfredo, Sacha de Rosner, May, SISCANU MIHAIL, April Harris, TERRIKA R COAKLEYMCCOY, Carl Stone, JC, Katrina Yaggi, Thom Henri, Adam Everitt, Scott McNay, Republic, Adam Teger, Olivier L'Italien, Ben Zimmerman, KebDoe, Jakub Adamów, TMan87, Saidi, Matthew Chassot, Josh Weaver, Larry Cohen, André Simões, Matias Espinozas, setiawan, Loki, Garret Autry, Ducky, Widdy, Foxe

Comments

Simon Wright

So, you briefly touched on something I've always wanted more detail on with this particular thought experiment - besides coal, what other resources would be essentially out of reach after a full collapse? I think of Johannesburg, where 80% of the history's gold comes from - it was first discovered and mined on the surface, but now mines are up to 4km deep. The low hanging fruits are gone, could we recover without them?

Cory Hammerschlag

Man, I got this notification + email 2 hours ago, now that I'm home from work the poster is ALREADY sold out?! That's gotta make you feel good. Hope they're back in print soon!

ghostman

Such an inspirational video. Thank you so very much for these!

Poker Chen

This episode sounds like there's a great opportunity for a future crossover with the Fall of Civilisations podcast.

Gilbert

How do we end up winning over the super-rich? They clearly don't want the world to get better

Mecharic

There are thousands of us for each of them. Viva la Revolution?

Gilbert

Sure! But how do we organize without seeming like complotist lunatics? I mean, corruption is a real problem that most are aware of, and against, but once you start talking about organizing any form of resistance, you sound like an extremist. I mean, i just don't want my children to live in a world that is getting shittier by the year, to a point where I don't even want to bring a human to rmthis world (as said in Kurz's vid).

Aaron J. Shay

A huge issue! This video has no class analysis. TBH, that's a problem with so many of Kurzgesagt videos. It's like reading a book about biology but they never mention the word "evolution," they just keep talking around it. Class conflict has a lot to do with why civilizations collapse! Weird to skip over it.

Gilbert

Let's give them time and love. Their team does an excellent job at creating intertaining educational content for free! They already sound low-key revolutionnaire in their videos and I like it

Bram Bulger

Just going to throw in a plug for a book called Civilized to Death by Chris Ryan. He makes the argument that civilization was a mistake, and that our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived much happier, more fulfilling lives than most of humanity does today. Also worth checking out his podcast, Tangentially Speaking. Good stuff if you liked this video.