Should You Be Worried About the Society You Live In? Perhaps – Here’s Why

The Roman Empire’s demise was unlikely to have been forecast by the players of that time. It’s unlikely that leaders of the once world’s greatest superpower factored in their possible failure. But crippling taxes, inflation, and the wealthy depending on the slaves for farm yields, military failures and over expansion, political instability and government corruption all contributed to the 500-year old Empire’s collapse. Eventually, the rise of other nations filled the Roman Empire void, and society as the world understood it, had fragmented and broke.

But as per a study conducted by NASA, if we’re to avoid a similar fate, we need to heed the Romans and Mesopotamians’ lessons. Western civilisation mirrors the Roman Empire in what can only be described as uncomfortably close quarters.

“Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” reads the NASA-funded study. “The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity and the economic stratification of society into Elites and Masses.”

Unequal societies, as the study suggests, and history unequivocally tells us, leads to a collapse in society. The Elites continue to consume while the Masses – the Commoner – continues to struggle.

Amid the struggle, the working class is also plagued by the problem of limited resources due to the wealthy exacerbating the issue due to their insulation from the world, and “continue consuming unequally.” It’s a vicious cycle that ends up consuming all.

Right now, we’re standing witness to similar precursors of those in the Roman Empire. The gap between the Elites and Masses is ever widening and the middle class continues to weaken, almost to the point of non-existence. Out of the desire to consume more – particularly in natural resources, but also in everyday incidence – this very foundation of collapse is occurring. Government corruption is widespread, values are lost, overexpansion and military overspending is at its western peak.

The researchers of this study used Human and Nature Dynamical (HANDY), to reach the conclusion of this collapse of western society.

HANDY factored in birth rates, and other data such as income class, and available resources to project the most likely outcomes.

It highlights the susceptibility to collapse, the study said, using mathematical equations; and for those who scoff at such studies, the history books offer their support. Modern society is not so dissimilar.

According to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s sponsored study, survival hinges on the ability to preserve resources and enable economic equality – narrowing the gap been the wealthy and the poor. The likelihood of that happening is up to us.

The West is vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall. History appears to be repeating itself.

“Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a steady state at the maximum carrying capacity, if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed equitably,” reads the report, offering some hope of saving ourselves.

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