The Average Time Until A Great Civilization Collapses Is 336 Years, And The U.S. Is Now 242 Years Old

Every great civilization throughout human history has eventually collapsed, and if we want to have any hope of escaping the same fate, we need to be willing to learn some lessons from the past.  Because many of the same factors that caused the collapse of previous civilizations are weighing very heavily on the United States of America today.  According to the BBC, the average lifespan of a great civilization is 336 years from beginning to end.  But that doesn’t mean that America will make it that long.  Our nation is currently 242 years old, and there are signs of advanced social decay all around us.  If we remain on the road that we are currently on, there are many that believe that complete and utter collapse is not too far away.

Ultimately, what does a “society” consist of?

According to Luke Kemp of the University of Cambridge, societies are “just complex systems composed of people and technology”…

Societies of the past and present are just complex systems composed of people and technology. The theory of “normal accidents” suggests that complex technological systems regularly give way to failure. So collapse may be a normal phenomenon for civilisations, regardless of their size and stage.

We may be more technologically advanced now. But this gives little ground to believe that we are immune to the threats that undid our ancestors. Our newfound technological abilities even bring new, unprecedented challenges to the mix.

It is not easy to keep an extremely complex society running, and there have been so many factors that have played a role in collapsing previous civilizations.  War, natural disasters, environmental shifts, social degradation, economic problems and disease are just a few examples.

And as Kemp has pointed out, sometimes societies simply collapse “under the weight of their own accumulated complexity and bureaucracy”

Collapse expert and historian Joseph Tainter has proposed that societies eventually collapse under the weight of their own accumulated complexity and bureaucracy. Societies are problem-solving collectives that grow in complexity in order to overcome new issues. However, the returns from complexity eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. After this point, collapse will eventually ensue.

Even if America wasn’t deteriorating in so many other areas, would our nation eventually collapse under the weight of our own bureaucracy as well?  We have the biggest government in the history of the world, and when you total up all levels of government we literally have millions of laws, rules and regulations governing our lives today.  It is a horrible system, and it is definitely not what our founders intended.  To me, it makes sense that someday it could ultimately collapse as people simply stop believing in it.

In order for a civilization to function smoothly, there must be something that bonds it together.  When the United States was originally established, we were united by a common set of values, but that is no longer true.

Today, America is more divided than it has been in my entire lifetime, and one of the biggest reasons is because there is no agreement about what our values should be.

Personally, I am a strong advocate for returning to the values that our nation was founded upon, and Mac Slavo echoed this sentiment in one of his recent articles

We now have the unique advantage of being able to learn from the wreckages of societies past, but instead of doing so and freeing mankind from government, many who are enslaved continue to push for shorter chains, more violence, control, domination, and theft by the ruling class – not just of themselves, but of all others too. Collapse is imminent in our opinion, as those in control will not willingly give up their stranglehold over the tax cattle slaves.

Unfortunately, many in our society want us to go in the exact opposite direction.

As a result, the fabric of our society is literally coming apart at the seams, and this is something that Jim Quinn commented on in one of his recent articles

Our society is now infinitely more materialistic, narcissistic, and greedy than it was in the 1950s. Moral degeneration has reached new lows, unthinkable during the relatively innocent 1950s. But the common theme is human failings, foibles, and fallacies. Whatever a culture values you get more of. Our culture values achievement, wealth and power, at any cost.

To illustrate his point, Quinn lamented the growing power that “social media influencers” now have in our society

Rather than make up our own minds about what we like, what we wear, where we eat, or what entertainment we enjoy, we need to be influenced into our decisions by famous people who are famous for being famous. These “influencers” generate their influential power through the number of social media followers they have accumulated by posting pictures of themselves in their underwear, leaked sex tapes, nude selfies, or generally being attractive.

Most of them are low IQ mouth breathers who can’t do basic math or write a comprehensible paragraph. But those 36DD breasts and pouty lips classify them as a grade A influencer. I can’t decide whether these narcissistic icons are more pathetic or the feeble-minded wretches who are actually influenced by these vacuous bimbos. Moral degeneration of society seems to have reached a new low.

We truly are becoming a real-life version of “Idiocracy”, and it is getting worse with each passing day.

But I can think of no better example of the decline of our society than Jussie Smollett.

Here is a guy that seemingly had everything.  He was on a hit show, he had lots of money and he had hordes of devoted fans that loved him.

But he threw it all away because he believed that he was entitled to more, and he was willing to do anything to get it.

Apparently he was not happy that he was making just $65,000 an episode, and so he created one of the most despicable hoaxes in American history in a desperate attempt to get his salary raised.

Piers Morgan has described him as “the most hideous, reprehensible, disgusting, snivelling little liar in America”, and I think that is about right.

But you know what?

He represents the true state of our society better than anyone else that I know.  Just like Smollett, we continue to insist that we are “the good guys”, but in reality our nation has become a cesspool of just about every sort of evil that you can possibly imagine.

If we will change our ways and return to the values that the first Americans embraced, we could turn things around.

But if we continue doing the things that we are currently doing, collapse is inevitable.

And it can happen very quickly.  In 390 AD, the Roman Empire covered nearly 2 million square miles and it seemed unstoppable.

But by 476 AD it was gone.

As many have said, if we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.

Please wake up America.

Get Prepared NowAbout the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

In Every City In America There Are People Ready To Riot, Loot And Set Things On Fire

Baltimore Riot - YouTube ScreenshotThe city of Baltimore has been transformed into an “absolute war zone“, and the governor of Maryland has declared a state of emergency as the rioting in “Charm City” continues to escalate.  The funeral for Freddie Gray has unleashed a firestorm of violence, and none of it is going to do anyone any good.  To their credit, some of the leaders of the African-American community are standing up and loudly condemning the violence.  They know that smashing cars, throwing rocks at police and looting stores is not going to solve anything.  But just like we saw in Ferguson, there are lots of people out there that are ready to riot, loot and set things on fire at the drop of a hat – all they need is an opportunity.  The social decay that has been eating away at the foundations of our society for generations is now manifesting in some very ugly ways.  We have raised an entire generation of young people in a “value free” environment, and now we are getting to experience some of the consequences of our foolishness.  And what we are witnessing in Baltimore right now is just the start.  Eventually, we are going to see scenes like this all over the nation.

Thanks to social media, the violence that we saw in Baltimore on Monday is being broadcast to the entire planet.  The whole world is getting a really good look at what the decline of America looks like.  The following is how the New York Times described what took place…

Angry youths could be seen surrounding a police cruiser and smashing its windows in what police described as an organized attack by criminals — not demonstrators. Cars were set on fire, and stores’ windows were smashed in. Heavy smoke poured out of a CVS drugstore, which had earlier been overrun by looters. Several other businesses, including a liquor store and a check-cashing shop, were also looted.

You can find some incredible photos of looting in progress right here.  Do those young people believe that they are actually doing something constructive that will make a difference in our society?  Of course not.  They are opportunists that are taking advantage of the chaos to commit crime.

And you know what?  A lot of older African-Americans were absolutely disgusted by what they were seeing.  The following is just one example

Barbara Taylor, 60, has lived in the neighborhood near the store for 15 years. As she spoke, a group of teenagers carrying cases of soda and Arizona Iced Tea walked by. “All I can see is crime,” said Taylor. “The people doing this don’t live around here. They’re kids coming in to our neighborhood and breaking it apart. There is no reason for this.”

Of course the biggest targets on Monday were police officers.  It is becoming extremely dangerous to be a police officer in America today, and this is something that I wrote an entire article about recently.  During the violence on Monday, seven police officers were seriously injured.  At least some of the injured had broken bones, and one was described as being “unresponsive”

“We have seven officers who were injured during the course of this,” said Baltimore Police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk. “They have broken bones, one of them is unresponsive. This is not okay. Our officers went out to that situation to make sure that the people who live in that community were safe and we’re going to continue to do what we can to make sure that those people stay safe.

“It’s a group of lawless individuals,” Kowalczyk said of the rioters. “What we know is that they are a group of criminals with no regard for the people in the community.”

Later on Monday, we found out that a total of 15 police officers had received some sort of injury during the course of the day.  To say that the streets of Baltimore have become a “war zone” is not an overstatement in the least.

This is what America is becoming, and this is only just the beginning.  As I mentioned yesterday, I went on the record publicly regarding my belief that civil unrest was coming specifically to Baltimore during a speech I gave on the evening of April 11th.  That was about a week before Freddie Gray died.  But little did I know that it would start happening before the end of the month.  The following are some tweets that contain scenes from the violence that we witnessed on Monday…

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Make sure to watch that last video.  It shows a man literally being dragged out of his store and ruthlessly beaten by a gang of young thugs.  Because of the decisions that we have made as a society, this is what the future of our country is going to look like.  This is something that I have been warning about for years, and now it is here.

So let us mourn for America, because the nation that so many of us love is slipping away a little bit more every single day.