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I have already presented an abridged case for intersecting waves/cycles as causal factors in major transformations and briefly referenced the decline of the Roman Empire as an example of the political and psychological processes which enable dissolution: complacency and fatalism.

I have also recommended authors such as David Fischer (The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History), Jared Diamond ( Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed ) and Joseph Tainter ( The Collapse of Complex Societies) who have carefully researched how cycles of price, conflict and resource depletion/exhaustion tend to repeat as human populations rise beyond the carrying capacity of their environment.

While historical models and cycles help us reach an integrated understanding of our era's interlocking crises, their predictive value is limited: some societies collapse while others are positively transformed by crisis. In some cases, we might view partial collapse as the first essential step of the transformative process.

Model 1: Collapse/Die-Off

This model is commonly known as "the end of the world as we know it" (TEOTWAWKI) and is by all accounts the worst-case scenario. The model's basic premise is that all the fragile supply chains and negative feedback loops (built-in stabilizers) of the global economy will fall in domino fashion. History provides some "stock" examples:

1. An extended period of bad weather causes drought/hunger which then triggers geopolitical conflict; together the two forces cause massive declines in population and/or outmigration.

2. A new disease (plague or equivalent) spreads to populations with little resistance to the new microbe. The resulting pandemic weakens food production, trade and social organization which undermines public health in a positive feedback loop.

The advent of weapons of mass destruction and a fossil fuel-based global economy offer up two "modern" scenarios:

3. A global nuclear/biological/WMD war decimates populations and triggers breakdown of food production and supply chains when then causes further suffering/death.

4. The depletion of cheap, abundant fossil fuels triggers geopolitical conflicts which undermine the global economy and eventually civil society.

5. If global warming is not primarily a natural cycle but one caused by greenhouse gases, then runaway burning of coal, etc. triggers a meltdown of the polar ice caps which raises sea levels, flooding much of coastal civilization.

There are many variations but the basic model remains: resource/soil depletion and population over-reach that leave the human population vulnerable to typical long-cycle weather fluctuations. Once food, energy and water become scarce (the FEW resources), then resolution is sought by conquest/conflict which triggers positive feedback loops which further erode supply chains, public health, State-imposed stabilizers, etc.

To claim the present human populace is not exposed to just this sort of risk would be folly. However, claims that TEOTWAWKI is also inevitable tend to ignore negative feedback loops which act to stabilize systems.

No one can know the future, but we can safely observe that societies with little redundancy, few robust negative feedback loops and a culture steeped in complacency are much more likely to suffer a runaway (positive feedback/domino effect) "doomsday" scenario than those societies which actively anticipate the consequences of over-reach/depletion and which refuse to heed the siren-song of complacency.

Collapse, Dissolution and Devolution

The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s provides a compelling example of the collapse of a large-scale, complex political structure. Author Dimitry Orlov made a fascinating comparison of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. and the Soviet Union in his book, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. By his own account, "entertaining and thought-provoking" were his goals for the book, and he succeeded very admirably.