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‘We need dramatic social and technological changes’: is societal collapse inevitable?


Academic Danilo Brozović says studies of failed civilisations all point in one direction – today’s society needs radical transformation to survive

For someone who has examined 361 studies and 73 books on societal collapses, Danilo Brozović’s conclusion on what must happen to avoid today’s world imploding is both disarmingly simple and a daunting challenge: “We need dramatic social and technological changes.” The search for explanations of societal collapse has been a long one, going back at least to Thomas Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population and Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which blamed decadence and barbarian invasions. Brozović’s review highlights a significant barrier to action noted by Paul and Anne Ehrlich: convincing people of the necessity of such measures, a task made even harder by the rise of online disinformation.

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