Why Civilisations Collapse: The Existential Paradox of Innovation
Civilizations always experience sudden, spectacular growth when they encounter innovation. Fire and metalworking, intensive agriculture, money, electricity, transportation and a regulated workforce all in their turn completely transformed what was originally a species of nomadic foragers. Popular perceptions focus on the benefits of innovations rather than the fact that they are frighteningly inevitable. There is very little that a civilisation can do to manage the pace of innovation. Although they appear out of nowhere, innovations soon become essential to the point where they are taken for granted, much like the gears and hydraulics in a car: invisible from the outside, but vital to the operation not just of the car itself, but an entire society that depends on this invention. Innovations integrate themselves into the bedrock of civilization much like beneficial bacteria attach themselves to the gut: we don’t see them, but we know we would die without them. Like organisms giving rise to their own technological parasites, civilizations become hostages to their intellectual progeny, unable to function outside the technological web they have created.
Historians call this cultural evolution. But as the list of innovations grows, so does the grip of this hostage situation, and all associated risks. Each new era brings with it its own innovations, which depend on all previous innovations e.g. internet depends on electricity, electricity depends on fossil fuel, fossil fuel depends on the invention of the wheel. As a result, the list of essential components that each successive civilization needs for its bare minimum daily function becomes longer and longer. What started as a simple wheelbarrow has now become a super-expensive car consisting of thousands of parts. And this is a problem.