> And contrariwise, sometimes the doomsayers are identifying a real
> threat, and the reason it doesn't come to pass is because people
> addressed it and averted it, which might not have happened without
> the fore-warning.

Exactly why I'm complacent. :-)

I would not want to suggest that Britain, as a civilization, has fallen, by the way. It's influence may have changed since the days when the sun never set, but it's influence still remains and is welcome, in my very humble opinion.

The book 'Collapse' by Jared Diamond talks about the TEOTWAWKI in a very convincing way. He is also the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, another very fine book.

Yes, his book and he are referred to in the article several times. I haven't read "Collapse," I'm sorry to say. (Nor "Guns, Germs, and Steel.") I have read a number of theories on the reasons for the collapses of various empires, each sincere and convincing and mutually exclusive of the other theories. My lesson from this is that it's probably not wise to ascribe _a_ reason to anything. I'm comfortable with my own assumption that there are many reasons why things go horribly right for some and horribly wrong for other civilizations.

"Rome may have fallen, but that was a government, not society"

Isn't that mostly what happens? Societies tend to continue to exist, but most don't disappear, from what I've read.

You have to separate a government from the actual country and people. They are not the same thing.

Sue

The Roman Govt. survived for longer than Rome, it picked up and moved to Constantinople, continued to rules most of the Empire another 100 years, than afterward could no longer manage to do so. At one point in time, the Emporer from Constantinople, Justinian, managed to exert power over most of Italy again. Subsequently, then the Dark adn Middle Ages follwoed, at whien society certainly was not at the same level it was during the Empire, over much of Europe.

Hi Sue,



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso