The Bronze Age Collapse - Systems Collapse - Extra History - Part 4

📜 History of the Bronze Age Collapse, Part 4
It started with famine... and ended with four great civilizations' utter destruction. The Bronze Age Collapse is still a matter of scholarly debate, but our favorite theory rests on an understanding of Systems Collapse and how societies build themselves to survive disaster.

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#ExtraHistory #History #BronzeAge

[extrahistory]

It started with famine... and ended with four great civilizations' utter destruction. What can we learn from the Bronze Age Collapse?

[alliecat]

“Weapons are buried. Plans are made to collect these weapon caches, but no one will ever return.” This was truly a chilling phrase.

[sfsfinancing]

BTW - Why did the Egyptian Empire end????

ANS: All pyramid schemes end badly.

[ObligedUniform]

"For over a thousand years the chariots were the backbone of peace and order in the kingdom. Before the dark times. Before the sea people"

[justsomerobloxvids]

"For today, in this modern era, where we can probably weather most any crisis, if we fool ourselves into believing that we're immune, we may go on to create so many crises of our own that we may bring about the collapse of our own systems."
it's been a month and four days since the capitol riot in america and more than a year after the coronavirus was first discovered as of writing. this quote aged EXCEEDINGLY well.

[Freedomyt]

This video will age like fine wine considering current events.
History is doomed to repeat itself if we don't learn from it.

[Anglomachian]

In the nineties, when I was a kid, I noticed a lot of the sci-fi shows that I enjoyed had minor storylines or single episodes devoted to warning us about complex societies. Usually they took it from the angle of losing the "self", like being part of a complex society requires the sacrifice of one's personal identity or freedoms. And to some degree they're right, you do give up some freedoms to be part of a system.
But the people who had these ideas in these shows almost always took the extreme route of going completely in the opposite direction, becoming amish-like refugees from the space-faring or interdimensional-exploring civilisations they hailed from, citing that such advancement invited its own end, and that simplicity was the way by which one avoided whole-sale collapses. With no system, no collapse.

But even as a child, I remember thinking "Yeah, but then you have no police or an army to defend your way of life. You have no hospitals with advanced medical care to treat simple diseases or injuries. You don't have robust farming techniques that almost guarantee plentiful food." Of course, I didn't put it quite like that when I was 7, but it was the same idea in principle.
All these "going back to a simpler time" episodes almost never showed these people being overrun by opposing armies, or hit by devastating curable diseases, or starving when their finite crop system bugged out for a week. They always just showed the philosophical inadequacies, or more often put them in an agreeable light, as though becoming agrarian hermit societies was actually the right way to go.

[herriuslecrabequebecois]

This is the perfect background story for a post-apocalypse adventure set in the bronze age!

[SamDorios]

I'm a "Systems and Complexity Associate" (yes, this is a real job title) for a large non-profit organization. My background is in Systems Thinking and Practices. Specifically, I create systems maps for the purposes of informing social-change strategies.

You have no idea how excited I am to stumble across a video talking about systems thinking and theory naturally (usually you'd have to go out of your way to search for and find one). Systems thinking is so important and relevant, yet it's still mostly unknown. So thank you for showing interest in the topic and highlighting it in your video! :)

[JacobProbasco]

"We have to handle these incredible cultures that we've built thoughtfully, and respect"

Well said.

[SC-zqcu]

Ooooh...the end message of this series aged like the finest of wines.

[hansheden]

Quote from "Red Dwarf": ""They say that every society is only three meals away from revolution. Deprive a culture of food for three meals, and you'll have an anarchy. And it's true, isn't it? You haven't eaten for a couple of days, and you've turned into a barbarian."

Kind of sums it up.

[squamish]

And so the kingdom of Gondor sank into ruin. The line of kings failed. The white tree withered. The rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.

[armorsmith]

As a software engineer, I have to wonder if there are ways to build more robustness into our societies.

After Hurricane Katrina, lots of folks became interested in disaster preparedness. But they were focused on an individual or family level. What if we could build disaster preparedness on an urban block level, where a street of 40-80 people have a plan to withstand some major shock.

[AK-dxkf]

Some dude a few years back: "new deseases? No problem"
Corona: allow me to introduce myself

[calebmarsh]

Am I alone in saying that this series gave me a new fear in life? The fact that these thriving societies collapsed in the space of just 40-50 years is horrifying and gives me anxiety.

[Rugeon]

Your conclusion reminds me a lot of thoughts I had when reading up on the Library of Alexandria. While the decay of that institution was gradual and not nearly as dramatic as often thought, it still represents to me the idea that 'progress' may not be as inevitable as we believe. Knowledge that was gained can be lost, and Civilisation's march forward is not a permanent given. Mostly unthinkable in today's society, it made me consider that 'progress' can be reversed.

[xxiao]

It was Walpole. He invested in a time machine and tried to run his scheme with the Pharaohs and whatnot back then.

[extrahistory]

Notice! This episode concludes the Bronze Age Collapse series, and after this Extra History will be taking a one week break. We'll be back with a few one-off episodes starting on July 29!

[imrosebashir]

The conclusion makes me realize that our modern societies globally will collapse not in the way of the romans, but in the way of the Bronze Age collapse — and catastrophic climate change might be the biggest culprit