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MasterFubar t1_ivj8ahy wrote

That's interesting, I've had a lot of thought on the same line.

However, the biggest problem isn't technology, it's social organization. As you said, civilizations collapse. They collapse regardless of their technological advancement. We know the Roman empire collapsed, as well as the Bronze Age civilization did. We also know the Maya civilization collapsed, apparently more than once as the archeological records seem to indicate.

Historians do not agree on what caused such collapses. They mention events like wars, earthquakes and droughts, but that doesn't explain how many civilizations suffer from the same events without collapsing. What are the factors that make a civilization fragile enough to collapse under stress? Nobody knows.

Unless the social sciences, like economics, sociology, psychology and anthropology improve their models a lot we have only some vague ideas of how to build a stable society.

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TheSingulatarian t1_ivlc3tp wrote

It the majority of the citizen's are not invested in the society it will collapse. Social mobility and the promise of a better tomorrow is what keeps people going.

If your society sucks so much the idea that "Hey, maybe the barbarians aren't that bad" begins to take hold.

Cortez did not defeat the Aztecs because of guns and horses. The Aztecs had been abusing the surrounding tribes for years and the surrounding tribes were fed up. When Cortez showed up with guns and horses the surrounding tribes decided to throw in with him to overthrow the Aztecs.

The Republican party is no friend to working people yet, many working people vote Republican because the Democratic Party has abandoned them.

If the fruits of AGI/ASI are not shared with working people, expect societal collapse or at least an authoritarian government.

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