The Real Reason Civilizations Collapse | Samo Burja

Today on Moment of Zen, Erik Torenberg talks with Samo Burja on "long history" - the thesis that human civilization is far older than believed, with complex societies predating agriculture by millennia. It examines why civilizations rise and fall, and implications for preventing our own collapse. Make sure to subscribe to Samo Burja's Bismarck Brief and the Live Players podcast to read analyses and briefs like this one: Bismarck Brief: https://brief.bismarckanalysis.com/ Live Players: https://link.chtbl.com/liveplayers -- 📰 Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess  🙏 Help shape our show by taking our quick listener survey at https://bit.ly/TurpentinePulse -- SPONSORS: NETSUITE | SHOPIFY | SQUAD Over 41,000 businesses trust NetSuite by Oracle, the #1 cloud ERP, to future-proof their operations. Whether you're earning millions or hundreds of millions, NetSuite empowers you to tackle challenges and seize opportunities. Download the free CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at https://netsuite.com/zen. Shopify is the world's leading e-commerce platform, offering a market-leading checkout system Shoppay and exclusive AI apps. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Get a $1 per month trial at https://shopify.com/momentofzen. Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist. -- X / TWITTER: @SamoBurja @eriktorenberg @turpentinemedia -- Long History Thesis Human civilization is much older than believed - complex societies existed before agriculture Göbekli Tepe (11,500 years old) features monumental construction 1,000 years before earliest agriculture Academic consensus moves slowly; archaeologists find what they expect to find Why Civilizations Fall Pattern 1: Military overextension and fiscal collapse (like Soviet Union) Pattern 2: Complex trade network breakdown (Bronze Age collapse example) History isn't linear progress - it's cycles of rise, stagnation, and fall Modern Implications We may not reach the singularity - could face our own stagnation period Military overextension is a current US risk China and US are 80-90% similar despite perceived differences Preventing Collapse Diversify beyond university monoculture - generate more "live players" Invest in novel energy sources and government experimentation Address fertility crisis (affects all societies regardless of politics) Avoid rationalizing decline as environmental success Historical Lessons Ancient societies had sophisticated "social technologies" we've lost Study history for positive examples, not just cautionary tales Human nature and organizational capacity remain largely unexplored