Can this Civilization be Saved? - Part 1

We all feel it: a sense that things are both progressing and decaying at the exact same time. This feeling of ‘overlap’ is a classic sign of a civilization in transition… or perhaps, one in decline.

In the first part of a sweeping two-part episode, Joshua and Will move past the Mad Max fantasies to explore the academic study of collapse. They introduce Joseph Tainter’s groundbreaking theory that societies don’t get conquered; they simply buckle under the weight of their own complexity when it stops providing benefits.