Can 'Hackstability' Save Civilization?

[Speck Tater]

13. So far no civilization has lasted forever. ;)

"Civilization" and "empire" are two different things. Civilization can survive the collapse of empires but empires cannot survive the collapse of civilization. Modern civilization is highly dependent on cheap fossil fuels powering complex trade and communications networks. This makes our civilization much more brittle than any previous civilization. One unusually large solar storm, one suborbital EMP, one small asteroid, one super volcano, or any one of a number of other disasters whose effects might have been local or regional in centuries past can now have global consequences.

In times past civilizations were more robust because they were local and there was a lot of redundancy built in. Today civilization is fragile because it's too interconnected and the redundancy has been discarded in the name of efficiency. Something like Chernobyl or Fukushima close to New York, or Chicago could shut down world markets and start a chain reaction that resulted in the whole system coming unglued. It's a house of cards with a shaky foundation.