The end of the last world war. The end of civilization. Duration and timelines.

The end of the last world war. The end of civilization. Duration and timelines. How we got here: the anatomy of civilizational collapse A view from the digital ruins: on the nature of decline Human history is not a straight line of triumphant ascent, but a graveyard of numerous civilizations. In 390 AD, the Roman Empire covered 4.4 million square kilometers — five years later its territory had halved, and by 476 AD it had vanished from the world map. The Maya, the Anasazi, Akkad, the Hittites — they all traveled the path from flourishing to ruins. Historian Arnold Toynbee, having studied 28 civilizations in his 12-volume work, delivered a merciless verdict: great civilizations do not perish from an external blow — they complete themselves from within. The modern internet discourse around civilizational collapse revolves around two polar positions. The first is academic: historians, archaeologists, and specialists in cliodynamics seek repeating patterns, comparing the trajectories of ancient empires with the state of the global world. The second is eschatological, amplified by social platform algorithms: every new war, climate anomaly, or political crisis generates a wave of content about the "end times." The truth, as usual, is more complex than either extreme. The Bronze Age Collapse (circa 1177 BC) is a textbook example of systemic collapse. Within a single generation, the Minoan kingdom, Mycenae, the Hittite Empire, Troy, and Ugarit fell. Writing disappeared...