I'm only a few paragraphs into the article, but already it's reminding me of this video I saw recently in which (if I remember correctly) Jonathan Blow (the creator of
Braid) talks about the collapse of ancient civilizations and speculates on what may have caused them to be utterly destroyed, taking most, if not all, of their scientific advancements with them. He then suggests that such a collapse is possible for us, and that we may be in the process of approaching our own similar kind of collapse. And what we can do to avoid it.
Jonathan Blow - Preventing the Collapse of Civilization