On 3/1/2011 4:14 PM, Mary Anne Smith wrote: > It's frightening, isn't it? All these "advanced" civilizations of long ago > are now extinct. What happened to them? if they were all so smart??? > > I know one was buried in lava in Italy...but that doesn't explain all the > rest. Hi: One hundred thousand hungry barbarians with primitive culture and sharp swords (or working assault rifles) will destroy one thousand civilized people with hot and cold running water and flush toilets, every time. No advanced civilization, yet, can handle a massive nearby volcanic eruption, a large enough tsunami, or a series of 9.2 earthquakes, even if its literacy rate is over 98%. When an advanced civilization uses up its natural resources, threatening the food supply, its people will choose eating over poetry every time. When an advanced civilization packs too many people into too small a space, its advanced medicine will eventually not be able to react fast enough to stop the next virulent disease. When an advanced civilization makes it possible for some people to be consumers without being producers, and values its consumers as much as its producers, human nature will set in, every time. Eventually you have too few producers, and the civilization collapses of its own weight. In other words, War, Disaster, Famine, Plague, and Laziness. Darrell