To describe the civilization briefly, it is that a certain human community has similar thinking structures and traditions in a certain geographical region. Civilizations continue their lives by supporting each other for many years. These people must constantly evolve both for themselves and for the continuation of their nation so that they can continue their lives better without the need for other civilizations. Sometimes it is inevitable for civilization to collapse even though people struggle. We can divide the causes of the collapse of civilizations by dividing them into two. The first is internal causes which people clash in themselves and destroy themselves, and the other are external causes such as epidemics or climate change.

   Economic factors are the biggest factor of the causes of civilization’s internal collapse. Interpersonal income inequality can lead to collapse. Since the wealth to be shared by the wealthy people is not enough, the nation may engage in conflict among themselves, and the wealthy go down as a result of the decrease in the workforce.

    Climate change, which is one of the factors of external collapse, is indirectly based on economic reasons and destroys civilizations, resulting in a major crisis such as hunger. The most inevitable problem to be passed on to future generations is climate change, although we try to prevent it, the world keeps warming and the sea level rises. All civilizations get their share from the result of this. Due to climate change, farmers find it difficult to produce, lose soil fertility, and the food problem begins. This causes food to become expensive and inaccessible to everyone, as a result of which people may face hunger. Epidemic diseases, which are another external collapse factor, occur for many reasons, and can also be caused by water pollution and uncontrolled migration of many people. Sometimes these reasons can happen at the same time, only a few can happen, sometimes only when there is no reason.

   In the article “Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?,” author Luke Kemp ( 2019 ), explains the causes of the collapse of civilizations. The author begins his article with the following sentence of Arnold Toynbee. “Great civilizations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives.” The author thinks these words are justified in some ways. According to him, civilizations can bring their own ends, but there are different factors that will ensure this collapse. The author gave some examples of these factors such as overexpansion, climatic change, environmental degradation and poor leadership. In addition, the author briefly describes the collapse as follows a permanent loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Most civilizations faced this collapse, but some have either changed or improved such as China and Egypt. Furthermore, some collapses were also permanent, while others were abandoned for future tourists. In addition, past and present societies are complex systems consisting of people and technology, and the theory of “normal accidents” shows that these systems lead to failure. So collapse can be a normal phenomenon for civilizations. The author continues as follows, even though we are technologically advanced nowadays, our technological capabilities also bring new and unprecedented challenges. 

The author says that the causes of the collapse of previous civilizations may have been our savior, but states that these collapses are not an exact cause. Although it is not a definite fact about why civilizations collapsed, the experts gave the following examples for these reasons, climatic change, environmental degradation, inequality and oligarchy, complexity, external shocks, randomness and bad luck. To describe them briefly, not enough nutrients can be produced due to climate change, resulting in hunger problems. When societies are too much in their environment, ecological collapses occur. As the gap between the rich and the poor deepens, social crises occur and the problem of inequality arises. Societies cannot overcome new problems with the complexities from the past and collapse is inevitable. Unexpected outbreaks, natural disasters create a shock effect and can cause collapse. Sometimes it is just bad luck and collapse occurs.  According to the text, although we have a lot of resources, we still do not know exactly why civilizations collapsed. All we know is that perhaps some or all of the factors highlighted above are caused. According to the author, social resistance can prevent the collapse of civilization and the more talented nations defend themselves better in the event of a collapse. Thanks to our ability to escape, to innovate, we can be optimistic. However, the climate is changing, the inequality between society is increasing, the world is getting more complex and our expectations from the environment are increasing. In addition, while it is stronger economically, our technological capabilities also pose new challenges for us. The collapse of our civilization is not inevitable. History says this can happen, but we have the advantage of learning from the mistakes of past societies. Author concludes that, if we don’t just listen to the past and learn lessons from the past, collapse is inevitable.

    Can our civilization be in danger of collapse in today’s technological age? As Luke Kemp mentioned, as technology evolves, we face many challenges that no civilization faces. Cyber ​​attacks may be one of the easiest weapons to destroy a nation. Other Nations can take down a nation by making cyber attacks. We can give this as an example of the causes of external collapse. If we give an example of the causes of internal collapse, we can destroy ourselves in the simplest way with cyberbullying. Unfortunately, many people today are being bullied by cyberbullying, however, blackmail begins, and people’s lives are ruined, and people commit suicide. In today’s technology, everyone sees each other’s false “magnificent” lives on social media and hates their own lives and become unhappy. I think there can be no more inefficient and inadequate person than an unhappy person. I think happiness and productivity are directly proportional. Of course, the nation will draw the result of this together. This is one of the possible causes of collapse of civilization.

    Civilizations can collapse for many reasons, we cannot say there is a definite reason. Sometimes we just destroy ourselves over time, sometimes we just have bad luck. The important thing is to learn from the collapsed civilizations, learn, act, develop.