Talk:Societal collapse

This is in regard to how to improve the section on the "youth bulge" hypothesis. This section has at least one sentence that implies causation, but causation does not follow from correlation. As currently written, this passage offers a rather one-dimensional view of a phenomenon; but that arguably does a disservice to a topic of this complexity. Should it include at least some counterpoints concerning the impact of socioeconomic conditions, rather than simply assigning causation to a population 'bulge'? Painting with broad strokes seems to compromise the goal of informing a reader. Hopefully someone with more expertise can improve/ add nuance to this section? 152.3.43.45 (talk) 19:18, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

I have a lot of problems with this article. In the lead it says ‘Societal collapse is generally abrupt.’. This is just not true. The Roman empire was already declining for about a century before its ‘fall’. The fall of Constantinople happened when the Byzantine empire was already reduced to only Constantinople. The Ottoman and Holy Roman empire where also long past their prime when they where dissolved. I think ‘Generally’ is not the right word here.

Also, the article talks a few times about societies being absorbed by another society. In the first sentence it says that the collapse of a society is characterised by among other things, loss of social complexity and the downfall of government. If a society is absorbed by another one, it doesn’t have to mean losing social complexity or a government, they’re just replaced. Does that mean that absorbed societies didn’t collapse, or do the things in the opening sentence not matter for the definition?

The other one is the loss of cultural identity. The article then goes on to state ‘the influence of a collapsed society, such as the Western Roman Empire, may linger on long after its death.’ So the cultural identity isn’t lost, so why is this societal collapse? The articles definition is confused, and it should be better explained when what kind of collapse is talked about.

The last one ‘rise of violence’ also at least doesn’t apply to societies listed under ‘abandonment’. If the characteristics aren’t vital to the definition, then is societal collapse just the end of any society? In that case the sentence ‘Virtually all civilizations have suffered such a fate’ is totally meaningless. I also feel this article is generally lacking substance, and I know that that is vague. I am not an expert on the topic, and I wanted to know what other people think. Wikifan153 (talk) 16:13, 2 February 2024 (UTC)