So I stumbled upon this website describing the main causes of why the Roman Empire (the biggest and most powerful empire of the then-known world) crumbled and fell.

I found some striking parallels. Apart from the somewhat dry style of writing, I tried and analyzed their situation vs our situation. Causes for the Fall of the Roman Empire -

- Antagonism between the Senate and the Emperor. What is it again our politicians worldwide are seen as nowadays? Exactly: corrupt, debauched and deluded.

- Decline in Morals. The reports of child-abuse coming out with ever-increasing frequency, as well as the way the 1% keeps sipping champagne while playing a fiddle (yeah, that was a Nero-reference) are apparently not new. Note: the roman morals are not our morals, but even today we can see the way people act vs how they acted 10, 20 years ago.

- Political Corruption and the Praetorian Guard. Nuff said. The praetorian Guard today are the 3-letter agencies and/or militarized police. Did I already mention political corruption?

- Fast expansion of the Empire. High and ever-increasing taxes? Invading other countries? Rebellions? You must be joking, good sir.

- Constant Wars and Heavy Military Spending. Nuff said (again)

- Barbarian Knowledge of Roman Military Tactics. Nowadays, wouldn't that be called urban warfare? Otherwise, this one hasn't yet been repeated.

- Failing Economy and High Inflation. Quantative easing, no more gold in reserve and debt-ceiling, anyone?

- Unemployment of the Working Classes. Cheap immigrant-workers and wage-slaves, has anything changed? 99% vs 1% maybe? Yeah...

- The 'Mob' and the cost of the Gladiatorial Games. We still have bread and circuses (panem et circenses) today. Snooki, Justin Bierber, Next Top Model thingumajig etc etc etc. Not to mention WWF, Nascar and the Worldcup. The mob needs to be kept amused at all times with bite-sized bits of infotainment. Because the Mob has the attention span of a fucking flea.

- Decline in Ethics and Values. Anyone?

- Slave Labor. Call them wage-slaves or office-workers and I think we have the same situation, yet no Spartacus. Yet.

- Natural Disasters. Fukushima, polar vortex, global warming/cooling/pollution. Yeah...

-Christianity. Not quite sure if we have this one already. Maybe the fear of people for islam taking over, however I'm not convinced about another religious viewpoint undermining 'governance'. Or maybe the whole fundamentalist behaviour in general, I could comprehend that.

- Barbarian Invasion. We're not there yet.

So, history is repeating itself once more since apparently we haven't learned a thing. What will happen once the collapse happens? Well, look at what happened after the Roman Empire fell: marauding bands of barbarians (Huns, Goths, Vandals, etc) followed by other kingdoms (Burgunds, Vikings, Franks etc), followed by a slow crawl back to the top. In about a 1000 or 1500 years time (if we haven't nuked eachother and the planet into oblivion) we'll be again in the same situation we are in today.

So how to break this cycle?

edit: a word