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>civilization ought to have collapsed several times over.

uhm, didn't it?

To the point where we abandoned civilisation and became Hunter gatherers en masse? No. There have been ups and downs for individual kingdoms and empires but civilisation as a whole did alright since the 8th century BC, Socrates’ concerns about kids these days notwithstanding.

>To the point where we abandoned civilisation and became Hunter gatherers en masse

To the point of the fall or Athens and Greek empires, the fall of the hellenistic kingdoms, the fall of Rome, all the way to WWI and WWII, and that's just confined to the Western side of the world...

The fall of Rome was not "the collapse of civilization" and the Roman empire as a political entity never quite ceased existing seeing as how it continued in one form or another all the way up to the modern day by virtue of Istanbul still existing.

Yeah. A few times before the 8th century BC aswell.

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