I'm surprised the book Sovereign Individual is not mentioned even once in this article.

The whole book engages in the same "projecting trends into the future", on the same topic. But in a more detailed way.

In fact, one of the early points it makes is that the Roman Empire, when the last emperor gave way to a tribe lord that invaded Rome, officially when the empire fell, everyone pretended it didn't.

Like the emperor is out, he's living somewhere else, but yeah the empire keeps going, nothing to see here.

Only years later, decades if I recall correctly, did the implications of the fall of the empire truly reached culture.

The shell was untouched, but the insides were rot already.