This Warning Always Appears Before Empires Collapse

The show is on Spotify! 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7GlXSYMoOpcw41YGRCpjJB?si=cc2e479ee34d4167 Why do powerful empires keep collapsing? From Rome and the Maya to Han China, the same warning sign appears again and again: societies are forced to spend more and more simply to stand still. Eventually, the systems built to save them become too expensive to survive... Join my Substack, where the ideas go further than YouTube lets me take them: https://michaelbutton.substack.com/ Follow the show on Spotify! 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7GlXSYMoOpcw41YGRCpjJB?si=cc2e479ee34d4167 Let me know what you think in the comments, and thank you for watching!! Follow me on X: https://x.com/MichaelButtonX Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelbuttonx/ Sources: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/fall-of-ancient-roman-empire https://harngroup.wordpress.com/2020/08/19/robert-leonard-carneiro-4-june-1927-24-june-2020/ https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/course/carneiro70.pdf https://www.usu.edu/today/story/environment-and-society-professor-josephe-tainter-featured-in-the-new-york-times-magazine https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Collapse_of_Complex_Societies.html?id=YdW5wSPJXIoC&redir_esc=y https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-03/fragile-impermanent-things-joseph-tainter-on-what-makes-civilizations-fall/ https://rword.substack.com/p/the-collapse-of-complex-societies https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/declining-returns-complexity https://www.econlib.org/library/enc/bios/olson.html https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300254068/the-rise-and-decline-of-nations/ https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol7/iss3/art4/main.html https://www.historyextra.com/period/roman/roman-empire-history-facts-map-timeline-peak-when-start-when-split-how-long-tetrarchy/ https://origins.osu.edu/read/great-fire-rome https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/intranets/staffrefresh/butcher/butcher_ponting_complete.pdf https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah30636 https://www.worldhistory.org/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century/ https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691166834/the-fate-of-rome https://factumfoundation.org/our-projects/3d-sculpting/re-creating-the-colossus-of-constantine/ https://www.britannica.com/place/Byzantine-Empire/The-reforms-of-Diocletian-and-Constantine https://popular-archaeology.com/article/property-and-debt-in-ancient-rome/ https://archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/sites/archeologie/files/styles/grand_format/public/upload/mediatheque/originales/images/45_2.jpg?itok=mDJwzeFI https://www.worldhistory.org/Crisis_of_the_Third_Century/ https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/64/ https://yucatanmagazine.com/nojpeten-tayasal-and-the-fall-of-the-maya/ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aas9871 https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-measure-severity-of-drought-during-the-maya-collapse https://www.arthurdemarest.com https://www.inah.gob.mx/zonas/zona-arqueologica-de-tonina https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44513 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Han-Chinese https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/exhibit/han/k137522.html https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/emperor-wang-mang-chinas-first-socialist-2402977/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yellow-Turbans https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xaindi https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58581-0 https://www.worldhistory.org/article/637/roman-daily-life/ https://bestedlessons.org/2023/01/10/40-most-famous-and-influential-ancient-roman-statesmen-generals-writers-etc/ https://roman-empire.net/army/persian-wars-of-heraclius https://phys.org/news/2022-04-analysis-roman-coins-uncovers-evidence.html https://uncoveredhistory.com/mexico/tonina/brief-history-of-tonina https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sres.1057 https://thebulletin.org/premium/2025-03/fragile-impermanent-things-joseph-tainter-on-what-makes-civilizations-fall/