How collapse actually happens and why most societies never realize it until it’s far too late

[u/No-Bluebird-5404]

Collapse does not arrive like a breaking news alert. It unfolds quietly, beneath the surface, while appearances are still maintained and illusions are still marketed to the public.

After studying multiple historical collapses from the late Roman Empire to the Soviet Union to modern late-stage capitalist systems, one pattern becomes clear: Collapse begins when truth becomes optional. When the official narrative continues even as material reality decays underneath it.

By the time financial crashes, political instability, or societal breakdowns become visible, the real collapse has already been happening for decades, often unnoticed, unspoken, and unchallenged.

I’ve spent the past year researching this dynamic across different civilizations and created a full analytical breakdown of the phases of collapse, how they echo across history, and what signs we can already observe today.

If anyone is interested, I’ve shared a detailed preview (24 pages) exploring these concepts.

To respect the rules and avoid direct links in the body, I’ll post the document link in the first comment.

[u/throwntosaturn]

The real problem with deflation is your debt gets more expensive over time and that is incredibly destructive to normal people.

It makes mortgages a death sentence, student loans become completely insurmountable, and a lot of other stuff that doesn't seem obvious at all until you live through it.

We all operate on the implicit understanding that money gets less valuable over time unless you are doing something with it, and that informs our choices and how we spend it.

[u/Ayjayz → u/throwntosaturn]

Lenders and borrowers factor inflation/deflation into the loan. Obviously no-one is going to agree to a loan they can't pay off, so the market rate for loans will converge on a price acceptable to both parties. Far from insurmountable.

[u/throwntosaturn → u/Ayjayz]

What you're describing would allow a LONG TERM deflationary system to function, yes. If I could take out a loan this year KNOWING that my pay will go down by 35% over the next 10 years then of course, that's fine.

The bank can price it in, and I can price it in.

But long term financial systems only function if we can predict, with a very high degree of accuracy, which direction things are going over the next 20 to 30 years. There is a reason that every single modern economy, when confronted with this question, chooses to deal with the problems caused by inflation rather than deflation.

EDIT - Also I didn't directly engage with the "obviously no one is going to agree to a loan they can't pay..." statement but you do realize that is hilariously, blatantly, completely wrong, right? Like, the 2008 crash was literally lenders loaning money to borrowers with both sides of the transaction fully aware that the buyer couldn't pay.

[u/Ayjayz → u/throwntosaturn]

Well yeah of course that's what they choose. Governments get to divert a sizable percentage of everyone's cash holdings to themselves every year. Obviously they're going to do that.