If we start taking collapse as inevitable, it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.
In the 1960's, China had the Great Famine followed by the purges of the Cultural Revolution. So arguably the current period of stability has not even been that long.
We give things names, we build frames around things to better organize the knowledge, and for a good reason! But oftentimes the reality, as lived through in the moment, is far more blurred and messy.
Civilizations exist in the consensual system of abstractions we have created to define our reality, structure our thinking and guide our evolution. We can and should reason about that system, since we operate bound by its constraints, and not Out in the formless void.
Imagine a stripe colored in white which after at some point transitions gradually into black. Let's also say that when it's white it's 100% white and when it's black it's 100% black.
It's hard to say when it started transitioning and when it ended, but if you your probe points are far enough from the transition you can say a transition actually occurred.
https://davidgalbraith.org/trivia/graph-of-the-population-of...
The etymology of Zhongguo IIRC is "central city". Was this the actual name of an actual city that then became the name for the concept of a central city/state as dynasties and rules changed? Is it analogous as if the word Roma had become a generic term for state in european languages and now you'd just call the United Romas of America?
中国 (Zhōngguó) is middle country/state/nation, not city.
I don't think Chinese is that flexible. The only thing I can think of is Chengdu (which is not really related): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu#Name
This. This is the biggest issue I have with r/collapse and similar crowds. If collapse isn't inevitable, then they aren't helping, and they sure as all heck aren't able to prove that it is inevitable.
This mindset reminds me of certain videos I've seen on YouTube where some people have been proposing just letting society collapse due to global warming and founding an anarchist society in the ashes. Spoiler alert: If everyone thought like this, society in the first world probably would continue, but you'd kill millions upon millions of people in the third world.
Of course it is not inevitable. I remember reading Elie Wiesel, and particularly one remark "this thing can't happen in the middle of the 20th century". Almost a century later, and we feel a bit detached: there's nothing special about the middle of the 20th century. Well, guess what, there's nothing special about the middle of the 21st century either. Atrocities similar to what happened 100 or 200 years ago are still possible. Weird social dynamics are still possible. 6th of January '21 is just such an example.
I'm personally thankful that in my lifetime there was no world war, but I don't take it for granted that a worldwide calamity is impossible in the next few decades.