Is Western civilization a bubble? What can we learn from the collapse of ancient societies?

Arthur Demarest, professor of archaeology at Vanderbilt and a student of the collapse of civilizations, says that in looking at our own society: "we are in trouble." 

Arthur points out that the failure rate for great civilizations is 100%.  It is a question not of “if” but when. He says that an "ideology of long-term thinking and lower expectations — a change in
world 'attitude'— seems to me to be the only way out of the 21st century giant and precarious 'bubble' that now is Western civilization."

Read my full interview with Arthur on the PBS Newshour Making $ense site: The real Indiana Jones on why Western civilization is a bubble

And hear the podcast version at  http://www.tedfischer.org/category/thinktank/ .