Theory and practice of evolutionary civilization: discussion paper

Abstract

Societal collapse has been a perennial concern of humanity, at least since the early Greeks. Recent publication of Jared Diamond’s Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed and Ervin Laszlo's The chaos window: the world at the crossroads renew this concern. Despite the urgency in these and many similar calls to action, no consensus theory and practice of evolutionary civilization exists. This paper calls for collaborative action by the evolutionary systems community and related disciplines to provide insight into what has been dubbed "the most important question in the world today" (Smith, 2005, 436).