We aren’t the first or the last civilization.
“Civilisations are material systems organised around energy. Their scale, complexity, and population reflect how much energy is available and how it is structured. When the energy available can no longer sustain that level of organisation, contraction follows.We are not running out of energy. We are losing the ability to organise it.”
https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/the-world-isnt-ending-its-stopping