Precisely. They’ve conquered their rivals, so collapse happens when the system in place no longer functions. That could be kicked off via natural disaster, or it could be collapse through corruption or whatever. As a quick example, it’s a lot easier to move a tribe when disaster happens than an empire.
My point is, they can’t trade their way out of problems. That’s the difference with our current global economy. If one region runs into issues (e.g. Europe lost fossil fuel supply), they can change trading partners to get what they need.
Centralized may be beneficial in our destruction or it may hasten it. Impossible to tell.
I’m pretty sure it’ll hasten it.
Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say a country has tons of trees and makes its living primarily off selling lumber. They’re not going to cut down all of their trees because they won’t have anything else to sell, so they’ll want to use their resources sustainably. Let’s say another country has trees as just one of their many resources (e.g. they’re an empire), it’s a lot easier to prioritize short-term needs when you aren’t directly hurt in the short term by resource depletion.
It’s not functioning correctly
Can you be more specific? How do you think it should function and in what way is it failing at that? Also, what is your evidence?
The way I see it, the market is a way to crowd-source investment into companies, and more investment dollars should go to companies that show more opportunity for growth. A faster moving company needs more capital than a stable company, but it also presents more risk, so a higher price makes a lot of sense. If things go according to plan, it’ll settle at that higher market cap, but if things don’t, the stock price will come crashing down. To me, that’s working as intended. Companies like Tesla get higher valuations, which means they have more capital available (i.e. if they sell company stock to raise cash), and the higher it goes, the more risky it is to new investors.
And yeah, I think Tesla’s valuation is ridiculous, but I don’t think that’s indicative of an issue with the market, it’s just that investors believe Tesla’s direction will lead them to stabilize at that valuation. They have strong battery production, in-demand vehicles, and they have established themselves as the name brand in their market. With the world moving toward renewables and specifically battery storage, Tesla is in a great place to capitalize on that demand. That said, they are still a minor player in the automotive space, so that presents more risk and thus a higher price relative to their book value.