The 24th and 25th Centuries: What Will Kill Modern History…And What Will Replace It?

The 24th and 25th Centuries: What Will Kill Modern History…And What Will Replace It? 

This isn't a conclusion and more of a “bonus” to this series about the stages of grief. I have made a series of posts comparing the centuries of modern history, to stages of grief, including predictions for the 22nd and 23rd centuries which I predict will be relatively healthy, stable times and where the modern era is at its peak. But now, it's time to discuss the most difficult thing to predict…the end of the modern era. It is challenging and one most people have a hard time struggling to do. It's far easier for people to predict the extinction of humans than the end of the modern era, since we live in it for so long that we just can't imagine any other system in place. But like all things, it will inevitably come to an end. All systems, empires, and eras die and the modern era will be no exception. It will die and a new grand period will take its place. Following the 13th century peace era, we still have two centuries left before the shock era of the 16th century and they are the death stage of the 14th century and the hope stage of the 15th century, that is the hope that despite the death, things are gonna soon be okay and that while it's sad, we'll get through with it together. The death of the premodern world is like the equivalent of finding out someone you loved died while the death of modern history would be like finding you will die…and will die after living a long life. So what will kill off modern history and what will follow it?  

So first off, before discussing the factors behind the decline of modern history, we need to first assure that the aftermath of the end will not resemble Mad Max or any post apocalyptic work in fiction. Post apocalyptic stories in fiction such as the radioactive deserts of Mad Max to the survivalist societies of The Walking Dead involve the rise of crude, gear-strapped civilizations. But if modern history were to truly come to an end, whether by the climate, global war, or systemic societal collapse, it’s unlikely the world would look anything like these stylized wastelands. Instead of a gritty rebirth of humanity among the ruins, what we’d more realistically see is an extended decay: a slow, irreversible erosion of infrastructure, knowledge, and the technologies that define the modern world. A common thread in post apocalyptic stories is the idea that survivors will repurpose the remnants of modern technology through salvaging cars, electricity, and even computing power to build new societies. But this relies on the assumption that modern technologies can survive indefinitely without the massive systems that sustain them. Consider the automobile. Even the most robust 4x4 is only as good as the fuel it runs on, the tires it wears, the electronics inside it, and the roads beneath it. Gasoline degrades in as little as six months without proper stabilizers. Rubber cracks. Electrical systems corrode. Without refineries, maintenance infrastructure, and global supply chains, modern vehicles become elaborate sculptures of a dead era within a few years. The same principle applies to nearly all of our tools. Solar panels degrade and need replacement parts. Wind turbines require precision, manufacturing, and upkeep. Batteries lose capacity. And perhaps most importantly, the knowledge required to maintain and rebuild these technologies, often stored digitally, would be lost or inaccessible if the grid and internet collapse. 

Modern civilization is built on electricity. It powers our water systems, hospitals, communication networks, agriculture, and transportation. If the systems that generate and distribute electricity, grids, power plants, substations, go offline, most of society would grind to a halt within days. Backup generators may buy time, but even those rely on fossil fuels that will soon run out or go bad. Without power, cities would become uninhabitable within weeks. No water pumping, no refrigeration, no heat or cooling. The modern world’s delicate balance would give way to something much simpler: not the rise of Mad Max type warlords, but the slow reversion to pre industrial living. If modern history truly ends, the more realistic scenario isn’t a world filled with leather clad bikers or gun toting survivalist enclaves with drones and radios. It’s a world where the surviving population reverts to agrarian or even hunter gatherer lifestyles. Tools will be rudimentary. Medicine will degrade rapidly. Communities will shrink and become isolated. The "post apocalyptic" world would look more like the early Middle Ages than any action movie: slow, local, and dangerously vulnerable. It may take decades or even centuries to develop a new form of civilization, one no longer reliant on the modern remnants of the 22nd and 23rd centuries. Knowledge, if not carefully preserved, will be lost. And the idea of "rebuilding" will look less like rebooting Silicon Valley and more like learning how to forge iron again. A lot of post-apocalyptic stories still view everything with a modern era lens and because of that people just cannot imagine what a world would look like without any modernity or modern era technology. If there was a Mad Max type story made during the Middle Ages it'll probably still shown remnants of feudalism and highly advanced fighting knights battling over water and crops. People's perception of the future will always be shaped by the present, and that includes me. 

When people imagine the end of modern history, they often conjure images of one sudden catastrophe such as nuclear war, global pandemics, or climate change. Yet history teaches us that the collapse of civilizations is rarely the result of one singular event. Instead, it unfolds gradually through various factors of political decay, economic strain, environmental degradation, and social fragmentation. A good way to predict how modern history will end is to look at how previous eras have ended, such as comparing the previous death stage of the 14th century as well as many factors that caused the collapse of civilizations such as Rome, Greece, Egypt, and others. 

During the previous death stage of the 14th century, there was not one single disaster but a convergence of crises that dismantled the feudal world. The Black Death, a bubonic plague that wiped out an estimated third of Europe’s population, is often viewed as the most dramatic event of the era. Yet it came amid other strains: climate cooling during the Little Ice Age, repeated famines (such as the Great Famine of 1315–1317), prolonged wars like the Hundred Years’ War, and widespread peasant unrest. Each crisis fed into the others. The plague decimated the labor force, destabilizing the manorial economy. Peasants, now in higher demand, began to demand wages and freedoms previously denied them, threatening the foundation of feudal hierarchies. Wars and taxation eroded royal authority and trust in the ruling classes. Religious institutions, long seen as the moral bedrock of society, were shaken by corruption, schism, and their failure to explain or stop the plague. Ultimately, these disruptions did not end civilization but they did end an era. The collapse of medieval norms laid the groundwork for the Renaissance, humanism, and the rise of modern nation states of the 15th and 16th century. The old world had to die before a new one could be born.

Ancient civilizations like Rome, Greece, and Egypt also ended not with a bang but with a long, painful unraveling. The fall of the Roman Empire is particularly instructive. While popular imagination often points to the barbarian invasions of the 5th century, Rome had been decaying internally for centuries: economic disparity, political corruption, overreliance on slave labor, a bloated military, and declining civic engagement had already weakened the state. Climate changes, plagues, and food insecurity further stressed the empire. The external invasions were merely the final blows to a system already buckling.

Greece, too, fell under internal instability, overextension, and conquest:first by Macedon, then Rome. Ancient Egypt’s decline was similarly marked by invasions, overcentralized bureaucracy, and periods of drought that disrupted agriculture in the Nile Valley. In each case, what we call "collapse" was actually a long process of decline and fragmentation. Modern civilization is arguably the most interconnected, technologically advanced, and globally integrated system humanity has ever built. But these strengths may also be our greatest vulnerabilities just as they were for empires like Rome and Egypt.

I predict various factors will be behind the decline of the modern era. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion mirror the agricultural and environmental stresses that plagued past societies, so it's likely they will cause some sort of catastrophe or a disaster, like a drought, famine or a large storm. Similar to the Black Death, it won't be the only cause but will be the final blow to the system. Another factor might be the growing wealth gap, debt driven economies, and a shrinking middle class that echo the unsustainable economic structures of late Rome or feudal Europe. COVID-19 showed how vulnerable our globalized world is to biological shocks, not unlike the Black Death’s impact in the 14th century. But unlike Covid, this plague could actually be devastating, wiping out entire cities and towns. With a massive loss of life, labor would become scarce. Much like the Romans relied on increasingly complex and rigid systems of governance and logistics, modern society is dangerously reliant on fragile global supply chains and digital infrastructure. It could also be way too big and expensive to manage. 

Whatever may cause death, the results would be shattering. The true devastation of such a collapse wouldn’t just be material. It would be psychological, cultural, and spiritual. The myths of modernity, of endless progress, growth, and control, would shatter. People would grieve not only lost lives and infrastructure, but lost futures. Education, careers, cities, art, and science would fade into memory. This despair, much like what followed the fall of Rome or the Black Death, could give way to nihilism, violence, or the rise of authoritarian ideologies promising order. Trust in institutions, in science, in human reason itself could vanish. But even here, in this bleakness, history shows us something remarkable: people do not stop living. They adapt, they remember, and they rebuild. Thus beginning…the hope stage.  

Hope doesn’t require comfort. It doesn’t deny suffering. It simply insists that even in devastation, life is not over. People still care for one another. They teach their children. They dream, even if the dreams look different.  Following the death stage of the 14th century, where the Black Death decimated Europe, the Renaissance bloomed during the hope stage of the 15th century. When Rome fell, new cultures and ideas rose in its place that are more localized, spiritual, and adaptive. Collapse clears the ground for reinvention.

So if the modern era ends, what might grow in its place?

For one thing, communities will be much more decentralized. Smaller, self sustaining groups may form, emphasizing cooperation, hard work, and local knowledge. Without industrial agriculture or global food transport, people may revive traditional farming, permaculture, and herding. In place of consumerism and digital distraction, new systems of meaning may arise, ones rooted in nature, interdependence, and humility. In the Renaissance of the 15th century, scholars went back to the classical texts, so we might see the same for medieval texts for all we know. Hidden away in books, archives, or oral traditions, fragments of science and medicine from that time period may survive, guiding future generations when they’re ready to build again. 

In the centuries that follow the end of the modern era, as people adapt to simpler, more localized lives, a strange reversal may occur. While modern people romanticize untouched forests, ancient ruins, and the natural world as sacred and pure, the people during the next hope stage and possibly next shock stage may instead come to worship and romanticize the machine. To them, the technological world that collapsed would not be seen as cold or destructive, but as mythical, a golden age lost to time, just as the ancients once spoke of Atlantis or Eden.

Imagine a crumbling city of the future with vines growing over abandoned monorails, rusted skyscrapers looming like old temples, silent factories where once lightning-fast machines crafted impossible tools. The villagers, farmers, healers, and artisans living in village collectives, might venture into these forbidden zones to scavenge. And in these places, they would find objects they do not fully understand: circuit boards, solar cells, battery casings, old surgical tools. Stripped of context, these artifacts could take on spiritual meaning. A CPU could be revered like a crystal. A broken drone might be displayed in a shrine. A child's storybook might tell of the “Skyweb” that connected all people, or the “Great Glow” that once powered entire cities from lightning caught beneath the ground. Just as medieval Europeans lived among the ruins of Rome, half understanding the grandeur that came before, post modern societies may look at the remnants of the modern world as evidence of gods, giants, or a people closer to perfection.

These stories wouldn’t be entirely untrue. The modern era did reach extraordinary heights. It placed satellites in orbit, cured diseases, created symphonies of code and computation. But in the absence of understanding, myths would fill in the gaps. The machine becomes a symbol of unity, how people once spoke across oceans in an instant, how no one went hungry because food came from vast machines. The machine becomes a symbol of fallen pride where humans reached too far, created too much, and were punished for their ambition. The machine becomes a symbol of hope, proof that people were once capable of miracles, and might one day rise again. This reverence could shape future cultures profoundly. Rituals might emerge around ancient tech. Songs might be sung in dead programming languages. A tribe might pass down a sacred “Data Tablet,” believing that when the right child is born, it will light up again and bring back the lost world. 

It's funny how people in a tech-filled world romanticize a simple life, while people in a so-called “simple life” romanticize tech. There is a deep irony here. In the modern era, many people turned away from technology in search of “authenticity” in nature, minimalism, or the past. But in a post modern world, where computers no longer hum and lights no longer shine, the machine will become what the forest once was: a source of wonder, mystery, and longing. This shift is more than symbolic. It speaks to a profound human need: to connect to something greater than ourselves. Whether it’s nature, gods, or code, we seek patterns and meaning beyond the visible. And when the modern era ends, those patterns will not disappear, they will mutate, re emerge in new mythologies, and guide the next phase of human culture. 

In my previous posts, I associated each century with a different kind of person that's masculine or feminine or young or old, but for the 14th and 15th centuries, I don't associate with any type of person or any group of people. The creature I associate with the 14th and the 15th centuries with... is the phoenix. The phoenix is a mythical bird that dies into ashes before being reborn again and it fits both centuries. The phoenix symbolized death and rebirth. The 14th century saw the death of the medieval world and the 15th century would see the emergence of a new era, as it is the transition between the medieval and modern world. It embodies the cyclical nature of life, death, and a return from the ashes. It represents transformation into new beginnings. 

      

                                                    

The 24th century will see the death of the modern era but the 25th century will emerge out of the ashes, a transition from the modern world of the previous centuries to the new shock era of the upcoming century, starting the cycle all over again. 

The end of the modern era will bring ruin, suffering, and silence. But the hope will also bring back memories and to introduce a new beginning. The machines that once served us, and perhaps destroyed us, will not be forgotten. They will be transformed, from tools into symbols, and from products into prayers.

And in that transformation, hope survives. Because to remember the past is to hold on to possibility. The sacred machine, like the sacred tree or the sacred mountain before it, will tell people: You were more once. And you could be again.