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Flippantly, a civilisation that lasts forever preserves itself one century at a time.
More seriously, my social circle includes people involved with long-term planning at some of" the longest-lived Western institutions (the old universities), and 100 years is the longest timescale that they find useful to think about. I was just reading this Freddie de Boer comment thread where someone pointed out that Japanese companies that see themselves as perpetual also plan out to 100 years (but most of the long-term planning energy goes int 20, 30 or 50 year plans). The "Longtermist" movement within rationalism/EA are thinking about the far future, but their plans for getting there all play out in considerably less than 100 years.
Everything that can happen will happen eventually, and nothing lasts forever, so a prediction that something will eventually collapse is as valuable as predicting that the sun will rise tomorrow. Predictions have shelf-lives - if they expire unfulfilled then they are wrong, not just early. And 100 years is too long a shelf-life for a meaningful prediction. Saying that western civilisation is degenerate is a statement about something that is happening now. Saying that western civilisation is collapsing is a statement about something that is happening now with consequences that should be undeniable soon. Right now I see obvious downward trends (mostly high-IQ fertility) which are affecting all advanced human societies roughly equally badly. But if I look at the West vs the Rest at the highest levels of civilisational achievement, I see our weapons triumphant on the battlefield in Ukraine, I see the ARM/TSMC/ASML axis of semiconductor excellence consolidating its supremacy in a way which gives its customers in Silicon Valley and other Western countries a permanent edge over their Chinese competition, I see Gwynne Shotwell ignoring her boss's inane social media antics and building bigger, better rockets, and above all I see talent continuing to move west voluntarily.
Tiktok is bad, and a threat to corrupt our youth. But I don't see why it is scarier than the sort of challenge we eat for breakfast on every page of the history books.
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