Are we living in an age where everything is collapsing? The financial markets, Europe, democracy? Nothing seems secure these days. But was it different in the past? Haven't great empires always disappeared much faster than they were built, and have drastic changes not always been more the result of tipping points than of slow processes? Ugo Bardi calls this phenomenon the Seneca Effect, because the Roman scholar was the first to understand that the destruction of social and natural systems follows different rules than their construction. It is the oft-quoted barrel that fills slowly before it suddenly overflows; the observation of ruin that takes only days, while many lives are needed to attain social status; or the looming collapse of the rainforest, which disappears once certain thresholds are crossed. We.