History repeats itself, the saying goes, and a recent NASA-funded study indicates that global industrial civilization may go the way of the Romans.

Warning that modern civilization is headed toward a collapse in the coming decades that is “difficult to avoid,” the study cites comparisons between the practices of past fallen empires and the income inequality and resource exploitation of the modern era.

The study, led by mathematician Safa Motesharrei, claims that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.”

“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” the study states.

To show the possibility of such recurrence in modernity, the study examined the interrelated factors that precipitated past civilization collapses before extrapolating those factors onto the current age.

They found that prior collapses consisted of certain imbalances in population, climate, water, agriculture and energy.

When these imbalances aligned, they lead to “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” and “the economic stratification of society into Elites (rich) and Masses (poor).”

While the study cites that such imbalances already are evident, it also argues that if certain policy changes are implemented, the collapse is reversible.

“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion,” the study states.