Jared Diamond used a ship metaphor to talk about how civilizations weathered storms. The big ships are safe, impressive, they are steady in normal seas when small boats rock about. But huge craft are vulnerable to catastrophic failure and literally break in two when seas are really high where small, agile, more flexible craft can ride out the storm. We are the large, apex devourer, and we have exceeded the biomass limits of our station. A food chain can only support so much weight at the top.