Reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. They were written in the 50s-60s and its pretty astounding how he seems to have predicted how empire decline comes with a loss of technical and scientific expertise and society falls into anarchy as no-one can think from first principles anymore. Everyone becomes obsessed with social and political discourse because they have nothing to inspire them and the institutions eventually break down due to in-fighting.

Sounds familiar 

 I was thinking by the same way when reading the books. Even it was a few years back, the happenings around are like predicted. Really scary!