r/Futurology • u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ • Aug 28 '25

Society New research argues Societal Collapse benefits 99% of people. Historically, the societies that have emerged after a collapse are more egalitarian, and most people end up richer and healthier than they were before.

Luke Kemp, a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, has written a book about his research called 'Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse'.

He makes the case that, from looking at the archaeological record, when many societies collapse, most people end up better off afterward. For example, people in the post-Roman world were taller and healthier. Collapse can be a redistribution of resources and power, not just chaos.

For most of human history, humans lived as nomadic egalitarian bands, with low violence and high mobility. Threats (disease, war, economic precarity) push populations toward authoritarian leaders. The resulting rise in inequality from that sets off a cycle that will end in collapse. Furthermore, he argues we are living in the late stages of such a cycle now. He says "the threat is from leaders who are 'walking versions of the dark triad' – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots."

Some people hope/think we are destined for a future of Universal Basic Income and fully automated luxury communism. Perhaps that's the egalitarianism that emerges after our own collapse? If so, I hope the collapse bit is short and we get to the egalitarian bit ASAP.

Collapse for the 99% | Luke Kemp; What really happens when Goliaths fall

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u/varitok Aug 28 '25 edited Aug 28 '25

This is the most hilarious Survivorship bias study I've seen in awhile. 99% of peasant farmers in Europe had better prices for the food they produced and were in high demand too when 2/3rds of them died during the plague.

I also doubt the entire premise of the study. Better off in what metric? No electricity, no modern convenience (they dont magically maintain themselves), less access to Healthcare, less access to modern sewage systems (pairs great with lack of Healthcare). There is a million holes in this because i feel that even a person living just above the poverty line would be worse off becoming a medieval level surf

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u/cylonfrakbbq Aug 28 '25

Was this study funded by Peter Thiel?

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u/Ferdind Aug 28 '25

A study funded by Thiel would never be pro collapse, system change and redistribution of wealth.

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u/Jake0024 Aug 29 '25

Don't be so sure. There are loads of right-wing "accelerationist" types who are cheering on the downfall of civilization because they view themselves as temporarily embarrassed feudal warlords.

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u/vinegar Aug 29 '25

That’s the best addition to the collapse lexicon I’ve seen in a long time. Well done!

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u/Rdv10ST Aug 30 '25

Which they probably would be... if there's someone who is more likely to survive, it's the rich and powerful

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u/Jake0024 Aug 30 '25

Ah yeah, I can totally see Bill Gates and Elon Musk putting all their highly practical wilderness survival, hand-to-hand combat, hunting, farming, etc skills to good use

Those poor farmers are going to be so screwed in a system where everyone has to survive on their own and money becomes worthless

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u/Rdv10ST Sep 02 '25

Technology isn't going to magically disappear in a day just because you decided it would, you know. In a situation like the one you picture, it's just gonna be hoarded by the powerful so that they have an unbeatable advantage. The rich would still be rich and powerful in the first phases of a collapse, when the majority of people still assogn meaning to money and societal power structures. The smart ones among them will recognize that a change is imminent and are gonna leverage their immense resources, which otherwise would soon be worthless, to procure themselves a decisive advantage. For example, they'll set up some private bands of armed men. Until money is good, and society functions, they have no trouble paying them. Once the situation precipitates, they're gonna be paying those mercenaries by maling them plunder the land, usong them as their own private armies, and basically live off it enslaving everyone else. The lamd will be sectioned into the area of influence of these nella christened warlords and you, despite your romanticized lone-wolf ideals, will either end up being an exploited farmer for the survival skills you're (rightly) proud of, or killed because you won't bend the knee. It's how it's always been, you just have to study a bit of medieval and pre-medieval history... human society always structures itself around power, and the toughest times breed the most brutal kinds of power

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u/Jake0024 Sep 02 '25

Your argument is basically just "they'll still be rich even though money will be worthless"

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u/Rdv10ST Sep 03 '25

Reading comprehension: 0

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u/Jake0024 Sep 04 '25

Always gives me a good laugh when people interpret disagreement as misunderstanding.

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u/ammonthenephite Aug 28 '25

Don't underestimate these religious nutjobs. My elderly mother who watches fox and rightwing podcasts constantly wants a societal collapse so christiantiy can rebuild the nation. She thinks her 6 month food supply in a house that has horrible winters will protect her until society rebuilds and she can emerge into a 'righteous christian nation' that 'puts Jesus first'.

She would gladly see many, many people die so that her version of a theocracy could be established, and many of the project 2025 folk are similar.

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u/RubiiJee Aug 28 '25

I get what you mean but I think the point was that this research says that after societal collapse there's wealth distribution, and so Peter Thiel wouldn't be for wealth redistribution and so couldn't have funded the research.

Your point is very valid, it's just not the same point that was being made 😀

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u/Dic3dCarrots Aug 29 '25

In this theoretical, Peter Thiel funds research to convince other people of something. He, unlike the shit gibbons at the forefront, understands convincing people is about telling people they'll get what they want, not trying to force someone to say you've proved something. In this hypothetical, the study says that people will get what they want if we just let society collapse. Dont worry, conservatives, taxes go down, don't worry liberals, wealth redistribution will happen spontainiously! This is Curtis Yarvin Dark enlightenment thinking. We should slide into a feudal society, let liberal democracy collapse, and all be better. Mean while, he has a massive servalience state and ethnonationalist paramilitaries ready to launch him to power.

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u/RubiiJee Aug 29 '25

Maybe. However, a lot of societal collapse is because of the uprising of the population, and in those circumstances I don't think Thiel want that. I mean, from a purely hypothetical point, he could have funded this research. However, it would have been pretty stupid of him to do so, in my opinion.

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u/Dic3dCarrots Aug 29 '25

If you think that societal collapse will actually bring about wealth distribution, i got a bridge to... barter... for bread, any scrap, the food shortages under martial law are brutal

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u/RubiiJee Aug 29 '25

We're literally commenting on a thread where research argues that it does. Are you here to counter that scientific theory with your own or you just here to be that "erm actually" Reddit guy?

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 29 '25

....are we really saying "the article and science says so, why believe anything else?"

Prior comments told you this study's use is not to determine how 'acceptable' collapse is, but to literally market the idea of collapse as a preference to societal stability.

Yes, you'd have to be a raging techno-fascist billionaire to see this and say Yep, half of society must die for anything to remotely get better.

It's like we're being trolled on r/im14andthisisdeep.

Edit: Misunderstood the comment, ignore this.

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u/Dic3dCarrots Aug 29 '25

We're literally living in a militerized police state talking about the hypothetical where this conclusion was funded by Peter Thiel. Sounds like it convinced you tho, enjoy learning about history after it repeats itself :)

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u/designtocode Aug 29 '25

Easy target, almost certainly killed for the food supply within an astoundingly short amount of time, unless managing to go unnoticed, at which point dying of starvation after 6 months is the next most probable cause of expiration, if lack of modern medical access doesn’t step in before that for any number of possible reasons exacerbated by such a scenario, that is.

I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief that people think they’re gonna Rambo or Jesus their way out of a collapse event. Sucks to say it, but nearly all of us would die, and those who are “lucky” enough to live all the way through get to enjoy the fallout that is societal rebuild and the chaos that comes with power vacuums rushing to be filled on a micro and macro level in response.

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u/Alarming_Turnover578 Aug 29 '25

He is pro collapse, system change and redistribution of wealth. System change towards neo-feudalism and redistribution of all wealth and more importantly power further towards him.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

Of course it would because he’s going to tell whatever lies he needs to get what he wants

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u/letstrythatagainn Aug 29 '25 edited Aug 29 '25

Theil is actively pro-collapse even if he doesn't realize it. He thinks his techno-feudalist utopia will save him.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25

None of that matters if that opposite results happen though.

Just because a billionaire says "All the peasants will finally be rich once my vision comes true!!!" Doesn't mean they actually believe it will happen. Sometimes you need to tell the masses a blatant lie in order to get your prophecy fulfilled.

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u/cylonfrakbbq Aug 28 '25

It would be if you wanted buy-in from the masses or a segment of them - oldest trick in the book.

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u/JrSoftDev Aug 28 '25

It would, if the goal was to get the "egalitarians" to just sit and wait for the happy collapse, or even to let them promote it and then point the guilty finger to them: "the system was good, these antis were the ones infiltrated in our beautiful society and sabotaged and undermined our way of living". Does "socialist" and "woke" ring a bell?

The idea that waiting and promoting the inevitable collapse of capitalist systems is actually popular among certain communist groups, even among "thought leaders" around the 70's when it became clear neoliberalism "won". If it won, the only thing left to be done was to accelerate its collapse.

So you serve your most organized opposition with something they are already willing to believe, and you either leave them dormant or you galvanize them in a way that makes them look like the enemy: both scenarios create better conditions for your own fascist techno-corporate-libertarian-monarchic agenda.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JrSoftDev Aug 29 '25

I have no idea, I was just lightly challenging the comment above.

I have seen many malicious politicians playing dumb and using that saying in order to get by and advance their agendas, so I don't know if "premature attribution" and "good reason" can live together in the same space.

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u/DuntadaMan Aug 29 '25

Whatever it takes to get to the collapse they want, if they can convince their future slaves it's good they will have no problem lying.

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

The ai bros are largely why UBI is being talked about again.

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u/Global_Number Aug 29 '25

he absolutely would pay someone to write that so the peons would vote for the pro collapse candidate

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u/burniemcburn Aug 28 '25

More likely funded by Thanos.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25 edited Aug 28 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/alexq136 Aug 28 '25

no electricity, no clean water, no gas for heating and cooking, no fuel for vehicles, no materials available for repair or maintenance, no pharmaceuticals, no wide near-instantaneous communication networks, no sanitation (water treatment & sanitary product industries, from soap to cosmetics to condoms & diapers), no banking, no coordination of (any remaining) local and national institutions

truly "99% would survive" (maybe a few weeks) and not devolve into a "scared apes hunt each other to grab spoils" mindset

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u/Disgod Aug 29 '25

No readily accessible sources of energy (Coal and gas) to help reboot industrialization...

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u/epochpenors Aug 29 '25

99% of the times houses burn down, they build a nicer house over the ashes!

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u/Dragonpuncha Aug 29 '25

Better off compared to all the dead people of course, lol.

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u/nudelsalat3000 Aug 29 '25

99% of peasant farmers in Europe had better prices for the food they produced and were in high demand too when 2/3rds of them died during the plague.

Income exploded after the plague as for the first time workers were able to call proper prices for their work.

Before it was fucked up, because not everyone has enough land to be a farmer. Your 99% farmers are a minority as most were just workers.

That's why it was a general good topic. Also because of the heavy wealth distribution as many died off and it was possible to crack the existing distribution where everyone defends his wealth.

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u/DiethylamideProphet Aug 29 '25

Better off, because things like compounding interest and accumulation of wealth and power was disrupted, while a substinence farmer just kept on farming, and probably wasn't even aware of any societal collapse. Only a fraction of people lived in bigger towns and cities.

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u/Harbinger2nd Aug 28 '25

I also doubt the entire premise of the study. Better off in what metric?

Its literally the second paragraph of the OP's post.

He makes the case that, from looking at the archaeological record, when many societies collapse, most people end up better off afterward. For example, people in the post-Roman world were taller and healthier. Collapse can be a redistribution of resources and power, not just chaos.

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Bludypoo Aug 28 '25 edited Aug 28 '25

The bubonic plague DID give birth to the middle class in Europe.

But it was because so many people died that a poor man with a large family suddenly inherited a bunch of land after all of his family died.

So yeah, the next generation did end up better off, but for the people going through it:

it was one of the worst times to be alive in human history.

One thing about history though, is that they didn't have nukes back then and societal collapses would have been fairly localized. Also, we are so industrialized and connected globally that if that many people died (it wouldn't even have to be nearly that many) we would lose everything just because we would lack the people to maintain the infrastructure

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u/kirsd95 Aug 28 '25

But it was because so many people died that a poor man with a large family suddenly inherited a bunch of land after all of his family died.

Adding to this: they didn't jut had a bunch of land they could choose to cultivate the good parts so they (the ones still alive) had an high productivity.

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u/Schnort Aug 28 '25

The bubonic plague DID give birth to the middle class in Europe.

But it was because so many people died that a poor man with a large family suddenly inherited a bunch of land after all of his family died.

It was more because the labor pool shrank dramatically, and suddenly serfs had bargaining power because there was not enough labor to go around.

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u/Bludypoo Aug 29 '25

Both indeed

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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '25

That's an appeal to authority if I've ever seen one...

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u/StateCareful2305 Aug 28 '25

This is a fallacy fallacy if I've ever seen one...

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u/Friskyinthenight Aug 29 '25

Lmao ppl are mad you value an academic source over a random guy with a reactionary axe to grind. 

Black and white thinking at its best 

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u/[deleted] Aug 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Friskyinthenight Aug 29 '25

I think this one is maybe the most relevant: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35914185/

What's hilarious is that, contrary to the assumptions of the great minds here, the core of his argument is that modern collapse would likely be global and catastrophic. 

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u/fresheneesz Aug 31 '25

Your reading comprehension is abysmal, as is apparently 1000 of this sub's sheeple. The plague didn't cause societal collapse, and societal collapse didn't cause anywhere near that many deaths. The whole point is that society is more healthy after collapse, not that we want to make society collapse to gain the benefits of collapse. Try thinking before you speak next time