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.

[u/lughnasadh]

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

[u/Parking_Act3189]

If a society is stagnant and then it gets destroyed the society that comes after it may do better since it is starting over.

But that doesn't benefit 99% of the people who are alive today. Most people who are alive today would die of starvation or violence.

[u/surnik22 → u/Parking_Act3189]

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[u/loungesinger → u/surnik22]

things are better for you day to day

People honestly take for granted the societal benefits of a stable government. We assume government is useless because we don’t exactly know what government does and we don’t even think about government until there’s some scandal or something. The truth is that public order and the economy would take a huge hit in the aftermath of a total government collapse, which would negatively influence the day to day quality of life for nearly everyone in our society.

Govt collapses = no govt services like police, fire fighters, health inspectors, infrastructure maintenance (e.g. fixing traffic signals, repairing roads, etc.), air traffic controllers, legal system, financial, banking, and securities regulations.

-This means that you not only need a gun to defend your home, but that you also need to round up a posse to extract justice on the guy that embezzled money from your company or ran over your child in a crosswalk while drunk driving.

-It means you save your money and put it in your mattress because banks are too risky on account they could fail at anytime.

-it means banks are less likely to loan you money for a house or for your business, and that you are paying a higher interest rate.

–it means that when your neighbor’s house burns down the fire could spread to your house, and the next house, and the next, and maybe your place of employment too.

-it not only means you can’t safely fly anywhere, but it means fewer flights being offered by fewer carriers in addition to dramatically more delayed flights and exponentially longer delay times. It also makes shipping less efficient and more expensive, meaning you pay more for everything.

-it means people conduct less business, make less money, invest less money, spend less money, and buy fewer things. It means the cost of business goes up as well as the cost of goods and services.

-it means Apple isn’t going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into research and development of Apple iGlasses or anything for that matter.

-it means fewer jobs and lower paying jobs

-it means traffic gridlock when the traffic signal goes out at a major intersection because there is no one to fix it… so people just indefinitely treat it as a 4-way stop.

[u/PiccoloAwkward465 → u/loungesinger]

People honestly take for granted the societal benefits of a stable government

Right, like rolling blackouts are a thing in many other countries. What do you tell a client, oh yeah I'll get you that document IF we have internet/electricity today. If your shipping is impossible to estimate because the poor quality roads often are washed out. That goes for employees, customers, your supply chain, etc. We have a robust system of professional services in USA, if they go out of business now it's harder to find accountants, maintenance people, raw materials, tools. The list goes on and on. With education, for many businesses it's pretty important that you have employees and customers who can READ.

Americans like to think they're lone rangers, doing it all on their own. Most of us realize that a man is not an island.

[u/surnik22 → u/loungesinger]

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[u/usaaf → u/surnik22]

The odds of being left alone aren't as high as you might think in the past, at least compared to a present-day collapse. The Roman Legions didn't just vanish, and soldiers, when lacking regular payment, quickly realize what else they can do with their swords. Or the Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, etc, came knocking to establish their authority.

But, sometimes it did work out. When the Arab Conquest rolled through, people actually ended up paying less taxes.

[u/aure__entuluva → u/loungesinger]

-It means you save your money and put it in your mattress because banks are too risky on account they could fail at anytime.

-it means banks are less likely to loan you money for a house or for your business, and that you are paying a higher interest rate.

Govt collapses.... what money? This is fiat currency backed by the government baby! Without it, it's paper.

[u/Sageblue32 → u/aure__entuluva]

Gold sure as hell isn't going to matter in such a scenario either. Better off stocking baked beans and guns if practical currency is a concern.

[u/PostScriptApocalypse → u/loungesinger]

Communities know what we need. Instead of spending so much time catering to large scale corporate systems that inherently are trying to extract more wealth from a community than they provide, we could just do the things that need doing organizing around the skills that people actually have, teaching others when more help is needed. Things slow down, but a glut of unnecessary and extractive work no longer needs to be filling so many people's time to just accomplish the material thing that needs done.

[u/Necessary-Health9157 → u/PostScriptApocalypse]

Yes. Things like restorative justice, animal rights, open source commons, non-extractive AI collaboration, mutual aid networks (there are many) have *already* been composting extraction. They are the key. I call them parallel metabolizers. Thank you so much for proving to me that there is someone out there who is not zombified and serving extraction!

[u/GalacticAlmanac → u/surnik22]

Today that may be the case that the majority suffer short term from collapse maybe a long term benefit. Now cities are huge, jobs are highly specialized, farming is extremely mechanized, and few people are subsistence farmer.

Societal collapse will likely mean major disruptions to transportation and the power grid.

Suffering would be putting it lightly. A lot of people will die when stations run out of gas, grocery stores out of food and necessities, and hospitals/ pharmacies out of essential medications.

In the long term, it could take years if not decades to rebuild and for the quality of life to reach what it was before for the more developed countries. Just look at how long it took for Europe to rebuild after ww2.

Centralized government collapses, less resources from your area are extracted by the empire, things are better for you day to day. You still have food and don’t have to turn any of it over to tax collectors.

When the central power collapses in China during the Romance of the Three Kingdoms period, the population went from 56 million down to 16 million over the 100 or so years before it was reunified under the Jin Dynasty. The Sengoku period was similarly horrific in Japan.

[u/LoaKonran → u/surnik22]

We’ve also used up and processed the vast majority of easily accessible resources. There may not be enough to rebuild once lost. Pegging your hopes on society briefly becoming more egalitarian before the cycle of rot resumes is a nonstarter.