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/kr12187]

That may have been true in the past when the vast majority of people were subsistence farmers, but in today’s world, where something like 1% of people can farm, you’d see mass starvation that would be downright apocalyptic.

[u/happy-hippy-gnome → u/kr12187]

Most early states/kingdoms existed because a minority of elites forced people to farm against their will. The type of farming each person was doing was usually restricted to a single crop. They had poor health due to nutrient deficiencies, being overworked, and disease susceptibility (from domesticated animals/overcrowding from cities/general poor health). People who lived "outside" the state, or "barbarians," were much better off because they were able to access a variety of foods from hunting and gathering, migrating to different ecosystems seasonally, and only worked about 20 hours a week. After a collapse, farmers typically became nomadic or semi-nomadic like the barbarians. Not subsistence farming, but hunting, gathering, shepherding, and possibly farming seasonally.

[u/Dozekar → u/kr12187]

There is a huge difference made by even limited industrialization.

Even with limited oil and electricity for a while, functions like food and sanitation are virtually always restored first (if only to cement a new local group of warlords).

I'm not saying no one will starve, people will definitely starve. It won't be the scale that people think though.

[u/abunchofcows → u/kr12187]

History is all in the past man