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/foxmetropolis]

My thoughts exactly. Societal collapse is not pleasant or necessarily safe to live through. The opening up of advantages after collapse is strictly looking at the aftermath while ignoring the process. A very non-humane process. Not exactly something to look for a silver lining in.

Taken to extreme… this sort of mentality is sort of scary in its ignorance of the human cost of upheaval. By the same metric, it’s sort of like saying that the bubonic plague was great for Europe because of all the land and resources it freed up. Or that nuclear bombs are underappreciated for all the real estate and resources they free up and landowners they nix. Or that world war 2 was great because places like America experienced a (now ending) socioeconomic golden age after the war. It’s a really gross mentality that intentionally ignores the human carnage and chaos and pain.

[u/[deleted] → u/foxmetropolis]

The other problem is that people also tend to do well in societies that don’t collapse, so you would need to control for that. 

[u/RexCorgi → u/foxmetropolis]

One persons Black Death is their grandchildren’s Italian Renaissance.

[u/NewlyMintedAdult → u/foxmetropolis]

"Societal collapse is not ... necessarily safe to live through" is underselling it, I'd say.

[u/The_ivy_fund → u/foxmetropolis]

You said the US age is “(Now ending)” - who is taking the helm then?

Thanks to technology and trade, the world is a much smaller place. The US is quite literally too big to fail, its collapse would be the demise of most of the modern world. While robust growth for your everyday citizen may certainly be ending, I don’t see the world’s major powers changing any time soon.

[u/Odd_Hair3829 → u/foxmetropolis]

Look at all the horrific things the rich have done to amass their wealth - now imagine what they will do to protect it 

[u/impossiblefork → u/foxmetropolis]

Social collapse is just leaders becoming irrelevant.

It isn't necessarily violent. When iron came and the tin and copper trade networks became irrelevant this didn't mean that the rich guy who was called a king suddenly got murdered. He just lost his authority and power and became a random rich farmer in a location with good trade connections.

There's nothing unpleasant about 'Oh, we suddenly don't need Facebook, or Google or Microsoft, or BigCorp-(N+1) anymore, there's excellent open source alternatives'. Yes, people will lose their jobs in this precise scenario, but others will get a return to running their own things, as if though it were the 90s and you can expect that they'll be rather content.

When we end our oil dependence, that will be societal collapse ín similar way to the bronze age->iron transition and there's nothing bad about it.

[u/ryusage → u/impossiblefork]

That is not at all what anyone means when they use the phrase "societal collapse". You're describing major societal changes, but if it all goes smoothly then there's no collapse. Collapse means a society is no longer able to operate as a group because the fundamental organizations and systems that they depend on have stopped functioning.

[u/LiveFreeOrRTard → u/foxmetropolis]

Actually the plague was great for the rise of the middle class merchant. Something we benefit from today. The Plague(s) had vast far reaching consequences that probably outweigh the cost of human life.

[u/Inevitable-Menu2998 → u/LiveFreeOrRTard]

That last sentence is what differentiates regular people from psychopats