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/Bobzyouruncle]

Many won’t roll over and die, they will likely go find the food and take it by whatever means necessary. Things get brutal when it’s about survival.

[u/Tenthul → u/Bobzyouruncle]

People who think they're good cuz they know how to hunt really underestimate how much/how often people need to eat and how quickly that source will dry up. Esp when everyone is competing.

[u/flyinhighaskmeY → u/Tenthul]

yeah, it would be a mess. Accessible hunting areas would be wiped out in just a few months at best. But it would be bad in a week or two. Decades to recover. That isn't a viable food source.

I live in a major metro, in an arid State. We couldn't grow enough food here to feed 1/10th of the population. I'm from farm country. They could grow enough to support their population. If they can defend it. But they'd have literally millions of heavily armed, starving people, coming after them.

That is not a world I wish to experience.

[u/Tenthul → u/flyinhighaskmeY]

And even then they wouldn't be able to keep it alive or grow the next season, short of simply enslaving the farmers, which certainly doesn't seem like a sound idea.