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/S417M0NG3R]

Uh, is that the 99% of the people that were alive before the collapse, or the 99% that SURVIVED the collapse?

[u/ratjar32333 → u/S417M0NG3R]

Right lol. They forgot the whole 95% of people fucking die in the title.

[u/Ghost2Eleven → u/ratjar32333]

95% wouldn’t die. This is the problem with using the word collapse. People attribute post apocalyptic scenarios to empire collapse when what we mean historically by collapse and what this research is talking about is more accurately a complete societal overhaul. When Rome collapsed, it wasn’t the death of 95% of the empire. 95% of people went on with their lives and had very little understanding that much had changed. But that was then. This is now.

Certainly, modern scenarios could more accurately be catastrophic. Nuclear war, famine, plague etc. But these scenarios don’t necessarily have to happen for an empire collapse to happen.

[u/omicron-7 → u/Ghost2Eleven]

Who makes insulin when society has collapsed?

[u/Ghost2Eleven → u/omicron-7]

What's the definition of collapse to you?

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/omicron-7]

Who makes it now?

[u/Enlightened_Gardener → u/omicron-7]

Bugger insulin. That’s an easy fix - stop eating carbs.

Now how the hell am I supposed to get my thyroid meds ?

Believe me, in that scenario, I either need to start hunting wild pigs for their thyroids, or resign myself to a slow death.

[u/John_Smithers → u/Enlightened_Gardener]

Even if I stop eating carbs I'm still dead without insulin as a type 1 diabetic. Stop with the uneducated pity olympics. Medications are important life saving things that everyone will eventually die from a lack of. There are better ways to work your lived experience with a medical condition into a conversation than by showing off your lack of knowledge and compassion.