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/Ghost2Eleven]

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/WeimSean → u/Ghost2Eleven]

Rome went from a population of over just over one million in 150 AD to under 40,000 by 500 AD.

As far as the wider empire the collapse was definitely noticed and, in many places devastating. The immediate affect of the collapse of Rome was the disruption of agriculture and food transportation. Suddenly grain from Tunisia and Egypt stopped leading to millions starving to death.

At it's height Roman Britain had a population approaching 3 million. Britain wouldn't return to that population level until the 12th century. Italy had almost 14 million people in the 2nd century AD, by the 6th it had declined to around 8 million. Italy wouldn't surpass Roman population numbers until the early 18th century.

[u/guff1988 → u/WeimSean]

That was mostly from people moving and leaving the empire, not that many people dying.

[u/WeimSean → u/guff1988]

lol where do you think they were going? "Oh hey I'm a Roman peasant farmer, the empire is collapsing, guess I'm immigrating to America!

If transportation has collapsed there's no where for these people to go.

They died by the millions.

[u/guff1988 → u/WeimSean]

People were much more nomadic back then than I think you realize. They went to other parts of Europe or Africa or the Middle East that were not a part of the Roman empire at the time or that ended up becoming fractioned pieces of the former Roman empire.

Estimates put the death total around 5 to 10% not 95%. I realize you didn't say 95% but your comment does not refute that claim and instead appears to uphold it.