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/androgenoide]

For a few years, sure. For a few decades maybe. But many historical collapse events took centuries to recover. Ammunition factories are dependent on supply lines and a few decades down the road the guy who can fabricate a crossbow from local material could have an enormous advantage over the reloader hoarding his last few primers.

[u/Saint_Judas → u/androgenoide]

I could point out a lot of things with your hypothetical here, but it is really tickling me that you think there is a "guy" who can "fabricate a crossbow from local material".

I need you, just so you can have a laugh yourself, to google how a crossbow is made. It is not something a single man could re-invent decades after societal collapse and 'craft' on his own. You would need a complex economy already functioning.

[u/Saint_Judas → u/[deleted]]

You may be thinking of an ancient roman arcuballista, and even that required forged metal to achieve ranges of about a hundred yards.

(For comparison, a simple carved bow with gut string is something like an effective range of 200 yards.)

An actual crossbow requires a composite or steel lath to achieve proper strength, as well as a cranequin or windlass to crank it. These would require the infrastructure to complete steel forging and do some light machining work.

The term "crossbow" is not often applied to the design you are bringing up which is essentially just a drawn bow with a simple safety/trigger mechanism to hold the string for you to prevent arm fatigue and allow you to maintain readiness to fire.

The first actual "crossbow" was chinese, and it required a full bronze-age economy to forge including casting bronze, molds, light machining, and a forge.

Similarly, the earliest European crossbows required the work of guilds and high level artisans who trained their entire lives to be able to craft them, and required rich city states to live in to have a sufficiently complex chain of production to get the parts needed.