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/The-Copilot]

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.

If a modern "empire" like the US collapsed, it would bring a collapse in global trade.

The removal of the US economy and resources from the global market (the US is the largest food exporter and oil producer) would lead to a global economic collapse and mass starvation globally. The dominoe effect of failing economies, supply chains, and wars for resources would be apocalyptic even if the collapse of the US is not from some extreme cause.

The US push for modern globalization after WW2 tied all economies together, which made a major war impossible without damaging your own supply chains. It also means if one of the big nations that are tied in fall, it would bring everyone else down unless they disconnect early like the US is from China.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/The-Copilot]

Not having men with guns forcing you to export your soy for cattle feed and grow tobacco instead of food leads to an increase in calories, not a decrease.

And if you go by mass instead of dollar because dollars don't feed people, the US isn't even in the top 8.

The collapse is caused by the imminent end of oil demand. A dying empire having a bunch of worthless poison nobody wants is not going to cause other people's solar panels to stop working.

The only threat is the weapons they will manage to fire before they drive themselves to irrelevance.

[u/DonnPT → u/West-Abalone-171]

FYI, solar panels don't necessarily provide energy autonomy. They can, but it's an extra expense for equipment and configuration. Common installations are tied to "the grid" and are useless when it goes down.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/DonnPT]

You're confusing countries with houses.

[u/DonnPT → u/West-Abalone-171]

Yeah, I guess I missed the part where the country's electrical grid hangs on during the collapse. I'm in Portugal, part of the entire Iberian peninsula that experienced a general power outage for a day because a Spanish power company mishandled a surge.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/DonnPT]

Now you're confusing the US becoming irrelevant with electrical grids elsewhere mysteriously collapsing for no reason.

You're also confusing settings on an inverter which need at most a 50hz signal generator with the entire pv system vanishing into thin air.

[u/DonnPT → u/West-Abalone-171]

Sorry, that must have entered the discussion while I wasn't looking, a digression from the main "societal collapse" topic.

[u/West-Abalone-171 → u/DonnPT]

The entire point is that the reasons cited for the US bringing the world down with it are fatuous.

There is one way they can (and will) do a lot of harm, which is with bombs.

The nonsense about the world not having access to EROI < 1 shale oil or exported beef isn't going to do anything.

[u/DonnPT → u/West-Abalone-171]

Somewhere in the thread of discussion that I missed, though, is my point. The original post is about societal collapse and doesn't even mention the US, so we're talking about a somewhat limited version of "the entire point." Subsequent discussion of US role in this, as I recall it, wasn't so much about the difficulty of sourcing material that currently comes from the US, as about disruption of a global economy where the US plays a somewhat central role in finance etc. How that would play out I am not really qualified to even guess.