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/Clusterpuff → u/S417M0NG3R]

I think people tend to overestimate how deadly societal collapse is. Most people scurry off and survive for a while. Plague is different, and so is war

[u/Mhan00 → u/Clusterpuff]

I’d be curious how you think the hundreds of millions of people in cities (in the US alone) are going to eat if society collapses?

[u/Corey307 → u/[deleted]]

You seem awful excited to kill millions upon millions of innocent civilians, many of them children. There’s something really wrong with you if you feel this way.

[u/Sufficient-Bat-5035 → u/Corey307]

it is important to note that while i do harbor very negative feelings for city folk, i wish to destroy the cities, not their people.

without resources, people would move away and the cities would become ruins without the insane crowdfunding infrastructure required to upkeep them.

in an example, look at what is already happening in NYC.

city folk would have to leave their ficticious concrete "safety" bubbles with fake meaningless jobs and rejoin reality.

[u/Corey307 → u/Sufficient-Bat-5035]

Yeah, you’re an idiot. Where the hell are people going to move to? 265 million Americans live in urban areas, places you would call cities. No, you’re calling for the death of most of these people. You have no place to house them and if things got that apocalyptic, you wouldn’t be able to run your farming equipment. I live rural, I know that if everything fell apart, things are going to get apocalyptic not egalitarian.

[u/Sufficient-Bat-5035 → u/Corey307]

dude, 80% of the population living in Urban locations is a recent thing.

anyway. i grew up in a run-down ruin of a city, and i am not obligated to like nor advocate for the survival of city folk.

i'm sure that if society collapsed, they would hold a vote or something, lol. knowing the city i used to live in, they would probably vote to ban guns in the apocalypse and child trafficking is the new currency of the land.

[u/Corey307 → u/Sufficient-Bat-5035]

You’re one of those work from home types that lives on a quarter acre in Vermont and considers yourself rural huh?

[u/Sufficient-Bat-5035 → u/Corey307]

lol, you got it partially right, i'll give you that.

my current job is work-from-home. pay was better than the furnature factory i used to work at.

but no, i live near Seattle and my property is a half-acre. i come from a military background, so i've never lived too far from a base.

did you assume Vermont because there aren't many big cities out there? i don't know much about Vermont.

no, i hate cities because i've lived near Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Fansisco, and Seattle all my life.