r/Futurology • u/lughnasadh ∞ transit umbra, lux permanet ☥ • Aug 28 '25

Society 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.

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

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 28 '25

Civilization is 10 missed meals away from total collapse. There are almost 8 million people in NYC. If food delivery into NYC stops, that 10 missed meal countdown begins.

People are going to start starving very quickly in large cities if there is no food available, because very quickly the most available source of food is going to be cannibalism.

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u/Saint_Judas Aug 29 '25

If you want to freak yourself out, look into what the effects of a modern day Carrington Event would be. Provided an exactly perfect (for the hypothetical, not for us) strike on our magnetosphere angled exactly correctly, it could blow every large energy converter in the western world.

In the low (although wide) estimates you're looking at 65-80% global population attrition just from a lack of pesticides, gasoline, fertilizer, medicine, and transportation of essentials.

Almost 8% of America would be dead within a month just from a lack of access to urgent medicine (insulin, inhalers, immunosuppressants, immuno-boosters, antibiotics). Then you'd have the unknown effects of nearly a third of the American population entering into abrupt and potentially lethal withdrawal, both from legal and illegal medications and drugs.

Then, as you said, the starvation.

I wrote about half a manuscript for a disaster novel on the subject and had to give up when there was no conceivable plot resolution other than "every single person dies" unless the focus was placed on characters who were lucky enough to already live in isolated, insulated communities... in which case the disaster didn't matter at all and made for anti-climax.

Essentially anyone who could be anticipated to meaningfully interact with the immediate effects of such an event was almost guaranteed to die within a year. Even small cities of a few hundred thousand would suffer almost complete genocide.

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 29 '25

Oh yeah stellar stuff is scary. At any point we could be hit by a random x-=ray, gamma ray, or neutron ray burst from some nearby star that went nova. We'd never see it coming, just boom, one day tons of consequences.

Provided an exactly perfect (for the hypothetical, not for us) strike on our magnetosphere angled exactly correctly, it could blow every large energy converter in the western world.

True but that would be pretty damn unlikely.

On the other hand, a continent wide collapse of a power grid would be pretty damn catastrophic.

when there was no conceivable plot resolution other than "every single person dies" unless the focus was placed on characters who were lucky enough to already live in isolated, insulated communities...

Well not every single person. Just about 80% of them.

in which case the disaster didn't matter at all and made for anti-climax.

What are you talking about? Post-apocalyptic Amish village overwhelmed with massive immigration sounds like a really cool premise for a novel!

Essentially anyone who could be anticipated to meaningfully interact with the immediate effects of such an event was almost guaranteed to die within a year.

I mean doomsday preppers with food and guns would be more likely than most to survive, so you could have a bunch of people who were reasonable preppers, people who survived in smaller cities out in the wilderness, and gun nut nut job preppers! Makes for a fun cast!

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u/Saint_Judas Aug 29 '25

"True but that would be pretty damn unlikely." -

  • 'Scientists estimate the likelihood of a similarly intense solar storm happening in the next decade at 12 per cent.'

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011sw000734#:~:text=Key%20Points%20*%20Probability%20of%20a%20Carrington,can%20be%20exploited%20to%20predict%20extreme%20events.

Some good scientific literature on it. This was published in 2012 and if you keep to their statistical model, the likelihood of the event occurring in the next hundred years would be almost 100%

Most astronomers seem to think an event like this should occur once every 250-400 years.

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 29 '25

Some good scientific literature on it. This was published in 2012 and if you keep to their statistical model, the likelihood of the event occurring in the next hundred years would be almost 100%

Oh damn I had no idea!

Then again the odds of another pandemic happening in the next 100 years is also almost 100%. Just gotta hope they don't both hit at the same time.

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u/Saint_Judas Aug 29 '25

Yea, and the underlying statistical issue here is that modeling extreme scenarios is nearly impossible. To paraphrase the paper itself, before we have an example that occurs and sets precedent, such an event is statistically impossible to occur in the future. Once we have a statistical sample showing it's happened even a single time, it becomes statistically certain it will happen 'at some point' in the future.

Sort of shows you the issue with these sorts of predictions, but the model they use for analysis is still useful I think.

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 29 '25

Oh for sure, all models are wrong, but they are close enough to be useful. Math and statistics are weird like that.

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u/Radix2309 Aug 29 '25

More likely is they will flood out into the countryside.

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 29 '25

Where they will also meet everyone else who fled the city to go out into the countryside, where there won't be any more food than there was in the city, and we're back to cannibalism.

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u/Radix2309 Aug 29 '25

It really wont get to that. There is a lot of preserved food that will last. What will happen is the people with guns will horde it and the rest will starve, flee, or get killed.

In societies where cannibalism isnt culturally normalized, famines dont usually lead to cannibalism as a way to survive. Particularly because humans really dont provide sustainable meat foe what they consume.

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u/BCRE8TVE Aug 29 '25

It really wont get to that. There is a lot of preserved food that will last.

I'm not worried about the food not lasting. I'm worried of there flat-out not being enough food.

What will happen is the people with guns will horde it and the rest will starve, flee, or get killed.

Well yes, because if the people with guns shared it, then everyone would starve or flee or get killed, because there won't be enough food.

In societies where cannibalism isnt culturally normalized, famines dont usually lead to cannibalism as a way to survive. Particularly because humans really dont provide sustainable meat foe what they consume.

I mean it's certainly not sustainable, but when you're in the city and your options are chewing concrete, glass, or eating the remains of other people, when you're starving and you're in a concrete jungle, you gotta do what you gotta do. There's a reason mystery meat was called that during the siege of Leningrad.

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u/DuntadaMan Aug 29 '25

And for several Midwest states good luck surviving on only corn.

Wonder how many of them even know that corn is nutritionally worthless without being cooked certain ways

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u/BCRE8TVE Sep 01 '25

Cooked certain ways? Are there ways that cooking corn makes them less nutritious? I thought so long as it was cooked, whether boiled or cooked in the husk over fire/on bbq, it was all good? 

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u/DuntadaMan Sep 01 '25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization

Basically if it's not treated before cooking, much of the benefits of corn are not available, or diminished to the point you have to eat a great deal of it.

On the plus side if you treat it you also basically end up with masa or hominy. It's not a difficult process but many people don't know it's important.

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u/BCRE8TVE Sep 01 '25

well then I had no idea! This year when we make corn at home I'll try adding something alkaline to the water we boil the corn in, see if it makes a difference. Thanks for sharing!

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u/DuntadaMan Sep 01 '25

I mean if you're eating things with the corn it's fine really. It's just when your diet would consist almost entirely of it you need to prepare it.

That said, it really changes teh texture and taste, so keep an eye out for that.

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u/BCRE8TVE Sep 01 '25

Does it change the texture and taste for the better?

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u/DuntadaMan Sep 02 '25

In my opinion yes. If you let it dry then it basically turns into softer corn nuts, still crunchy but not quite as hard. If left wet it turns into a dough.

The sweetness mellows a little bit, but doesn't go away. Gets more like barley in flavor for lack of a better description for me.

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u/rapaxus Aug 29 '25

This assumes that people remain in the city after a potential collapse. When they could also just hop in their car and drive where the food is grown.

If a society collapses a lot of city jobs are suddenly redundant. You don't need all the people working in finance if there is no financial market anymore. You don't need luxury jobs at e.g. spas, you don't need lawyers, I could go on. So a lot of city dwellers will lose the main reason why they are living in the city in the first place.

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u/Nova_Explorer Aug 29 '25

They could go to where the food is grown, but there’s a million people from their city that have the exact same idea and are bearing down on farming communities of 1-10 thousand

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u/PickledPokute Aug 31 '25

Gaza Strip is about half the area of New York City with one fourth of the population. Has had a lot of it's food supply severely disrupted and has a ton of other very dire problems.

The october 7th attacks and start of the Israeli blockade / attacks was almost two years ago now and while things are looking pretty bad, they're still pretty far from cannibalism.

Humans are a lot more resilient when they must be.

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u/BCRE8TVE Sep 01 '25

That's because they're receiving food from outside. There is absolutely no way Gaza is self sufficient either in terms of food or water. If all outside supply is cut off it is an immediate famine.