“We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today – and self-termination is most likely,” says Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.
This article was an interesting read and I think the book will be interesting as well. The author argues that previous societal collapses were good for the population because they basically freed people from the oppression of the state. Societies (d)evolve toward increasing inequality, led by sociopathic oligarchs, then eventually collapse, freeing people to go back to their daily lives without having to enrich the overlords. For a while.
This time won’t be so pretty, because we are so interconnected and specialized, and because the climate change is more severe. It’s not inevitable according to the author, but the most likely outcome.
Thoughts?
[post by Dan T]
