‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse

Schwartzreport · one year ago · 112 views

Damian Carrrington,  Environmental Editor  -  The Guardian (U.K.)Stephan: I spend hours each day preparing for SR, reading papers and searching for general articles that reflect these papers, and what I am increasingly concerned is the rise of authoritarianism, the decline of democracy, and a catastrophic planetary collapse of wellbeing between 2040 and 2045. And I am not alone in this concern. To quote myself from the remote viewing the future paper I offer on my personal website      "But could something this cataclysmic actually happen only 15 years in our future? A group of scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology confirmed this remote viewing work in 1972, although neither I nor the viewers knew this. The MIT researchers used computer modelling to assess patterns shaping the future. They assessed trends and concluded almost exactly the same future the remote viewers had described, down to the same years the catastrophe occurred. Between 2040 and 2045 they saw the collapse of civilization. And other studies have also confirmed this future." The good news is that by 2060, those who survive will create a new culture based on wellbeing. Why is this happening? Here is one historian's assessment of the ast 5,000 years of history “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. “I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens. Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, 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. The work is scholarly, but the straight-talking Australian can [...]