Luke Kemp, an academic from Cambridge, wrote in a new book about what society would look like if the end of the world would come. However, he explained that the collapse of a society has often brought benefits.
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In a new earthquake book, the academic from Cambridge Luke Kemp reaches a gloomy conclusion: all societies and empires collapse, he warns, because they feed on an unsustainable greed, writes the Daily Mail.
Dr. Kemp calls “Goliați” these companies, after the huge biblical that seemed invincible until a single stone thrown with the sling.
He says that every civilization in history was “self -destructive”. The pattern is always the same: huge inequalities between a restricted elite and the masses of ordinary people. From here appears the imbalance in decisions, because those in power – be it emperors, presidents or executive directors – rewrite the rules in their favor.
Civilizations are gradually emptied inside by corruption, internal struggles, excessive expansion, environmental destruction and what Kemp calls “masses”. The collapse of the infrastructure, the political systems and the rule of law makes them vulnerable to drought, fires, earthquakes, tsunami, floods, wars or epidemics – events that would otherwise be manageable, but which become a grace.
The main researcher at Center for the Study of Existential Risk of the University of Cambridge, Kemp shows that often the collapse of a society has also benefits, although local and with the price of dead and disasters.
The author also spoke about climate change, which now produces at an unprecedented speed – ten times faster than the global warming that caused the highest mass extinction in the history of the planet: the Great Permitian Death, which deleted between 80 and 90% of the forms of life 252 million years ago.
In 2023, hundreds of artificial intelligence researchers, including the heads of top companies such as Google Deepmind, publicly warned the real risk that the programs they developed will become hostile … capable of enslaving or extermining us.
The fact that humanity has not been consumed by a cataclysm is not, warns Kemp, a proof that this will not happen. The question is just how bad it will be.
He defines the “societal collapse” as the collapse of a state, accompanied by economic disaster and mass death. Any less than 10% of the lost global population does not qualify as a total collapse on a world scale. This happened in the past and humanity has recovered.
A global disaster, possible end -of -the -world scenario
A global disaster that would destroy the delicate network of telecommunications and food distribution could quickly transform civilization into chaos. Kemp recalls the Carrington event in 1859, a massive solar rash that, if they hit today, would burn much of the electrical infrastructure.
Without satellites, computers and internet, the banking system, medical services, telephone networks and many vehicles-from cars to military aircraft-they would cease to operate, on its own. The best estimates place the probability of such an event at 20.3% per decade – or 50/50 until the middle of this century.
Little optimism exists among the billionaires who have benefited the most from the computers and the Internet.
Peter Thiel, the mind behind the paypal online pay system, has a private plane ready to take him to his New Zealand bunker. In 2011, he bought a former 477 -year -old sheep farm on the South Island, as a refuge against Revelation. He also arranged his New Zealand citizenship, despite the fact that he spent only a dozen days in the country (the usual requirement being 1,350 days).
The position of the island, deep in the southern hemisphere, makes it well placed – theoretically, at least – to withstand the worst part of nuclear radiation, if a nuclear warMutual destruction insured ”. It would also be relatively isolated in the event of a new pandemic.
Sam Altman, the Openai CEO, revealed that he and Thiel have an agreement by which, if the collapse of the society were imminent, they will embark on a private plane and fly together to the bunker.
Kemp indicates “An entire fortified and luxurious mansion industry, with swimming pools, wineries, artificial gardens for the simulated sunlight and underground hydroponic farms, from Texas to the Czech Republic … In one case, even with a dozen former SEAL forces of the US Navy. “
Former Sam Bankman-Fried cryptocurrencies, considered the richest man in the world under 30, before being incarcerated for fraud last year, wanted to go even further and buy Nauru from Pacific, as a refuge for him and his extremely rich family.
What happens to developed countries
The billionaires could prepare for a global collapse, but the very poor are the ones who have the highest chances to go through it. If the industries of the world stop, developed countries, which depend on food imports, the first will be hit.
Then, as fertilizer and pesticide reserves are exhausted, the big producers in North America and Europe, China and India will see their production crashing. The yields of wheat, rice, corn and soy will decrease by at least 75%.
In Africa, where subsistence farmers use much less chemicals, rice production could only decrease by 25% and soy by only 5%. There will be hunger, but not at the scale of the disaster suffered by the richer countries.
Developing countries, on the other hand, are the most exposed to the risk of climatic changes. About 30 million people are currently living in places on the planet where average annual temperatures exceed 29 ° C.
But if the gases with continuous greenhouse gas effect at the medium or high level, it is estimated that by 2070 about 2 billion people will live in these hot conditions. This will cause massive migrations to colder areas, but it will also devastate agriculture. The surface of viable ground for corn and wheat crops would be halved.
