‘Goliath’s Curse’ and the Surprising Benefits of Societal Collapse

We’re obsessed with apocalypses, big and small. We fantasize about what the future might look like after the fall of society and fear the coming tribulation. Rome fretted about decline until its end. Stories of the Sea Peoples terrified the monarchs of the Late Bronze Age. During the 30 Years’ War, Europeans imagined Armageddon had finally begun.

But a funny thing happens after the collapse: things tend to get a little better for everyone.

Luke Kemp is here to hold our hands through the end of the world as we know it. Kemp is a researcher at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and the author of the book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.

• Beauty in collapse

• Matthew’s AI test

• The Doctor Doom mask

• “Collapse was good for most people.”

• Sea People’s mentioned

• Why a Goliath and not a Leviathan?

• Down with Thomas Hobbes

• Fear of a mass panic driving collapse

• “Emergency powers have a very funny tendency to stick around”

• The problem with guns, germs, and steel

• The Tree of Evil

• On the purpose of human sacrifice

• Doctor Doom is the belle of the ball

• Are we ending on a high note?

Buy Goliath’s Curse

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

The rewards of ruin