Ep 194 | Luke Kemp
The Past and Future of Societal Collapse: Why Civilizations Fall and What We Can Learn From It
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The Great Simplification
Description
For many people today, the idea of societal collapse is unimaginable. Yet history shows that well-established civilizations have fallen again and again – often for similar reasons. In fact, the same forces that build empires can also culminate in their downfall. How can understanding these historical patterns help us prepare for similar existential risks we may already be facing today?
In this episode, Nate is joined by existential risk researcher Luke Kemp to explore the intricate history of societal collapse – connecting patterns of dominance hierarchies, resource control, and inequality to create societies which he calls Goliaths. Together, they delve into the deep history of what egalitarian humans were like before complex civilizations emerged, and the changes in climate and agriculture that created the conditions for hierarchical societies. Luke explains how these very same factors have culminated in the rise and fall of Goliaths, and how these have led to today’s global challenges such as nuclear warfare and even AI-fueled surveillance states.
Can knowing our past help us avoid repeating it? Are we in collapse now, and was this civilizational trajectory inevitable? How does the study of civilizational collapse help us grasp the best and worst of humanity – and can we use that knowledge to lean into the better sides of ourselves and put ourselves on a different, more resilient path?
About Luke Kemp
Luke is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) and Darwin College at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on understanding the history and future of extreme global risk. Luke has advised the WHO and multiple international institutions, and his work has been covered by media outlets such as the BBC, New York Times, and the New Yorker. He holds both a Doctorate in International Relations and a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies with first class honours from the Australian National University (ANU). His first book, titled Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, was published in 2025 and is now available.
In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President
That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher
We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF
This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
00:00 – Luke Kemp’s work, His new book: Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse, (Previous TGS Episode)
04:18 – Incan Empire, Quipu
04:50 – Latin root civilitas
05:54 – Dominance hierarchy
06:26 – Goliath grouper fish
07:34 – Urbanism
07:40 – Indus Valley Civilization
07:55 – Teotihuacán
08:15 – Obsidian traded 41,000 to 32,000 years ago
08:37 – Göbekli Tepe
10:20 – Paul R. Duffy, et al. – “Five thousand years of inequality in the Carpathian Basin”
11:25 – The Agricultural Revolution
11:28 – The Bronze Age
12:51 – Definition of a state
13:16 – Yellow River Valley Civilization, Uruk Civilization, First Dynasty of Egypt, Tiwanaku Civilization, Wari Civilization, Zapotec Civilization
15:15 – R. Michael Bourke – “History of agriculture in Papua New Guinea”
16:50 – Supernormal stimuli
18:55 – Nate Hagens – “Economics for the future – Beyond the superorganism”
18:58 – Lewis Mumford – The Myth of the Machine
19:05 – Multipolar traps + Multipolar Traps or Moloch Traps | Conversational Leadership
20:00 – Bronze Age weaponry examples
20:20 – The Chumash People
21:00 – Comanche people
23:20 – Better-off men and women are more likely to have children than less well-off men and women
25:10 – TGS Reality Roundtable on the dark triad, Dark triad personality traits
25:18 – Psychopathy
25:22 – Machiavellianism
25:30 – Narcissism
26:16 – Christopher Boehm – Hierarchy in the Forest
28:45 – Pair bonding versus Tournament species’ display traits
33:08 – People higher in economic hierarchy have less empathy than low-income counterparts and are more likely to cheat
34:08 – Brian Klaas – Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us
34:18 – Positive feedback loops
34:45 – Psychopathy representation in positions of power
36:05 – Frankly 105: The Key Blindspots of the “Walrus” Movement
36:40 – Damian Carrington – “‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse” (Luke Kemp article with The Guardian from August 2nd, 2025)
37:18 – Michael Mann – The Sources of Social Power
40:55 – Thomas Hobbes: “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
41:35 – Social contract
42:05 – Vedic Mahabharata
42:18 – Buddhist dharmakāya
44:15 – Hobbes and Rousseau both believed that humans were innately solitary
44:28 – Humans are prosocial primates
44:32 – Tiana Herring – “The research is clear: Solitary confinement causes long-lasting harm”
45:45 – Dunbar’s number
46:20 – Neocortex and its functions
47:25 – Aurignacian culture
48:25 – Paleolithic Period, Toba supereruption, Ice ages of Earth
53:48 – Steven Pinker – The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
55:00 – José María Gómez – “The phylogenetic roots of human lethal violence”
55:18 – Wartime soldiers’ hesitancy to shoot
55:45 – Rwandan genocide, Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira, et al. – “Analyzing Participation in the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda”
56:30 – Siniša Malešević – The Rise of Organized Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence
58:30 – Australia’s baby bonus policy
58:00 – Hungary’s “Population First” Economy
1:00:00 – Introduction of European diseases into Mesoamerica
1:01:15 – Barbarism
1:03:20 – Principle of least effort
1:03:40 – Khoisan hunter-gatherer quote is from Man the Hunter by Richard B. Lee and Irene DeVore
1:04:22 – Haroldson L. Hunt
1:06:41 – Thomas Piketty – Capital in the Twenty-First Century
1:09:00 – Ҫatalhöyük in modern day Turkey, Tiwanaku and Monte Albán in Mesoamerica/South America
1:09:08 – Peter Turchin TGS Episode
1:10:35 – Charles S. Spencer – “Territorial expansion and primary state formation”
1:10:55 – States versus chiefdoms
1:11:18 – Peter Tuchin’s structural demographic theory
1:12:51 – Jong-Sung You – “A Comparative Study of Inequality and Corruption”
1:13:40 – Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone and The Inner Level: How More Equal Societies Reduce Stress, Restore Sanity and Improve Everyone’s Well-being
1:14:20 – Cura annonae (Roman welfare program)
1:14:55 – Roman depletion of silver mines in Spain
1:15:08 – Diminishing returns
1:15:55 – Determinative factors of risk
1:16:36 – Jared Diamond’s 5 point framework on collapse
1:16:40 – Oligarchy
1:17:45 – Novel entities, Novel entities and planetary boundaries
1:17:55 – 3M whistleblower on PFAS chemicals
1:19:34 – Peter N. Peregrine – “Climate and social change at the start of the Late Antique Little Ice Age”
1:20:30 – Thung-Hong Lin – “Governing Natural Disasters: State Capacity, Democracy, and Human Vulnerability”
1:23:07 – The Seshat Global History Database, the Crisis Database Project
1:24:02 – Fall of the Western Roman Empire
1:28:15 – Labor scarcity and quality of life post-Black Death
1:28:56 – Walter Scheidel – Escape from Rome: the Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity
1:29:20 – 28* societies across world history have been ¾ of the way towards complete inequality
1:29:53 – Oxfam – “Survival of the Richest”
1:30:27 – Gabriel Zucman – “Global Wealth Inequality”
1:31:21 – Marten Scheffer, et al. – “Early-warning signals for critical transitions”
1:35:00 – Forecasting versus foresighting
1:36:55 – Tragedy of the commons, Reality Blind on Tragedy of the Commons
1:38:04 – Security dilemma in international relations
1:38:20 – One approach to the tragedy of the commons outside of a lab setting
1:38:45 – Widespread public concern for economic inequality
1:38:58 – Dictator game
1:43:25 – Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
1:43:57 – Geoengineering
1:45:30 – Today 5.7 billion people live in autocracies, 45 countries are becoming more autocratic
1:47:18 – Technofeudalism (as explained by Yanis Varoufakis)
1:49:58 – Pegasus spyware, The Pegasus Project
1:51:03 – About citizens’ assemblies
1:53:20 – Audrey Tang TGS Episode
1:56:36 – There could be over a billion climate refugees in the next 25 years
1:57:09 – Polly Wiessner and Pauline Wiessner – “Hunting, healing, and hxaro exchange: A long-term perspective on Kung (Ju/’hoansi) large-game hunting”
1:57:38 – Homes for Ukraine U.K. initiative
2:03:25 – People want stronger climate action
2:03:36 – French Climate Assembly
2:03:46 – Global poll on autonomous weapons, December 2024 U.N. decision to open negotiations on a treaty to ban lethal autonomous weapons systems
2:03:57 – Survey on public opinion of nuclear weapons: U.S., Russia
2:04:36 – Anthropic’s Dario Amodei Axios interview: “there’s a 25% chance that things go really, really badly”
2:04:47 – Americans are concerned about AI development
2:05:01 – Pew Research – “Americans’ Views on Energy at the Start of Trump’s Second Term”
2:06:25 – Exosomatic calorie usage increase
2:07:10 – Conspicuous consumption
2:07:45 – CNBC – “Carbon emissions of richest 1% equal to those of poorest 66%, Oxfam report finds”
2:09:05 – Rationalism
2:09:12 – Degrowth
2:12:10 – Land inequality is growing
2:13:00 – Audrey Tang, Hélène Landemore – Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century
2:13:23 – Populism
