"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 also be direct, such as when setting out how a global collapse could be avoided. "Don't be a dick" is one of the solutions proposed, along with a move towards genuinely democratic societies and an end to inequality.
His first step was to ditch the word civilisation, a term he argues is really propaganda by rulers. "When you look at the near east, China, Mesoamerica or the Andes, where the first kingdoms and empires arose, you don't see civilised conduct, you see war, patriarchy and human sacrifice," he says. This was a form of evolutionary backsliding from the egalitarian and mobile hunter-gatherer societies which shared tools and culture widely and survived for hundreds of thousands of years. "Instead, we started to resemble the hierarchies of chimpanzees and the harems of gorillas."
Instead Kemp uses the term Goliaths to describe kingdoms and empires, meaning a society built on domination, such as the Roman empire: state over citizen, rich over poor, master over slave and men over women. He says that, like the biblical warrior slain by David's slingshot, Goliaths began in the bronze age, were steeped in violence and often surprisingly fragile.
Goliath states do not simply emerge as dominant cliques that loot surplus food and resources, he argues, but need three specific types of "Goliath fuel". The first is a particular type of surplus food: grain. That can be "seen, stolen and stored", Kemp says, unlike perishable foods.
In Cahokia, for example, a society in North America that peaked around the 11th century, the advent of maize and bean farming led to a society dominated by an elite of priests and human sacrifice, he says.
The second Goliath fuel is weaponry monopolised by one group. Bronze swords and axes were far superior to stone and wooden axes, and the first Goliaths in Mesopotamia followed their development, he says. Kemp calls the final Goliath fuel "caged land", meaning places where oceans, rivers, deserts and mountains meant people could not simply migrate away from rising tyrants. Early Egyptians, trapped between the Red Sea and the Nile, fell prey to the pharaohs, for example.
"History is best told as a story of organised crime," Kemp says. "It is one group creating a monopoly on resources through the use of violence over a certain territory and population."
All Goliaths, however, contain the seeds of their own demise, he says: "They are cursed and this is because of inequality." Inequality does not arise because all people are greedy. They are not, he says. The Khoisan peoples in southern Africa, for example, shared and preserved common lands for thousands of years despite the temptation to grab more.
Instead, it is the few people high in the dark triad who fall into races for resources, arms and status, he says. "Then as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change."
History shows that increasing wealth inequality consistently precedes collapse, says Kemp, from the Classical Lowland Maya to the Han dynasty in China and the Western Roman empire. He also points out that for the citizens of early rapacious regimes, collapse often improved their lives because they were freed from domination and taxation and returned to farming. "After the fall of Rome, people actually got taller and healthier," he says.
Collapses in the past were at a regional level and often beneficial for most people, but collapse today would be global and disastrous for all. "Today, we don't have regional empires so much as we have one single, interconnected global Goliath. All our societies act within one single global economic system - capitalism," Kemp says.
He cites three reasons why the collapse of the global Goliath would be far worse than previous events. First is that collapses are accompanied by surges in violence as elites try to reassert their dominance. "In the past, those battles were waged with swords or muskets. Today we have nuclear weapons," he says.
Second, people in the past were not heavily reliant on empires or states for services and, unlike today, could easily go back to farming or hunting and gathering. "Today, most of us are specialised; we’re dependent upon global infrastructure. If that falls away, we too will fall," he says.
"Last but not least is that unfortunately all the threats we face today are far worse than in the past," he says. Past climatic changes that precipitated collapses; for example; usually involved a temperature change of 1C at a regional level. Today; we face 3C globally. There are also about 10;000 nuclear weapons; technologies such as artificial intelligence and killer robots; engineered pandemics—all sources of catastrophic global risk.
Kemp says his argument that Goliaths require rulers who are strong in the triad of dark traits is borne out today. "The three most powerful men in the world are walking versions of the dark triad: Trump is a textbook narcissist; Putin is a cold psychopath; Xi Jinping came to rule [China] by being a master Machiavellian manipulator."
"Our corporations and increasingly our algorithms also resemble these kinds of people," he says. "They're basically amplifying the worst of us."
Kemp points to these "agents of doom" as the source of the current trajectory towards societal collapse. "These are large psychopathic corporations and groups which produce global catastrophic risk," he says. "Nuclear weapons climate change AI are only produced by very small number secretive highly wealthy powerful groups like military-industrial complex big tech fossil fuel industry."
"The key thing is this is not about all humanity creating these threats. It is not about human nature. It is about small groups who bring out worst us competing profit power covering all [the risks] up."
The global Goliath is the endgame for humanity; Kemp says; like final moves chess match determine result. He sees two outcomes: self-destruction or fundamental transformation society.
He believes first outcome most likely but says escaping global collapse could be achieved. "First and foremost you need create genuine democratic societies level forms power lead Goliaths," he says. That means running societies citizen assemblies juries aided digital technologies enable direct democracy large scales. History shows more democratic societies tend resilient; he says.
"If you'd had citizens' jury sitting over [fossil fuel companies] when they discovered how much damage death their products would cause; do you think they would have said: 'Yes; go ahead; bury information run disinformation campaigns'? Of course not;" Kemp says.
Escaping collapse also requires taxing wealth; he says; otherwise rich find ways rig democratic system. "I'd cap wealth $10 million. That's far more than anyone needs. A famous oil tycoon once said money just way rich keep score. Why should we allow these people keep score risk destroying entire planet?"
If citizens' juries wealth caps seem wildly optimistic; Kemp says we been long brainwashed rulers justifying dominance; from self-declared god-pharaohs Egypt priests claiming control weather autocrats claiming defend people foreign threats tech titans selling techno-utopias. "It's always been easier imagine end world end Goliaths. That's because these stories been hammered us over space 5;000 years;" he says.
"Today; people find easier imagine build intelligence silicon can do democracy scale; escape arms races. It's complete bullshit. Of course democracy scale. We're naturally social altruistic democratic species all anti-dominance intuition. This what we're built for."
Kemp rejects suggestion simply presenting politically leftwing take history. "There nothing inherently left wing democracy;" he says. "Nor does left monopoly fighting corruption holding power accountable making sure companies pay social environmental damages cause. That's just making economy honest."
He also has message individuals: "Collapse isn't just caused structures; also people. If want save world then first step stop destroying it. In other words: don't be dick. Don't work big tech arms manufacturers fossil fuel industry. Don't accept relationships based domination share power whenever you can."
Despite possibility avoiding collapse; Kemp remains pessimistic prospects. "I think unlikely;" he says. "We're dealing 5;000-year process going incredibly difficult reverse increasing levels inequality elite capture politics.
"But even if don’t hope doesn’t really matter. This about defiance. It’s about doing right thing fighting democracy people exploited. And even fail very least didn’t contribute problem."