Luke Kemp, a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, has written a book about his research called 'Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse'.
He makes the case that, from looking at the archaeological record, when many societies collapse, most people end up better off afterward. For example, people in the post-Roman world were taller and healthier. Collapse can be a redistribution of resources and power, not just chaos.
For most of human history, humans lived as nomadic egalitarian bands, with low violence and high mobility. Threats (disease, war, economic precarity) push populations toward authoritarian leaders. The resulting rise in inequality from that sets off a cycle that will end in collapse. Furthermore, he argues we are living in the late stages of such a cycle now. 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."
Some people hope/think we are destined for a future of Universal Basic Income and fully automated luxury communism. Perhaps that's the egalitarianism that emerges after our own collapse? If so, I hope the collapse bit is short and we get to the egalitarian bit ASAP.
Collapse for the 99% | Luke Kemp; What really happens when Goliaths fall
Most of the world now lives in huge cities. A societal collapse probably would be devastating for a much larger proportion of the population than in previous times. A lot of dead people as well as lot of dog eat dog behaviour due to no food in cities.
And human eat dog. And dog eat human. Because of the no food. Maybe even human eat human!
yeah we have never had a global societal collapse.
It'd be pretty easy to migrate out of cities. And necessary, if we had to go back to more primitive, labour intensive kinds of agriculture for some reason (although I question how easy fully forgetting mechanisation would be, at this point).
Indeed, it's exactly what tends to happen after a collapse. Rome was whittled down to a minor center, almost a village, before it started to grow again IIRC.
We're talking about the breakdown of supply chains. Agriculture depends on those supply chains. Industrial agriculture, which relies on the mass manufacture of fertilizers, is the only way we are able to feed everyone on the planet. Sure, people would flee (literally flee) the cities - and then every country town and villiage would be filled with desperate people ready to slit your throat for an ear of corn because there literally is not enough food for everyone.
Billions of people migrating to the country. Sounds like fun!