Don't look now, but industrial society is going the way of the Dodo bird. According to a NASA-funded study, modern societies will self-destruct in the vein of past empires (think Roman, Han, Mesopotamian) because the 1% are consuming too much and we're bound to run out of resources. "Who's to blame?" asks Gizmodo. "You. Me. Everyone walking around outside your window." The study itself gives a more detailed breakdown of how elites will gobble up too many resources and idly ignore impending disaster, the Guardian reports.
Led by mathematician Safa Motesharri, the study found that energy, agriculture, water, climate, and population have undermined past empires when resources ran thin and society became overly stratified between haves and have-nots. "Collapse is difficult to avoid" in our society, probably because "elites consume too much" and will create "an inequality-induced famine." Technology won't save us, either, because it forces greater resource extraction and consumption. The only solutions? Distribute resources more fairly, use less-intensive renewable resources, and reduce population growth, the study says. "Which is just as difficult and improbable as it sounds," sighs Gizmodo. (Click to see other theories about how human civilization could end.)
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