Critical Collapsology

A book about collapse: the nature of social structure, our contemporary catastrophic imaginary, and the limits of our political norms.

Collapsology is a disparate field, and mostly a badly behaved one — it drifts between prophecy, prepping and resignation. The book proposes a framework that orientates it towards our present society, draws out its ethical stakes, and argues for a philosophically rigorous path in light of risks that are catastrophic but not existential. That means integrating AI risk, climate change and demographic pressure into a single account, rather than treating each as its own apocalypse.

It was first worked out as a series of eight lectures for the New Centre for Research & Practice, and is being written in the open at Crude Futures.