WAR, DISEASE, FAMINE, EXISTENTIAL

Four threats have destroyed civilisations throughout history. They feed each other in a death spiral — war causes famine, famine breeds disease, disease weakens defences against war, and all three accelerate existential risk. Understanding these threats is the key to civilisational survival.

WAR

Armed conflict, invasion, destruction of infrastructure

DISEASE

Pandemic, plague, systemic health failure

FAMINE

Resource depletion, food insecurity, environmental exhaustion

EXISTENTIAL

Extinction-level and civilisation-ending events across all scales — from the Great Oxidation Event to the Bronze Age Collapse to the present climate crisis

THE DEATH SPIRAL

The Four Perennial Threats do not operate in isolation. They form a feedback loop — a death spiral that has destroyed every civilisation that failed to manage it. The Bronze Age Collapse of 1200 BCE is the definitive case study: all four threats converged simultaneously, and every major Mediterranean civilisation fell. Only China survived — through continuous infrastructure investment and centralised resource management.

War → Famine →Disease → Existential →War ...

EXISTENTIAL: THE FULL SPECTRUM

Existential is not just climate. Life has been wiped out and restarted multiple times across Earth's 4.5-billion-year history. The Planetary Engine can be broken.

2.4 ByaGreat Oxidation Event — made complex life possible but killed most anaerobic life
252 MyaPermian-Triassic Extinction — 96% of species wiped out, the "Great Dying"
65 MyaCretaceous-Paleogene — asteroid impact ended the dinosaurs, made mammals possible
2200 BCE4.2 Kiloyear Event — megadrought collapsed Old Kingdom Egypt, Akkadian Empire, Indus Valley
1200 BCEBronze Age Collapse — simultaneous collapse of every major Mediterranean civilisation
PresentAnthropogenic Climate Crisis — the existential threat we are causing ourselves