Leading scholars warn civilisation faces imminent collapse from nuclear war, climate change, pandemics, and rogue AI, with some predicting humanity’s survival chances this century are as slim as a coin toss.
Humanity faces alarming odds of extinction within decades, according to leading academics and futurologists.
Oxford University’s Toby Ord places the risk of civilisation collapsing within 75 years at one-in-six, while his colleague Nick Bostrom raises it to one-in-four.
Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar Jared Diamond predicts human survival beyond 2050 is no better than 50/50.
Cambridge researcher Dr. Luke Kemp, in his new book, warns that every past civilisation has been undone by greed, inequality, and environmental strain. He argues the 21st century’s “global Goliath” is vulnerable to the same fate, with nuclear war, pandemics, climate change, and malevolent AI all posing catastrophic risks.
Wealthy technology leaders, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have prepared luxury bunkers in New Zealand for a potential doomsday scenario. But Kemp cautions that isolated elites may not survive long, as food systems and trust networks collapse. “The harder they fight, the harder they fall,” he warns.