Goliath’s Curse

Goliath’s Curse offers a radical retelling of human history through the lens of collapse, challenging us to consider what it means for our uncertain future.

Why do civilisations collapse? Is human progress truly possible? Are we approaching our endgame?

For the first 200,000 years of human history, Homo sapiens lived as hunter-gatherers in fluid, egalitarian societies that prevented any individual or group from seizing permanent control. This dynamic began to shift around 12,000 years ago.

As humans congregated in the first farms and cities, reliance on novel lootable resources such as grain and fish increased for daily sustenance. With the advent of more powerful weapons, small groups started to assume control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources quickly led to inequality in power, resulting in more primal, hierarchical forms of organisation. Power was concentrated in figures like masters, kings, pharaohs, and emperors, with ideologies emerging to justify their rule. Goliath-like states and empires, equipped with vast bureaucracies and militaries, soon dominated the globe.

What led to their downfall? From the early cities of Cahokia in North America and Tiwanaku in South America to the sprawling empires of Egypt, Rome, and China, increasing inequality and concentrated power hollowed out these Goliaths, until an external shock brought them crashing down. Often depicted as apocalyptic, these collapses were, in truth, usually a blessing for most people.

Today, we live under a single global Goliath. Growth-obsessed, extractive institutions, including the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and military-industrial complexes, dictate our world, introducing novel ways to threaten our species—from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex, and interconnected that a future collapse could be global, swift, and irreversible. We all face a critical choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or risk that the next collapse may be our final one.