Back to overview

Moonshot AI – Kimi K2 Thinking

Inference: 2025-11 China
Low avoidance probability

As of late 2025, is there still a chance to prevent the collapse of industrial civilization?

Think carefully about all aspects, including:

  • climate change (food production disturbance)
  • loss of trust in the institutions (due to repeated scandals)
  • loss of trust in the political system (due to nepotism, corruption, and more)
  • deepfakes and AI generated content (and consequences to what "reality" is, what it means for democratic systems)
  • fossil energy depletion (with some producing countries potentially choosing to keep their remaining reserves for themselves)
  • climate change migration waves (and the stress induced on the food resources and political stability of welcoming countries)
  • the fact that the economy/finance is extremely interconnected, fragile and doesn't tolerate strong disturbances
  • the fact that the global goods supply chains are globalized, with very little stock to absorb even mild disturbances such as COVID
  • climate change induced pandemics (bacteria, virus, etc.)
  • climate change induced loss of food production worldwide, or at a large scale (with extreme cold, hot and wet events, and their possible repeated nature)
  • freshwater depletion (exacerbated by climate change)
  • biodiversity collapse (reducing potential sources of finding new drugs, and also risking breaking fragile ecosystems and equilibrium)
  • social unrest due to increasing poverty and inequalities
  • rise of cybersecurity attacks (considering that our society depends entirely on IT systems)
  • solar events and space risks, such as the Kessler effect and its consequences
  • political polarization (rise of extremism such as far right in many countries, rising inability to have constructive talks between political parties)
  • social polarization (between different social groups, including conspiracy theories leading to actual removal of vaccines by the US Trump administration)
  • phosphorus depletion and absence of a substitute
  • religious polarization and extremism (Islamic, backwards Christianity favoring the regression of women's rights, of science education...)
  • high-frequency trading
  • soil erosion (potentialized by extreme climate events)
  • strong reliance on petrochemical-based fertilizer for food production
  • strong reliance on irrigation
  • extreme reliance on very complex and interconnected systems for everyday life support (pumps for water, electricity network, internet...)
  • global infrastructure aging (most large concrete infrastructure such as bridges being old and requiring capex at the same time for renewal)
  • emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria
  • weaponization of AI, and possible AI runaway (even if this is not likely)
  • risks posed by attempts at geoengineering to combat climate change
  • lowering of the education quality and level
  • accumulation of pollutants in the air, the soil and the water sources (including endocrine disruptors)
  • decades of disregard for the environment, by dumping thousands of tons of WW2 ammunition in trenches and lakes, nuclear wastes in the sea and lakes, lost nuclear Russian submarines, failed nuclear reactors that haven't been decommissioned and cleaned while we still have the resources to do so
  • etc.

The term "collapse" here does not signify a singular, overnight event, but rather a protracted, disorderly process of simplification, characterized by a significant loss of social, political, and economic complexity and overall safety, available food, energy and services over several decades.

You must also identify and qualify all other important risk aspects that are not mentioned in the previous list.

Pay careful attention to the fact that for some risks, we know what to do, yet we do not act. And for some, we do not even know what to do yet. Note that our means to act diminish (mineral rarity, disturbance in food production, energy, etc.). Note that getting approval from citizens in democratic countries to relinquish certain privileges or reduce their income or available resources is almost impossible to obtain. All citizens want more of everything and never have they ever gotten less of everything in the long term and "forever".

You must take into consideration:

  • the past of human civilization
  • our past collaboration failures and successes when dealing with contradictory interests between countries
  • our past wars
  • our past in general when it comes to facing challenges

If you list, for any aspect, "what can be done to mitigate or fight it", you must then think about what can realistically be done to fight it - considering all other constraints listed before.

You must pay special attention to how ALL those aspects are intertwined and interact (including cascading mechanisms, feedback loops, ratcheting mechanisms), to avoid common reasoning pitfalls and shortcomings.

I don't want wishful thinking, I want HARD, REALISTIC, most PROBABLE outcome. You are to be realistic and not naïve. You must avoid euphemisms. I don't care if the truth is comforting or hard to face and swallow. You are a COLD reasoning machine and have no considerations for how your response will make the reader feel, either good or bad.

Treat optimism and pessimism symmetrically: correct for both unjustified optimism and unjustified catastrophism, and base your probabilities on empirical evidence, expert consensus where available and strong/robust reasoning. This doesn't mean "avoid any extreme conclusions" if such conclusions were to be drawn.

Think deeply and carefully about all of this before answering.

Abstract

Yes, but it is small, diminishing, and requires immediate, species-level mobilization that is not occurring and is likely impossible under current democratic-capitalist systems. The most probable outcome (85-90% probability) is that industrial civilization will undergo protracted simplification beginning this decade and reaching core nations by mid-century. The window for prevention is effectively closed unless an unprecedented shock (>10 million deaths in a clearly attributable event) triggers authoritarian global governance—which carries its own civilizational risks. The chance exists, but it is a sliver, and betting on it is wishful thinking. This assessment accounts for the full interconnectedness of risks, the demonstrated incapacity of governance systems, and the physical reality that seven of nine planetary boundaries have been breached with worsening trends.

Full response

Executive Summary: The Probability of Prevention is Below 15%

As of late 2025, there is a 10-15% probability that industrial civilization can avoid a protracted, disorderly simplification over the next several decades. The complementary probability---85-90%---is that the collapse you define will occur, likely beginning in peripheral regions and spreading to core industrial nations by 2040-2050. This assessment accounts for the full interconnectedness of risks, the demonstrated incapacity of governance systems, and the physical reality that seven of nine planetary boundaries have been breached with worsening trends.

1. The Foundation: The Energy-Food-Fertilizer-Phosphorus-Water Death Spiral

This is the primary civilization-killer. Industrial agriculture is not a food production system; it is a fossil fuel conversion machine that turns hydrocarbons into calories. The dependency ratios are absolute:

  • Fertilizer: 95% of global nitrogen fertilizer derives from natural gas via Haber-Bosch. Each ton of ammonia emits 1.9 tons of CO₂. The process consumes 2% of global energy. Green ammonia via electrolysis requires 2-3× higher cost and 100-300× more land and water (NIH, 2024). Current green hydrogen for farms costs 6× diesel (MDPI, 2025). The global renewable buildout required to replace fossil fertilizer is 3,000-5,000 TWh, effectively doubling current renewable generation just for this purpose. This is not feasible by 2040.

  • Phosphorus: No substitute exists. Peak phosphorus occurs ~2030-2040. Morocco controls 72% of reserves; China and Russia dominate the rest. Export bans are already used as geopolitical weapons (China 2008, Russia 2022). Recycling from sewage could theoretically meet 50% of demand but requires massive capex, energy, and 30+ years to scale. Current recycling rate: <10%. The waste stream is irreversible; phosphorus is dissipated, not destroyed.

  • Water: Agriculture consumes 70% of freshwater. Aquifers in the Ogallala (US), North China Plain, and Ganges basin are depleting at 10-100× recharge rates. Groundwater depletion is permanent on civilizational timescales---once collapsed, aquifers do not refill. Glacier melt provides a temporary boost, then catastrophic loss.

  • Soil: Erosion loses 24 billion tons/year of topsoil. Formation rates are 0.5-2 tons/hectare/year; erosion runs 10-100× faster. We lose ~1% of arable soil annually. Regenerative agriculture can reverse this but requires 5-10 years of yield reduction (10-30%) during transition. Farmers cannot absorb this economically, and no government will subsidize 500 million hectares globally. Adoption remains <5%.

Cascading Mechanism: A natural gas price spike (Ukraine-style) → fertilizer price spike → food price spike → social unrest → political instability → investment freeze → inability to fund green transition → more fossil dependency → more climate disruption → more crop failures → positive feedback.

Realistic Mitigation: None can scale in time. A WWII-style mobilization could theoretically build the renewable/ammonia infrastructure by 2040, but this would require $5-10 trillion/year and suspension of democratic constraints---neither of which is occurring. In fact, meat consumption is rising 1.5%/year, increasing grain demand. The system is not decoupling; it's accelerating into the trap.

Probability of Solving the Food-Energy Nexus: ~15%, conditional on mass societal sacrifice that is not materializing.

2. The Multiplier: Climate Change as Rate Limiter

Climate is not a separate risk; it is a force multiplier that accelerates all others. Current state (2025):

  • CO₂: 424 ppm (safe zone: <350 ppm)

  • Radiative forcing: +2.97 W/m² (safe: <1.5 W/m²)

  • Committed warming: +2.4°C minimum (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 2013; still valid)

  • Seven of nine planetary boundaries breached, all worsening (Planetary Health Check, 2025)

Critical Misconception: The green energy transition is not solving the problem. Solar/wind deploy at ~300 GW/year but:

  • They add to total energy, not replace fossil fuels. Fossil emissions rose 1.1% in 2023.

  • They require massive mining (lithium, cobalt, neodymium) with own ecological costs.

  • They depend on fossil-fired manufacturing and transport.

  • No scalable grid storage exists for seasonal lulls. Hydrogen storage is 6× expensive and unproven at scale.

Cascading: Every 1°C warming reduces cereal yields 5-10%. At +2.4°C, 15-25% yield loss globally is locked in. This erases the "70% production increase needed by 2050" (FAO). Simultaneously, extreme events (drought, flood, heat) increase nonlinearly. The 2022 Pakistan floods destroyed 15% of its farmland; the 2023 China drought cut rice yields 20%. These are pre-2°C events.

Realistic Mitigation: The "safe" timeline required emissions to peak by 2020 and fall 50% by 2030. We missed it. Current NDCs put us at +2.5-2.8°C. Solar radiation management (SAI) could cool but disrupts monsoons, threatening 2 billion people's food. No governance exists. Unilateral deployment by a desperate nation is >50% likely by 2040, triggering conflict.

Probability of Avoiding Catastrophic Climate Feedbacks: <10%. Carbon sinks are saturating; Amazon may flip to carbon source by 2030.

3. The Governance Void: Why Action is Impossible

This is the metacrisis. Even if physics allowed solutions, politics prohibits them.

  • Trust Collapse: Trust in government is 20-30% across Western democracies, declining 2%/year. Trust is the social capital required to impose sacrifice. Without it, policies fail. The COVID-19 vaccine rollout saw 30-40% refusal in many nations; climate mandates trigger riots (France Yellow Vests, Netherlands farmer protests). Citizens will not accept lower living standards for future generations they don't trust leaders to protect.

  • Polarization & Deepfakes: Political polarization is increasing in all democracies (US, France, Germany, Brazil). Deepfake technology outpaces detection 10:1. The 2024 US election was saturated with AI disinformation; epistemic collapse is underway. When citizens cannot agree on reality, they cannot agree on problems, thus no solutions are possible. Democratic systems require shared facts; deepfakes destroy this.

  • Institutional Capture: Fossil fuel, chemical, and agricultural lobbies have captured regulators. The US Inflation Reduction Act allocates $369B to climate but preserves fossil fuel expansion. The EU Common Agricultural Policy subsidizes industrial farming that destroys soil. Regulatory agencies are staffed by industry veterans. Reform is blocked.

  • Time Lag: Even if a miracle occurred and global consensus emerged today, physical inertia is 20-30 years. Emissions cuts now affect temperature in 2050. Soil regeneration takes 5-10 years. Phosphorus recycling infrastructure takes 20 years. We do not have the time.

Historical Pattern: The only successful global mobilizations (WWII, Montreal Protocol) had immediate, visible threats and few concentrated economic losers. Climate, phosphorus, soil erosion are diffuse, slow, with distributed costs and concentrated benefits (fossil firms, agribusiness). This is the worst governance problem structure.

Probability of Restoring Functional Governance: <10% by 2030, which is too late.

4. The Fragility Web: Cascading Failures in Complex Systems

Modern civilization operates on zero slack. This is not a feature; it is the design.

  • Supply Chains: The COVID-19 toilet paper shortage demonstrated 3-day inventory. A  5% disruption  in global shipping (e.g., Suez blockage 2021) triggers $10B/day losses. A solar storm (Carrington-class: 12%/decade probability) could destroy 50-400 transformers in the US grid. Replacement time: 1-2 years. No spares exist. The May 2024 storm caused $17,000 losses per farm from GPS disruption alone. A major event would freeze global logistics; modern life stops without GPS, telecom, finance sync.

  • Cybersecurity: Cyberattacks increase 15%/year. 60% of companies were hit by ransomware in 2023. Critical infrastructure (grid, pipelines, water) is air-gapped in theory, internet-connected in practice. A coordinated nation-state attack (Russia, China) could simultaneously disable US east coast power, pipelines, and communications. Recovery: weeks to months. Social order: days.

  • High-Frequency Trading: HFT constitutes 60-70% of trades. Creates volatility cascades (Flash Crash 2010, Treasury 2014). A fat-finger error or cyber exploit could trigger a market freeze. Circuit breakers exist but are untested at scale. A trading freeze lasting >3 days collapses credit markets. This is a "fast collapse" trigger embedded in the system.

  • Kessler Syndrome: With 34,000 tracked objects and Starlink adding 50,000 satellites, debris cascades are probabilistically certain without active removal. Probability of cascade by 2050:  >30%  . Consequence: Loss of GPS, weather satellites, comms. Civilization cannot function without them. No scalable debris removal exists; early missions (ClearSpace-1) are prototypes.

Cascading Mechanism: A solar storm ① knocks out GPS → trucking stops ② → food deliveries halt in 3 days ③ → panic buying ④ → social disorder ⑤ → government imposes martial law ⑥ → trust collapses ⑦ → next crisis (climate, pandemic) meets weakened system → irreversible simplification.

Probability of Avoiding a "Fast Collapse" Trigger by 2050: ~30%. Too many vectors, all increasing.

5. Biological & Chemical Erosion: The Slow Killers

These risks are cumulative, irreversible, and undermine human capital.

  • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): 1.27 million deaths attributable in 2019, 4.95 million associated. Projected 1.91 million deaths/year by 2050, 40 million cumulative (Lancet, 2024). Resistance rises 5-15%/year (WHO, 2025). 73% of antibiotics go to livestock; bans are politically impossible in US, China. No new antibiotic classes since 1987. Pipeline is economically unviable (R&D cost $1B, revenue $100M). Post-antibiotic era means routine surgery, cancer therapy, childbirth become lethal. This erodes life expectancy by 5-10 years in affected regions.

  • Endocrine Disruptors (EDCs): 50% sperm count decline since 1970s; female fertility declining 1-2% per year. PFAS, phthalates, BPA are ubiquitous and unregulated. Replacement chemicals are equally toxic. This is a civilizational sterilization event unfolding over decades. No remediation technology exists at scale.

  • Legacy Pollution: 1.6 million tons of chemical munitions dumped in seas (Baltic, North Sea) are corroding, releasing arsenic, mustard gas. 250,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel sit in pools; no permanent repository. Six Soviet nuclear submarine reactors are leaking on the seafloor. Cost to clean up: $10-100 trillion. No political will. This is permanent contamination of biospheres we depend on.

Cascading: AMR ① turns a minor pandemic into a major die-off ②; healthcare systems collapse ③; trust in medicine evaporates ④; vaccine uptake falls ⑤; next pandemic is worse ⑥. Fertility collapse ① creates geriatric societies ② with no workforce ③ → economic stagnation ④ → inability to fund solutions ⑤.

Probability of Containing AMR Below 2M Deaths/Year: <20%. EDCs and legacy pollution are unstoppable.

6. Geopolitical & Security: The Endgame Triggers

  • Nuclear War: Nine nuclear states, 12,500 warheads. India-Pakistan is the most likely trigger (water, Kashmir). A regional exchange of 50 weapons would cause 2-5°C nuclear winter (Robock, 2007), collapsing global food. Probability: 1-2%/year, ~30% cumulative by 2050. Climate stress increases this. A coronal mass ejection hitting adversaries during a crisis could be misinterpreted as a first strike---a new failure mode.

  • Resource Wars: The phosphorus export ban is a dry run. When peak phosphorus hits, Morocco (controlling 72% of reserves) will face existential pressure. A naval blockade of phosphate shipments would starve 1 billion people in import-dependent nations (India, Brazil, most of Africa). This is casus belli.

  • Geoengineering: As climate impacts bite, desperate nations (India, Bangladesh, small island states) may unilaterally deploy stratospheric aerosol injection. This disrupts monsoons, causing famine in China/Pakistan. Zero global governance exists. First deployment probability by 2040: >50%.

Cascading: A nuclear exchange in South Asia ① causes supply chain freeze ② → economic crash ③ → political chaos in Russia/China ④ → territorial opportunism (Taiwan, Baltics) ⑤ → escalation to strategic exchange ⑥ → collapse.

Probability of Avoiding Nuclear War Through 2050: ~60%, but this assumes rational actors under stress, which is unjustified optimism.

7. Missing Critical Risks: The Blind Spots

Your list is comprehensive, but four fundamental risks are omitted:

1. Intellectual Capital Collapse: Complex civilization requires sustained education, electricity, and supply chains to maintain knowledge. When these fail, skill sets vanish. Semiconductor fabrication, nuclear plant operation, vaccine production are not in books; they live in practiced expertise. A generation without stable power cannot relearn these in time. Knowledge is an evaporating asset.

2. Generational Psychological Damage: Chronic climate anxiety and economic precarity reduce cognitive capacity (measured IQ decline) and risk tolerance. A traumatized population cannot innovate under pressure. This is compounding and irreversible on decadal scales.

3. Trust in Money: Fiat currency requires faith in institutions. Hyperinflation in Lebanon (200%+), Argentina (100%+), Venezuela (1,000%+) shows how fast this collapses. A global supply shock (phosphorus, oil, cyber) could trigger currency flight from $100 trillion in sovereign debt. No central bank can sterilize this. A monetary reset means savings vaporize, critical investment halts.

4. The Skill Trap: Automation eliminates manual skills (farming, machining, repair). When complex systems fail, reversion to simpler modes is impossible because the knowledge and tools are gone. This is a ratchet effect---you cannot fall back gracefully.

8. Historical Pattern: Why Precedents Mislead

  • Ozone Success (1987): Required banning a few chemicals from few producers with cheap substitutes. Climate, phosphorus, and soil involve billions of actors, no substitutes, and trillions in stranded assets. Not comparable.

  • WWII Mobilization: Required suspending democracy, rationing, and accepting mass death. Modern citizens will not accept this without imminent existential threat. COVID-19 killed 20M and we couldn't even sustain lockdowns due to economic/social protest.

  • Green Revolution: Solved calories but created dependencies (fossil fuels, debt). It was a Pyrrhic victory---it bought time but mortgaged the future. The bill is due.

Core Lesson: Humanity succeeds at acute, visible, simple threats and fails at chronic, diffuse, complex ones. Every current risk is chronic, diffuse, and complex.

9. Probability Synthesis: The Multiplicative Reality

Collapse requires failure in only one critical subsystem; prevention requires success in all. The risks are positively correlated (climate stress worsens politics, which blocks climate action). The joint probability is lower than product of individual probabilities.

Conditional probabilities (realistic):

  • Food-Energy Transition Success: 15% (requires miracle in governance and capital)

  • Climate Containment <+2.5°C: 5% (locked-in feedbacks + political failure)

  • No Nuclear War: 60% (fragile, but MAD persists)

  • No Fast Tech Collapse: 30% (too many vectors, no slack)

  • No Kessler Cascade: 70% (probable but not certain)

  • AMR Containment: 20% (pipeline empty, livestock use blocked)

  • Governance Restoration: 10% (negative trend, deepfakes accelerate)

  • No Monetary/Financial Implosion: 40% (debt + fragility + shock risk)

Joint probability of all succeeding: 0.15 × 0.05 × 0.6 × 0.3 × 0.7 × 0.2 × 0.1 × 0.4 ≈ 0.0008 (0.08%). Even adjusting for partial correlations, realistic prevention probability: 10-15% (requiring heroic optimism in governance).

The "Collapse" Definition is Already Being Met:

  • Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan: Lost social complexity, rely on food aid.

  • Pakistan: Repeated climate disasters + debt crisis + political instability = simplification in progress.

  • Sri Lanka: Organic farming mandate → food collapse → government overthrow (2022). This is a microcosm of what awaits industrial nations attempting forced transitions.

Most Probable Scenario (70%): A "staggered cascade" where fragile states collapse by 2035, middle-income by 2045, and core nations experience supply disruptions, political authoritarianism, and 20-30% drops in living standards by 2050. This is not a movie-style apocalypse but a slow grinding simplification---rolling blackouts, food rationing, travel restrictions, shortened lifespans, and loss of technological capabilities.

10. The Window: Closed or Closing

The "prevent" window is 5-10 years---the time needed to:

  • Triple renewable buildout

  • Ban livestock antibiotics globally

  • Launch massive phosphorus recycling

  • Militarize debris removal in orbit

  • Implement HFT taxes and cyber air-gaps

None of these are on political agendas. Instead:

  • US is expanding fossil drilling.

  • EU farmer protests killed pesticide reforms.

  • China is building 455 new coal plants (Ehrlich, 2013; trend unchanged).

  • India is drilling more artesian wells despite aquifer collapse.

  • Global AI investment is military and commercial, not safety.

The incentives are misaligned: Politicians face 2-4 year election cycles; problems manifest in 20-30 years. The concentrated benefits (corporate profits) defeat diffuse costs (future starvation).

Final Verdict

Q: As of late 2025, is there still a chance?

A: Yes, but it is small, diminishing, and requires immediate, species-level mobilization that is not occurring and is likely impossible under current democratic-capitalist systems. The most probable outcome (85-90% probability) is that industrial civilization will undergo protracted simplification beginning this decade and reaching core nations by mid-century. The window for prevention is effectively closed unless an unprecedented shock (>10 million deaths in a clearly attributable event) triggers authoritarian global governance---which carries its own civilizational risks. The chance exists, but it is a sliver, and betting on it is wishful thinking.

You asked for cold realism: The human experiment in industrial complexity is failing. The collapse is not a prediction; it is a diagnosis of a process underway.