In the movie "Elysium," the rich live off-planet while the poor sweat it out in squalor on Earth. It might not be that far-fetched scenario if a NASA-funded study is right.
(Credit: Screenshot by Michael Franco/CNET)
We’ve all seen movies depicting a dystopian future. Usually they envision a small group of elites living in sleekly designed homes wearing clean gray clothes, sipping pure water, and enjoying generally dust-free living while the rest of us schlubs reside in cardboard boxes beneath bridges. Now, a NASA-funded study is saying the collapse of civilization as we know it might not be all that different from what happens in movies like “Blade Runner,” “Elysium,” and “The Hunger Games.”
The study, sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and first reported on in The Guardian, examined five key factors that led to the collapse of civilizations such the Roman Empire and Han Dynasty: population, climate, water, agriculture, and energy. It found that civilizations collapse when these factors coalesce in such a way that natural resources are stretched at the same time the gap between the rich (termed “Elites” in the study) and the poor (dubbed “Commoners”) increases. Sound familiar?
In arriving at these conclusions, … [Read more]
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