Asteroid economics begins with the asteroid effect — when people become aware of existential threats at the societal level, they react reflexively. Instead of modifying behavior to meet the challenge, they give up on restraint and accelerate their actions.
The effect explains why survival pressure often produces indulgence, even frenzy. From Versailles balls to pandemic luxury sales, from toilet paper hoarding to the latest Labubu craze, people grasp at what offers immediacy instead of investing in what sustains.
Asteroid economics reveals the psychology behind shopping our way through civilizational collapse.
Human intelligence has evolved to the point where we calculate the probability of our extinction - while our behavior increases those odds.
In the technological age, intelligence without wisdom is reckless.
Our intelligence enables our stupidity.
— M I Krueger