Death by complexity? “Ultra systems” and other (non-)existential risks revised

In a world too complex to fully grasp, fears of apocalypse and collapse echo an ancient cultural narrative. Georgina Voss, author of Systems Ultra, and writer Thomas Moynihan explore how personal and collective anxieties arise in uncertain times. Voss shows how complex systems—networks of people, things, and ideas—can be understood as sites of revelation around scale, time, materiality, deviance, and breakage, moving beyond tales of technological exceptionalism to help us see these systems more clearly and possibly change them. Together, they trace why fears of societal collapse persist and what they reveal about our struggle to comprehend a world that may be beyond understanding.