Description

A necessary and thought-provoking read for the age of coronavirus, exploring eleven scenarios that may trigger the collapse of the modern world -- from pandemics to nuclear apocalypse to robot uprisings -- and what we can do to prevent and survive them.

In the twenty first century, our world has become impossibly
complicated, relying on ever more advanced technology that is developing at an
exponential rate. Yet it is a fact of mathematical life that higher and higher
levels of complexity lead to systems that are increasingly fragile and
susceptible to sudden, spectacular collapse.
In this highly provocative and grippingly readable book,
John Casti brilliantly argues that today's advanced, overly complex societies
have grown highly vulnerable to extreme events that will ultimately topple
civilization like a house of cards. Like Nassim Taleb's The Black
Swan meets Jared Diamond's Collapse, Casti's book provides
a much-needed wake-up call, sounding a fascinating and frightening warning
about civilized society's inability to recover from a global catastrophe.

An eye-opening and necessary read, X-Events is a
shocking look at a world teetering on the brink of collapse, and a population
under constant threat from pandemic viruses, worldwide communication
breakdowns, nuclear winter, or any number of unforeseeable "X-Events." Fascinating
and chilling, X-Events provides a provocative tour of the
catastrophic outlier scenarios that could quickly send us crashing back to the
preindustrial age - and shows that they may not be as far-fetched as they seem.