The Metacrisis Map is not designed for mobile.
View on a laptop/desktop for optimal results.
Main
Map
Module
Maximal
Problems
Generators
Attractors
Landscape
Metamodernism Map
About
Main
Map
Module
Maximal
Paradigms
Landscape
Metacrisis Map
The Metacrisis Map
01 — About

About the Project

The Metacrisis is a conceptual frame for capturing civilisation's total problem complex, the generative dynamics that (re)produce it and the attractor states it vectors towards. It marks the terminal phase in the developmental process of the current world-system, which is now emergently posing an existential risk to humanity.

This map assembles that frame into a single, explorable structure: a nested hierarchy of crises and their causes, a set of diagrams tracing how the generative dynamics interlock and reinforce one another, and a curated landscape of the research shaping how we understand and respond to it.

It is not a finished argument but a living reference, built to be explored non-linearly, from the whole down to any single concept, or from any single concept back out to the whole.

02 — Site Map

Site Map

Main
The primary explorable tree — problem complex, generative dynamics and attractor states in one nested hierarchy.
Map
A pannable, zoomable node-and-branch diagram of the entire conceptual tree.
Module
A flat, browsable glossary of every concept, organised by section.
Maximal
Every concept and its full description, expanded on one continuous page.
Problems
The problem complex's core diagram, mapping how catastrophic risks interconnect.
Generators
The generative dynamics driving the metacrisis, as chains, categories and interconnections.
Attractors
The civilisational attractor states — the trajectories the world-system is vectoring towards.
Landscape
Curated organisations and individuals researching the metacrisis and civilisational transition.
03 — User Guide

User Guide

  • Navigate. Use the menu in the bottom-left corner to move between the Main tree, Map, Module, Maximal, Problems, Generators, Attractors and Landscape views.
  • Expand the tree. On Main, click the title to open the menu, then click through each level of concepts. A back arrow always returns you one level up.
  • Read entries. Any underlined concept name opens its full glossary entry, including sources and references where available.
  • Explore visually. Map lets you pan and zoom the entire tree as a node diagram; Maximal lays every entry out on one continuous page.
  • Theme & accent. The diamond toggles light and dark mode; the ring cycles the accent colour used for interactive highlights — try the live demo alongside.
  • Keyboard shortcuts. Press 1–2 to switch theme, 3–7 to cycle accent colours, and F to toggle the serif typeface.
Theme & Accent
The RingCycles the accent colour used for interactive highlights across the site.
The DiamondToggles between light and dark theme.

Problem Complex

Select an interaction line to view the dynamics propagating between subsystems.

Generative Dynamics: Verticals

A hierarchical mapping of the structural traps driving civilisation towards catastrophe.
Fourth-Order
Exponential Techno-Economic Development

The continuous, compounding acceleration of global economic throughput and technological power amplification acts as a planetary multiplier, drastically raising the stakes and speed of all underlying structural traps. It transforms historically localized failure modes into immediate, inescapable global catastrophic risks.

Third-Order
The AI Arms Race

Competing actors race to develop AGI to avoid losing global strategic dominance, structurally sidelining safety protocols and ethical guardrails in favor of rapid deployment. This accelerates existential risk trajectories as unaligned models saturate critical infrastructure.

The Environmental Tragedy of the Commons

Individual actors rationally maximize extraction and fossil-fuel combustion for short-term profit, while the cumulative ecological externalities are distributed globally, destabilizing the Earth's biosphere. No single actor can unilaterally halt extraction without suffering immediate economic suicide.

Second-Order
The Multi-polar Trap

A game-theoretic dynamic where individual rational incentives directly conflict with collective wellbeing locks actors into a race to the bottom, compelling them to defect even when cooperation is globally optimal. This structural inevitability makes solving global-scale coordination problems mathematically hostile.

First-Order
Super-Structural Separation

The global political economy organizes humanity into deeply separated collective agents—nation-states and corporations—as its fundamental structural units, legitimized by the cultural software of nationalism and tribalism that hijacks evolutionary dispositions like in/out-group bias. These impermeable self/other boundaries act as the structural and phenomenological "walls" that artificially divide agents, hard-coding the prisoner's dilemma into civilisation.

Attractor States: Diagram

Select a trajectory or node to view the corresponding state.

Research Landscape: Organisations

Institutes and initiatives producing dedicated research on the metacrisis and civilisational transition.

      Paradigms

      Four cultural paradigms in historical sequence, each defined by six characteristic features. Select a paradigm to see its features.