The Problem

When societies become aware of existential threats (climate change, pandemics, nuclear risk, etc.), human behavior does not always shift toward rational preservation. Instead, awareness of fragility triggers a cascade of psychological and cultural responses that paradoxically accelerate irrational behavioral patterns.

The asteroid effect describes three recurring dynamics that surface when people face existential threat. Temporal collapse happens when long horizons lose meaning and the future contracts into the present. Consumption acceleration under scarcity appears when warnings about limits drive people to spend faster rather than slow down. Symbolic intensification emerges when goods and experiences gather an amplified weight, each choice carrying the sense of being a possible last expression of identity.

Asteroid Economics captures these dynamics as part of a broader shift in behavior under conditions of constant risk awareness. In the information age, threats circulate endlessly, and that saturation does not slow consumption. It speeds it up. Awareness of fragility turns into a push for immediacy, and knowledge of risk deepens the pull toward indulgence.

Research Agenda

The implications of Asteroid Economics reach across policy, markets, and culture. Policy warnings risk doing harm when they provoke spending rather than restraint. Markets become distorted when threat events shift demand and shorten investment horizons. Cultural life is reshaped when identity expression is compressed into urgent, symbolic acts of consumption.

The framework also opens a broad research agenda. Behavioral economists can model how awareness of existential threat changes consumption choices. Communication scholars can study how different message frames either intensify or soften the backfire effect. Historians can trace the recurring parallels across eras, showing how societies have responded to collapse in the past. Work in artificial intelligence and computational modeling can track real-time patterns of threat communication and their impact on consumption.

The first public essay on this idea appeared in Psyche Ideas (Aeon Media), under the title Asteroid Economics: why we’re shopping our way through Armageddon.

Core Constructs

Asteroid Economics is the construct that describes how constant communication of existential risk compresses time horizons, accelerates consumption, and amplifies the symbolic weight of goods and experiences. Awareness of fragility accelerates spending and turns everyday choices into symbolic acts.