But towards the end he seems to be saying he thinks this might end in the downfall of civilization as we know it, which, come on. A little overdramatic, and about a dozen steps over the horizon of what you can even speculate about.
After all, it's not like societal collapse is without precedent in human history. Our latest global financial crisis arguably helped usher in a global wave of xenophobic populists opposed to any kind of evidence-based decision making - which, unfortunately, makes it yet harder to identify and address the root causes of really complex economic, environmental, and socio-political problems.
(I should add that I'm still optimistic here - just that we shouldn't offhand dismiss this possibility as totally incredible, and that instead the possibility should serve as a wakeup call.)
Imagining the unimaginable is much more important than most people give it credit for.
That's the one thing that, once it's gone, it's not coming back. So why are you trying to get more dollars or property? Especially when both would have to be guaranteed by the aforementioned collapsed civilization?
This entire discussion only means something if civilization is not collapsed. If civilization is collapsed, then the only thing that has any real long term value would be passage to Asia. (Assuming that, like the last collapse, the Eastern half of civilization would chug along happily without the Western half of civilization.)
But yeah, for the rest of us, it's just gonna be a slightly more modern version of the dark ages. (ie - More of us will be killed by raids and disease because the weapons tech will be a little better and there are more of us to spread contagion.)