Between Collapse and Cosmos: a 2×2 map for thinking about humanity’s futures

I keep picturing humanity as sitting on a swinging pendulum—​peril on one side, prosperity on the other—so I came up with a 2 × 2 to think about this further.

||Tech risk realized|Tech risk averted| |:-|:-|:-| |Ideology polarized|Apocalypse / Collapse: Competing powers race to implement their worldviews, triggering existential threats like nuclear warfare, engineered pandemics, or environmental collapse that fundamentally undermine human civilization|Ideological Dystopia: William Gibson's "The future's already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." | |Ideology aligned|Tech Dystopia: Things like Nick Bostrom’s “vulnerable‑world” idea. One DIY disaster is enough to nudge us into dystopia, even if we're 99% aligned otherwise on what to do for equality & progress.|Utopia: This represents a perfect society where we've both averted technological risks and achieved ideological harmony, thus ensuring abundance and equality across humanity.|

A couple of threads running through this:

• Peter Turchin’s cliodynamics: The sociological dimension of the future is important, which he defines through elite competition but which we might broaden to encompass any opposing ideological beliefs that fragment society's ability to address existential challenges.
• Toby Ord’s cosmic perspective: This highlights the immense responsibility we bear. Our 2x2 framework maps potential futures where humanity either fulfills its vast cosmic potential or squanders it through technological recklessness or ideological fracture. The twist here I think is dystopia isn't opposite utopia, collapse is, while dystopia is the other two options.

Thoughts on this organization system for potential futures?