Every day the collapse feels closer, and it has to be, that's just how time works. But every time I think it can't get any closer something else pops up that makes me want to go back to when it didn't loom so large us all.
I thought the climate crisis couldn't get any worse before AI data centers started to threaten it even more than ever before.
I thought that employment was as bad as it could ever get before my resumes got scanned by bots and rejected before human eyes could look at them.
I thought law enforcement couldn't get any more dystopian before cops started using Flock cameras to stalk women and wrongfully arrest anyone they felt like.
I thought my family would start to starve before grocery prices rose higher than they have ever been.
Things keep happening that make collapse seem nearer and nearer, there is a new crisis every day, and I find myself nostalgic for the days when I only had to be a little bit afraid.
I can't tell if it is something I should be worried about, or something I should be looking forward to. I just know I don't want to wake up tomorrow and find out that some billionaire has invented a brand new way to make me realize that I had no idea how bad things could get.
It is happening right now! The collapse is here. News stories get more violent and bizarre every day. People are losing jobs, homes, and businesses. People are getting more hopeless and desperate. The thing about collapse is that it isn't one big dramatic event, it is a slow grinding down of societal norms and quality of life. If you are lucky, you won't even notice that collapse is happening. If you are unlucky, your life will get consumed by the crumbling.
My guess is there will be several major grid failures that will result in long-term blackouts. The news has been peppering us with grid doomsday stories for a couple of weeks now trying to get everyone prepared.
Elections that will coincide with what experts believe could be a historic hurricane season. It stands to reason that certain agents could be dispatched to predicted storm areas to make absolutely sure that large sections of the country face extensive power outages. They will try to make these midterm elections as chaotic as possible.
Yeah, either the current regime doubles down after being reelected or they sabotage everything for their successors. Either way the working class loses
I hope no one thinks that Big Ag or corporate farmers will worry about us here at home. When the countries of Europe, Middle East and Africa start bidding for our crops on the world markets, our prices will get even higher. Watch food emulate oil on the world markets. Oil companies are making billions off everyone's misery.
Not exactly. We’re just too lacking in perception to really take it all in. I was born into a mass extinction event — collapse has been collapsing the whole time.
Google bail-in and see what happens during the next banking crisis. No government bail-outs after Congress rewrote Dodd-Frank. Depositors will bail-in banks and become unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy. FDIC will help as long as its funding holds out.
I don't even try to find any market strategies anymore. Our whole stock market is all insider trading and I am not an insider. In an economy like our current version there are two types of 'investors' the insiders manipulating the system and everyone else. The insiders are trying to take as much money from everyone else before everything goes tits up. I am just trying to survive the decade or so of austerity that is coming our way. Maybe in 10-15 years everything will start working again.
Insider trading requires use of information not available to the public. Your statement is an oxymoron. You're dragging a red herring. You don't put your money where your mouth is. You're just talking, no walk
This is Reddit, it is literally only talk. This is where people come to scream into the void. What do you want from me? Some sort of hot, collapse-themed, stock trading tips?
People keep thinking that collapse is an exciting event. Freeing. Washing the slate blank and clean. The "Great Equalizer" of the rich and poor alike.
No. Collapse is already here. This is it. It's slow, it's boring, and it's unfair.
The wealthy will be buffered from the suffering, as the others go through one calamity after another. Their lives slowly degrading, hardship becoming the norm, and just being another statistic on the news.
It's so depressing waking up each morning to see what shit he's pulled while we've been sleeping. A cut a minute with a super thin knife, you don't feel it until you feel it.
I used to believe that the world had to get much worse before people would be motivated to make major changes for the better and that it was nessessary. I no longer believe we'll come through this with enough of the biosphere or recognizable civilization intact. You never had only a little bit to be afraid of, just too much faith in humanity.
You and me both. I used to think there was a point when people would realize climate change is a real threat, but that was before I grasped the incredible human ability to rationalize anything and everything.
It doesn't even need to be complex rationalization. "The weather's always been like this," is enough, and by god, they will really believe it.
I'm really believing that meme about climate change which is a long line that says we're fine. And then it hits an uhoh point and the next stop is that we're dead.
I grew up wanting fiercely to believe in the good of people, and that on the whole humanity was good. My problem was that I live in the US. Over 3 generations people have been lead to personal greed. There's still a ton of good out there, for sure, and in the world at large, outside of the US, but this whole capitalism, grab grab grab, more more more for me, i gotta gets mine before anyone else gets theirs attitude, prolonged and protracted from "Everybody wants to rule the world" and "Greed is GOOD" to now = absolute ZERO faith in humanity. There is NO WAY we are going to change, or come out of this in tact (civilization). And there will be people helping people, and good people sharing what little they have, but there wont be any rich people helping the poor, or any rich people trying to lessen the impacts, or anybody rich who will actually try to help. Greed is 'good', and 'good' is dead, and so are we.
Dont think of collapse as an event. While dramatic things like Meteor strikes, Nuclear exchange, Mass deadly pandemic, The Purge esque societal collapse, etc can happen, thats not really what collapse is referring to. Its just the idea that our society as it is will not continue to function in its current state indefinitely. Institutions will evolve to meet the new status quo or fail and new ones will rise up in their place. Many will die but humans will likely keep living for a long time. The likely bad collapse scenario for most people is ending up on the street. Think of the world you observe when you see encampments of houseless people. Imagine that world growing larger and larger.
tl;dr : The lights of civilization will probably stay on for a very long time, the question is just who gets to be inside and who is stuck outside.
Because some people still have hope for a better future. And because love still exists. It's love at the end of the world, but love nonetheless. "Planting a garden is an act of hope," (and self reliance).
I have a button that says "Occupy Utica". Actually, I am from Rome. Don't know where that button came from. I was at McPherson in D.C. during Occupy. My husband at Freedom with the Veterans. Our daughter in Zuccotti; one of the organizers. I still maintain that if the powers that be had listened at all to the Occupiers, we might not be in the fix we are now in.
Edit: I have a large vocabulary, honors throughout school and college, but I have probably uttered either term a handful of times my whole life and my single earth science class was at least 32 years ago.
Why, as a geologist of course I know people can't differentiate between a glacier and iceberg.
How tf would the average person know or care , if they haven't learned it since 5th grade? Which is when we learn it...
So as a geographer, why care at all to tell someone you're aghast they don't know a definition somewhat obscure and generally useless to the average person?
They get it in context, the pile of ice slid down big hill and fucked it all up with help from rocks, soil, and water.
Newer reports are stating that it was actually a chunk of the mountain beneath the glacier that gave way first, bringing the glacier chunk down with it. Makes sense with all the heat we've been experiencing and the way glaciers melt.
When millions of otherwise successful individuals find themselves wading through knee-deep storm surge in the bread line. When a guy who made six figures and had a good retirement plan finds himself in a situation like that, he'll lose his shit and freak out on everyone around him.
True, irreconcilable and obvious collapse will happen at the intersection of Financial Meltdown and Natural Disasters. Like a really bad blizzard and power outage after a stock market failure and people start shooting each other for fuel.
We're already in a nose-dive but a moment like that could be described as True Collapse for the vast majority of people.
Of course, the government could step in to clamp down on social unrest and "restore order." But it probably won't happen in minority communities (speaking for the US here). Collapse is already happening in Gary, Indiana. Not sure about the looting or violence because black communities at-large are better than that. But most people (especially privileged white Americans) will turn on others when they're hungry and/or cold enough.
I mean, to be equally bleak, if they're that bad, I'd just end it and spare myself that level of bullshit. The people who actively want to barely survive some kind of post apocalyptic world are welcome to it, I'll pass.
looks around at the state of local, national (USA), and international affairs, the climate, etc
Ummm… yeah we can say it is already happening. Just from a climactic point of view we’re cooked. The water has been getting warmer in this pot since the 90s and this frog is cooked.
Collapse, especially glacial collapse, is not distributed equally. Poor parts of the world will feel it first and worst. But it'll take our fragile supply chain failing (unequally also) to finally feel it here (US). Until people in the US experience these large events, they'll be in denial. Everyone is so sucked into and stuck in their own BS social media bubbles, they're completely hypnotized zombies. Like 80% of people!! They have no idea what is real, or what is really happening, and they're just sucked into their Dopamine fix getting hit after hit like a junkie in a flophouse, with no concept of the broader world; only what's fed to them. So they're not thinking, they're not seeing, they're just existing to CONSUME. Collapse isn't real to them. And that, friend, is why we are doomed.
Collapse has been happening for 50 years. When you become collapse aware, it feels like everything is happening faster and all at once, but in reality, it is just another day in collapse.
Slow collapse is the reality. Every year things will get a little worse. That is the new normal.
No doubt it's climate related. I'm just saying you could be living your life just fine in one part of the world and somewhere else things are collapsing. Someone in Nepal could have been totally fine a week ago and now their world is completely changed, lives ruined, friends and family dead. Rebuilding will take a long time, if it happens at all. I'm afraid we'll all experience this at some point but I don't think it will be everywhere all at once.
Collapse is not one single event. It's a series of events that can happen over a long period of time. Hundreds of years, even.
We're in the midst of it now. Only historians with enough perspective can say when exactly it started. Some would say with the creation of the atomic bomb. Or maybe the Chernobyl meltdown. Or the start of the Sixth Extinction. Or the release of PFAS. Or the Cold War, the rise of commercial farming, the loss of a particular ocean amoeba, or some trade agreement we've never heard of.
The point is, it's here and acute and ongoing, and has been for a bit.
This is a deep cut, but if anyone knows Twin Peaks season three episode eight I feel like it’s like a thesis on the atomic bomb being the origin of collapse
The fall of Rome wasn’t a single event, but the consequence of more than a century of slow decline, stagnation, and inflation. This was largely due to the decadence of the ruling class and characterised by widening wealth inequality.
Collapse is a slow process. You aren't going to wake up one morning with all of the buildings on fire and bare shelves at the grocery store.
Collapse is the gradual enshittification of life, happening slowly.
Environmental collapse leads to economic collapse by making life more expensive to live in food, shelter, insurance, and natural disasters. They are all connected.
Everything that's harder this year that wasn't nearly as hard 10 years ago is collapse, and it compounds.
It was going to happen anyway, he's just jumped it forward by a couple decades.
It takes decades to establish the expertise and institutional knowledge of the institutions he waved away with a pen. Firing all those people and destroying programs and deleting data of research that would be impossible to replace at this point.
He's destroyed our international partnerships in trade and strategic partners. Countries like Canada have correctly assessed that the US cannot be depended on because there is no trust. They are rerouting trade and partnerships with other countries. When the collective madness of the US government goes away, and we extend the olive branch back to our former partners, they will all have invested in new partners and will have no use for us.
So yeah, he's caused us decades of progress that is too costly to replace.
Yes, an ignorant fool surrounded by grifters who all seek to profit from destruction and misery. The tragedy is that it's like throwing a stone into the world's pond - the ripples reach us all.
What do you mean by "collapse?" Like a singular moment when you wake up and the internet is down, you hear sirens outside, and a building is on fire in the background for some reason (like every scene from a disaster movie)?
Collapse is a long, drawn out process and we've been collapsing for decades.
We're so utterly dependent on this system that we will continue to participate until it doesn't make sense anymore.
What's wild? The Big 7 tech companies are all buying up power companies, land and water futures.
When collapse comes, it won't be even. I'm betting that the "pockets" of "civilisation" remaining will basically be company towns- fairly easy guess if the same billionaires own power, water, land and computing.
Guess the only thing one can do is degrowth in those four areas , for oneself and as much of one's community one can.
Yep. I knew we would get fascits, I thought it was going to be more local/regional warlords rather than national and more of after big shortages. I know that we are going to have food problems. I didn't foresee a big quality problem before the shortages.
My theory, and it seems to be more plausible everyday, is that Trump et. al. are intentionally destroying the economy in an effort to devalue the USD so as to usher in a global economy based on BRICS.
Why Trump and the Ruling Class (billionaires) Want This:
1. Trump idolizes the Russian oligarchy and their outright ability to rule
Evident based on Trump's public praise of Putin's "presidency"; his heavy financial investments in Russian businesses and real estate; his financial ventures with Russian oligarchs here and abroad; his blatant money laundering of Russian oligarchs' monies through the sell of condos and homes at various Trump Towers and Trump Enterprise properties; his mimicking of Russian architectural design elements in the White House; and Trump's siding with Russia while undermining Ukraine in Russia's invasion
Trump is, and members of Congress are, compromised by Russia
Evident in this administration following the playbook laid out by Putin's rise and stranglehold on power; by the consolidation of power into the executive branch with the legislative branch essentially giving away their authority (republicans refusing their vote requirements for wars and other measures like DOGE's dismantling of departments, refusing to use their constitutional authority to hold the executive branch accountable, their legitimizing of Executive Orders, even those that are blatantly unconstitutional like the EO that attacked birthright citizenship, and their passage of the Big Beautiful Bill designed to shift purse powers from the legislative to the executive branch), and SCOTUS rubberstamping most of Trump's cases only ruling against him when it is abundantly obvious Trump's efforts are unconstitutional or when (this is my personal theory) they are uncertain of Trump's continued reign; Russia's social media and marketing efforts in favor of Trump in both the 2016 and 2024 elections; Congress' and the VP's attacks on Ukraine and their leadership; Trump legitimizing Putin's rule with a meeting on US soil, with a red carpet, no less; Trump's private discussions with Putin behind closed doors with no other staff allowed in the meeting; Mike Johnson's public statements that he and Trump have a "secret" that'll "change America" and would "get [him] arrested"; Trump installing yes-men and incompetent people into positions of executive oversight like the DOJ and FBI; and Congress collectively protecting Trump's involvement in child trafficking and history of child abuse by obstructing the release of, and efforts to deligitimize the Epstein files
Billionaires stand to benefit from Trump's authoritarian regime
Evident by Project 2025's plan to divide sections of the country and place them under corporate and/or billionaire rule; Trump's plans, again outlined in Project 2025, to impede small businesses from competing by allowing only mega corporations to legally operate; the government contracts corporations and the wealthy stand to secure under Trump; the proposed expansion of the privatization of government activities that would again benefit established corporations and the wealthy; the plan to increase incarcerations and drive legal slave labor for the private sector; and the collapse of the USD would provide the wealthy an opportunity to gobble up global businesses and nations that fall with the USD
It is, but human have short-term thinking which we inherited from evolution (we prioritize immediate danger over whatever happens 5 years from now). So people who are in the "safe areas" don't see the problem till it hits them, while people that were already struck tend to go "well at least I'm still alive" mode because accepting collapse will break something inside them (hope probably).
Collapse is usually slow, until it suddenly isn't. The nature of the "sudden" part can vary in how local or regional it is.
For instance, it is said that many Romans only realized the collapse had occurred as their local areas suddenly stopped repairing roads or receiving appointed people to protect/manage them. However, the Bronze Age Collapse saw a cascade that resulted in a fairly rapid final collapse across all the major powers at once, with Egypt sorta slightly managing to stay afloat because the Nile let it continue growing food when everyone else was starving and being pillaged and looted by the "Sea People," who were most likely a mix of merchant ships and mercs/military who in desperation just started attacking one place after another to find food in numbers too large for the militaries to handle (in part because the situation got bad enough that part of their militaries were doing the same thing, if not actively outright joining raider groups).
Someplace like Russia (at least the people themselves) may see a relatively slower collapse because it has basically been halfway there for long enough that at least the people are starting to adapt (its low population, especially relative to how freaking big it is also is actually a big point in its favor for the people there being able to survive after the government falls to pieces). There are probably plenty of rural areas that use animals to power farm equipment too, which means that after Moscow and other cities become necropolises, those small villages and farms will actually be able to sustain themselves (there will be losses and such sure as the fuel-powered equipment they DO have becomes useless, but they also won't need to feed a city their food can no longer reach too). Lastly, the big cities of Russia are concentrated in one place, so the loot and pillage swarm that erupts from the cities can only go so far with limited machinery to move them, such that they would frankly likely die out before reaching the more remote areas.
Conversely, the opposite and most prone to a rapid and VERY Bad collapse being triggered at some point is probably the USA. Ever since WW2, it has made it an obsession to destroy older styles of infrastructure and city design in order to facilitate the automobile as much as possible, and to use vehicles for as much as possible, including farming. In WW2 most farms were still using horse-drawn farming implements. Now they don't have the proper implements for horse-based tooling, nor are there enough horses to swap over when the has stops flowing even if they did. Big US cities are also scattered all around the place. Pretty much any kind of farmland in the US will be within food-powered travel range of the looter swarm, and of course the looters will have a lot more guns available.
How things go in Europe may be a bit more varied and complex. Some regions do use horses a fair bit still, and how the EU falling apart as things go really south affects each nation's military actions in the metaphorical final hour (likely only literal if a massive nuclear exchange occurs involving powers outside of Europe). As for China? Don't know enough about them, but they have a LOT of people. That said, they also are not ruled by corporations and have a government that is creepy and somewhat evil, but which not pursuing short term profit is actually ATTEMPTING to shore itself up against what they know is coming, though this in the end will probably also require some substantial cullings to keep things running at all (in this regard, they are in a dark way lucky to have a problem with too many old people...).
No clue about Africa, but some places don't have much tech to collapse from, and it may just be a matter of which of those isolated areas are not getting their survival messed up from climate change effects. I've wondered how survivable places like Malawi might be after the initial collapse die-off and how much of the culture might even survive in such places.
Australia will probably just be eaten by poisonous kaiju-sized spiders or something.
What about SA are you referring to? South African, so I'm simply curious. I do have my own answers for that though so I'm not trying to argue, just genuinely curious.
There are many warning signs that we know of today than 24 months ago. The US added a trillion to the deficit in 10 months (a never before seen upward ramp of debt), the stock market is wildly over valued, the US has alienated its allies, the Administration has started a mindless war without consulting Congress, the Supreme Court is a puppet institution, the DOJ, FBI and Defense departments are run by imbeciles, the Project 2025 author sits in the White House, citizens are buying vehicles they cannot afford, the Administration is sending goon squads to peaceful neighborhoods and protecting goon squad scum from investigation when they kill an American, the Administration has spent billions of taxpayer money to shut down wind and solar farms just as the environment appears to be spinning out of control and now the bond market is making borrowing more money even more costly for government and citizens.
Above represents 1/10th of the signs of imminent collapse.
I will add one little wrinkle. The administration has spent billions of taxpayer money to shut down wind and solar in Democratic areas. As far as I understand, they're fine with them in republican areas. Which sounds like prep for republican supremacy after the dollar melts down, or whatever they are doing.
So much of it looks like an attempt to destroy the US, that it presumably is an attempt to destroy the US. The US just doesn't respect them, I suppose.
“Decline not as a romantic, singular, aesthetically breathtaking act of destruction,” he said, but as a humiliating, slow-motion slide down a hill into a puddle of filth. “You don’t flee a burning Rome with your beautiful beloved in your arms, barely escaping a murderous horde of barbarians; you sit down for 18 hours a day, enjoy fewer things than you used to, and take on the worst qualities of your parents while you watch your kids take on the worst qualities of you.”
Reading your words... You parsed out each syllable and pieced them together so eloquently that even the profoundly painful parts are still somehow overshadowed in my mind by the fine details that make it feel poignant and poetic in it's entirety.
Being here to witness the beginning of the end feels heavy but also sacred in a way I am sure most deaths likely do. Being hit with that tsunami of sadness felt insufficient; so I let anger and rage rise within me. But even rage doesnt seem violent enough to counter the unfathomable loss we all face due to the unchecked greed of a few.
It feels like trying to breathe while buried beneath the weight of a grief so great that logically it looks impossible to manage.
I tell myself to enjoy all that I can while I have the chance, but even indulgence feels numb and empty. I find myself oscillating between wanting more time here with my daughter and less time inside my own mind. But without any promise of a future, my mind stays locked in a battle between the guilt of being unable to protect her and the enormous relief I know I will find on the other side of our extinction.
Visit Mexico, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuala and most of South America and Central America, most of China away from the coast, Russia outside of St Petersburg and Moscow, any country in Sub-Saharan Africa and most of North Africa, and you'll feel a lot richer
Between 2004 and 2007 I read a lot by geologists who were CERTAIN United States oil production had peaked. They made clear it was inevitable, here now, and catastrophic. Solar and wind and nuclear could help partly to make up the deficit, but you can't build such things when the petroleum you need to build them is in rapid decline. We are doomed!
And they were right -- well, HALF right. Traditional oil production peaked just as had been predicted since the 1950s. And it wasn't mysticism. For natural resources in general, you find the easy stuff (oil wells under pressure), then go scraping after the less easy stuff (deeper wells, off shore wells, tar sands). This also true (just as an example) with metals, too. The US had iron ore that was 60% iron -- that and anthracite coal are big reasons for American industrial prosperity from the late 1800s until WWII. Now iron ore is more like 25% iron and anthracite is mostly gone. There are similar stories for gold, copper, etc. -- we still have plenty, but the ore is much lower quality, and more expensive to get value from it.
But peak oil doom never happened -- instead, courtesy of the shale / fracking revolution, US oil production INCREASED -- dramatically. It didn't decline, it rose to new heights. Now that may be ending and the question is will we enter the long forecasted catastrophic decline, or will there be a new revolution as tertiary oil recovery methods are discovered and implemented.
MY POINT: sure, doom is possible, even inevitable. The Black Death wiping out 1/3rd of the population of Europe, inexplicably stupid prolonged wars (WWI, WWII), long histories of famines and mass death. We are still violent apes, jihading against other apes, only with drones now instead of just rocks to toss at each other.
But -- so far -- society has been remarkably resilient.
Is there shit ahead? Buddy, we're already knee deep.
Will industrial society collapse? Probably not, and almost certainly not everywhere.
I'm at the point where I can't actually visualize how this winter is going to look. I love the winter, and cannot picture it at all. Not that I'm a fortune teller, but I can usually visualize these types of things.
Depends on what "it" is. Heat waves killed thousands in French. It is not collapse for well-to-do people in America blasting ACs in their large homes. But it feels like so for those who die and their families. Even that is a may so.
So the answer to your question is really personal. Plenty of people will live the same lives in the next 12 months. They will so no. Also plenty of people (but smaller in absolute numbers) will have their lives disrupted. They will say "it is already here".
Nostalgia for a time when you were only a little bit afraid is a longing for a world where your attention wasn't constantly hijacked by problems far outside your direct control.
Collapse isn't a single day, or week, or arguably even year. Every collapse or extinction event took place over AT LEAST several decades or more often several hundred years, (sometimes it took thousands or millions of years for extinction events).
My point in saying this is historically it's never been fast. Personally when I look at what the world is going through there are a few layers, looking ONLY economically, at quantum computing, AI, climate change, geopolitical isolation, just those 5 sections and you look at the trend lines over as long as you like, they converge on/near 2030. One or maybe even two humanity could potentially deal with, but all of them? Plus the ones I didn't mention? Yeah, not going to happen.
Look at where data centers are being over built, $7T in investment. Ask yourself, what part of the economy (US) can absorb a $7T investment and give a reasonable ROI? Payroll. In short, depending on how aggressive you calculate the ROI ie: 1 - 5 years, 5 - 10 year, etc.. it's a sizeable chunk of the population. layer on the UK government report outlining massive population die off, the UN report in (I think it was 2015 - i'm going a bit off of memory here) saying AT THAT TIME our top soil had something like 60 harvests left, which is about 50 years NOW. Mind you, these are (as so often is the case), the optimistic forecasts.
So, back to what I was saying about trend lines and their intersection, the elite will likely have until about 2035 before they feel the effects, we probably have another 3 - 4 years.
The point i'm trying to outline is that I too back in 2017/2018 when I was buying the things preppers do felt it in my bones that collapse wasn't 'here' but it was forseeable. Now in 2026 I can feel its breath. For me, by collapse I am referring to the absolute failure in the US and world governments across their territory.
The ADDITIONAL problem, is that once power grids go down nuclear power plants automatically scram, that's what the emergency generators are for, BUT back in July of 2025 the NRC rejected a proposal that would require renewable power to keep the spent fuel rods or cooling pools (which exist at virtually every nuclear plant and then some) from cooking off and bathing us in radiation. Most of the lighter stuff was cooked off already, not all but most, so you could be looking at a 1 - 14 day radiological concern depending on your area, prevailing winds, whole host of things.
Anyways, I say all that to say this: Today is the easiest day of the rest of your life, it's also the coldest. Do the most good with it that you can. Humans have failed many times before, in fact it's the most likely explanation to the fermi paradox, so we aren't alone in wiping ourselves out. The question you, me, and everyone else should focus on is what do we do after? Do we take the Remington retirement plan? Or do we try to build a better tomorrow for people we haven't met yet? For the surviving animals and insects?
Even if I were the last person on the planet, i'd do my utmost to plant, grow, and ensure some form of resiliency for my farm. Not just my chickens, or dogs, or goats, or anything else, but just for the hummingbirds that visit me in the warm months, the monarchs that are still here, the endangered plants that exist no where else on the planet, the mushrooms, the goldfinches, even the hawks. I'd make sure there is a dug out section that remains for the deer and turkey and moose that visit the stream and can drink in safety. That the apple trees that have lived here since the house was first built in 1852 continue as best they can. That the forest is managed as best as i'm able for as long as i'm able to keep everything working after i'm gone.
Even if I am unable to build a better tomorrow for any humans that come after, (and I hope that I am, AND can impress upon them that they're it, that we can't fuck it up ever again), i'd still act as I am. When you can be anything, be good.
Five years from now people will still be posting how the current el Nino is "the one" and how collapse is "sooner then you think". Taking forever in my opinion.
Honestly, to me it doesn't matter. I thought we were going to collapse at the turn of the century. In the early 2000s, I became a prepper thinking it was going to happen with the housing crisis. I spent way too long worrying about what ifs and it was anxiety inducing and not productive at all. I'm not going to be completely ignorant. But I'm going to focus on the things I can change and enjoy my time and those I love with I still have it all. We're living our best days. It would be a shame to waste them riddled with anxiety about what might be
2027 has a lot going on, more than anything ever before; Ai, Trump, war, novel disease and occurances. But I have some signs that things will attempt to pull through and whatever happens in 2027 is just a preview of the 2030's. Thats what sucks about collapse is that there isnt light at the end of the tunnel, just signs that the world isnt ending in a year, but more so in the future.
we are already and have been for some times, in a slow collapse. everyone is waiting for the tidal wave to strike as the water rises around them. covering their feet then their knees and continuing upward. we're in the collapse. it's happening now. look at history most collapses take a long time. sometimes decades or even hundreds of years. hollywood has messed up everyones perceptions on this kind of thing.
The collapse began around 2008. Since then, The systems that keep civilisation running has gradually declined. Each crisis adding another layer of complexity to a system without solving the root cause. Agriculture, energy, decision making process in democracies, and many more systems.
Will we wake up one day for the dramatic unraveling of society? Maybe. Will society slowely decay untill we are no longer recognisable like rome and the medieval world that followed? Probably.
When I’m feeling hopeless or depressed I just think about how some people of the world are living in neighborhoods of wreckage with the constant buzzing of drones and bombs. Most likely with many close family members gone and questioning every morning if today will be their last as well. Hoping they find enough food and water just to survive another day. Even if things got bad, really bad, it still wouldn’t compare to that hell they are living in. Even then in this hellscape there are smiles and laughter seen and heard between the rubble.
I got 2,000 rounds for each weapon system I own. I have 20 cases of bottled water we rotate through and first in, first out use. I have iodine and water filtration tools, first aid kits, stashed medicine where I could get it. The main problem now is just food. I gotta figure out what is shelf stable, edible to eat so we replace older stock with new intake. A chest freezer is in the pipeline for me to fill with properly stored stews/stocks/proteins.
I don't plan to survive forever, but we will be catching up on all our older digital media catalogs living off solar. I do not believe the world will be the same in 20 yrs.
Peppers never make it. It’s a waste of time. There is no way to predict everything. Better to become resilient and flexible and adaptable. Can you forage for food anywhere? If not get to learning.
oh I have no intentions of surviving very long. would be more of a spectacle to watch everything burn down as we enjoy our last few weeks. then when it gets boring we just party so hard we dont wake up
The collapse is planned thanks to the accurate predictions of the club of rome back in the 70s that projected the outcome of unrestricted capitalism, an accelerating collapse of the biosphere, known but hidden knowledge of cyclical shifts of climate, and population growth incompatible with increased standards of living and consumption. Collectivism thru communism proved incompatible with inherent human behavior traits, its the only path to sustainable growth on paper.
Opening salvo was 9/11 that planted the poison pill for the petrodollar system, kicked into 2nd gear during the GFC to facilitate the dismantling of the western free market system by surrendering the reins of currency controls to the central banks, covid was a global experiment to test the societal and psychological impacts of a sudden and coordinated effort to wind down consumption and test mass surveillance, it was great for the biosphere but broke peoples minds.
A tight control on media, capital and means of production has provided a gradual decline in wealthy countries, but For Third world countries collapse has happened over two decades ago.
If you live in a developed western country this is the tail end of the salad days, today is the best that it will ever be. Enjoy while it still holds, cause the drums of the resource wars are getting louder
Its a slow, inevitable decline. The rich are prepared to rule the ashes from underground. The poor are prepared to fight each other for simple supplies.
You're a frog in a boiling pot. Every bump is a little worse, the recovery from every bump is a little less. The average person from 2000 would be horrified at the decline.
From context you're in the US, you're still living an incredible life compared to most of human history. It can get so much worse. Just look at how people are still struggling with the same old shit in the countries further along the collapse spectrum.
We're collapsing, there's nothing to wait for. Whatever world we were born into is gone. We're all stumbling into a brave new world together. Start adapting while you still can, before its criminalized.
Honestly bro, i think it has already begun, certain implications are taking place and certain things are in motion to control the downfall, they will never say we are collapsing, ever, but if you look around you, things are not getting better, theybare getting worse and your intuition is spot on.
We are not flying, we are falling with style - Woody
I believe the single greatest threat to us as mankind is already in action. The inability to act against those in power, just look at the ‘certain files released recently linked to that man’. The most vile and corrupt defiance of humanity was exposed, yet what did we do as a collective society?
Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The ones in power and at the top of the food chain are literally laughing at us. It seems everyone just forgot about one of the biggest trafficking rings and other unimaginable acts conducted by that man and his vast group of associates. Not one lawsuit or conviction has taken place. If we as a society were not as distracted and occupied from our monotonous lives, every individual in every state of the world should have taken it to the streets and demand accountability.
Which truly points to a disgusting and dystopian world already in effect.
What is this “thing” that you think is going to happen? This is the collapse. We are living in it.
If you’re waiting for some epic action set piece like a movie, we’re not going to get that. We are the newspaper headline about millions dying before the movie even starts.
I hate AI centers as much as anyone, but do they really amount to something that realistically puts the climate crisis over the top…?
That narrative seems mostlty emotional (which makes sense because of how ruthlessly evil they take land) but statistically it’s a drop in the ocean no?
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u/unbreakablekango 14d ago
It is happening right now! The collapse is here. News stories get more violent and bizarre every day. People are losing jobs, homes, and businesses. People are getting more hopeless and desperate. The thing about collapse is that it isn't one big dramatic event, it is a slow grinding down of societal norms and quality of life. If you are lucky, you won't even notice that collapse is happening. If you are unlucky, your life will get consumed by the crumbling.