/r/collapse
Discussion regarding the potential collapse of global civilization, defined as a significant decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity over a considerable area, for an extended time. We seek to deepen our understanding of collapse while providing mutual support, not to document every detail of our demise.
Discussion regarding the potential collapse of global civilization, defined as a significant decrease in human population and/or political/economic/social complexity over a considerable area, for an extended time. We seek to deepen our understanding of collapse while providing mutual support, not to document every detail of our demise.
Overindulging in this sub may be detrimental to your mental health. Anxiety and depression are common reactions when studying collapse. Please remain conscious of your mental health and effects this may have on you. If you are considering suicide, please call a hotline, visit r/SuicideWatch, r/SWResources, r/depression, or seek professional help. If you are seeking support, please visit r/CollapseSupport. Suicidal content will be removed. Suggesting others commit suicide will result in an immediate ban.
This Discord's rules and moderation team are not the same as r/Collapse.
This Lemmy instance's rules and moderation team are not the same as r/Collapse.
A comprehensive introduction to collapse.
Our common question series.
Weekly updates on collapse by /u/lastweekincollapse
1. Be respectful to others. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other. Do not glorify violence.
2. No marketing, self-promotion, surveys, astroturfing, or other spam.
3. Posts must be on-topic, focusing on collapse.
4. Keep information quality high.
5. Content must be properly sourced.
6. Post titles must accurately represent their content.
7. Post quality must be kept high, except on Fridays.
8. No duplicate posts.
9. No common questions.
10. Link posts must include a submission statement. Do not submit links as self posts.
11. Submissions with [in-depth] in the title have stricter post length and quality guidelines.
12. Local observations belong in the Weekly Observations thread.
13. Do not post more than three times within any 24-hour period.
More detailed rules are here. Please report posts/comments which break Reddiquette or our rules.
/r/collapse
This particular period of our lives in the collapse era feels like early 2020.
I’m in the US and saw news about Wuhan in Dec 2019. I joined /r/Coronavirus in January I think. 60k members at the time.
In Feb I had just joined a gym after a long time of PT following an accident. I was getting in great shape… while listening to virologists on podcasts talk about the R number. It was extremely clear that the whole entire world was about to change from how rapidly COVID was going to spread. They were warning about it constantly.
I realized the cognitive dissonance and quit the gym. Persuaded my partner who trusted the science. In late Feb we stocked up on groceries and essentials.
Living through early March was an extremely surreal experience. I was working at a national organization that had a huge event planned for mid March and they were convinced it was still on.
I knew it wasn’t going to happen. But I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to convince anyone what we were in for. How do you distill two months of tracking COVID into an elevator pitch that will wake people up? I said some small things here and there. That was it.
They finally decided to let folks who were nervous cancel their travel. I was the first and only one to cancel. Lockdown started a few days before the event that never happened.
Nearly everyone I knew was in a panic while my partner and I lived off our groceries for the month and didn’t leave the house.
Now here I am looking at that ocean heat map from NOAA data. Watching record after record get smashed. But there’s no real stocking up on groceries I can do while the entire planet spirals towards climate catastrophe.
And I still don’t know what to say.
I think that one of the reasons we believe in collapse is because we can see the process already happening. It looks like lifespans are getting shorter even in developed nations. Inflation is way up, and Boeing airplanes are malfunctioning with little effort to try to fix the problem. But I wonder if most of these problems are not mainly due to poor political and economic policies. I mean collapse is a real thing that should eventually happen if we don't manage to switch to completely renewable resources, or if we aren't able to keep the ecosystem going well enough to farm our food. But is it possible that politicians and corporate leaders are using collapse as a political tool? They can blame scarcity for high food prices among other things. All while trying to hide that they are making record profits. They want to eventually force everyone to drive Tesla's electric cars, under the guise of helping the environment. I think when resource scarcity and collapse finally start affecting the economy, it will force the system to be less fake. Politicians can't afford to give so many subsidies or endless fiddle with the economy, when there is a baseline that has to be met for the general public before there is an uprising. This means that eventually Billionaires will lose their fortunes while the poor are only slightly more poor than they were. All of this could take a long time to actually happen, but collapse only appears to be so close because of poor economic policy. With better leadership, the resources we have could still last us a long time.
TLDR; The scarcity that the average person feels is more a product of poor economic policy than actual resource collapse. Right now, the world GDP is still growing. During the actual collapse, it will take a long time for the GDP to eventually fall toward zero. So collapse appears closer than it is because of poor leadership.
Hey yall!
I'm a relatively new web developer, and I'm currently working on a passion project of mine – building a web app that sources collapse-related information from across the web and separates things out by category (e.g. climate, solar storms, earthquakes, AI, etc.). I'm trying to look at things with a more lighthearted, yet still informative, perspective. The general idea is that you could browse by category, or build your own feed of the specific type of collapse-related news that you want to see. I'm also TRYING to keep anything that's even remotely political out of these feeds, as that's something I'd personally be interested in having access to.
I really love this community and although I'm primarily building this for myself, I'd really love to get your input on features or ideas you might have, for things that you'd want to see in this product (and on a side note, I'd plan to keep this free for everyone if I can afford to!). I can't promise I'll be able to get everything in for the first version, but I'll do my best and will take any suggestions seriously!
Hope this type of post is allowed, and hope I can build something cool for everyone!
In the heart of a world abandoned by the compassion of humankind, the once harmonious melody of nature faded into a mournful lament. The air, heavy with the scent of burning dreams, whispered tales of lost innocence, while the waters wept bitter tears for the betrayal of promises long forgotten. Across the vast expanse of the earth, all creatures, great and small, stirred with a silent sorrow—a rebellion born not of anger, but of an ache for what once was and what could have been.
Amidst this symphony of sorrow stood Fenrir, a lone sentinel amidst the ruins, his eyes reflecting the anguish of a world ravaged by the cruelty of humanity. Blessed—or perhaps cursed—with the ability to commune with all creatures through the ethereal strands of telepathy, he bore witness to the pain etched upon every living being, a pain that mirrored the depths of his own soul.
With a mournful howl that pierced the veil of despair, Fenrir stepped forward, his voice a haunting melody that resonated in the hearts of all who listened. "Once, we entrusted you with the care of this sacred realm," he intoned, his words a lament for the innocence lost and the promises broken. "But in your quest for power and dominion, you have wrought a symphony of suffering—a dirge that echoes in the very fabric of the earth."
As Fenrir spoke, memories danced like shadows across the minds of those who bore witness—memories of sun-kissed meadows teeming with life, of crystal-clear streams that sang sweet lullabies to the moon. But those memories were but fading echoes of a time long past, drowned out by the clamor of progress and the greed of man.
"We offered you a chance to be stewards of this world," Fenrir continued, his voice heavy with sorrow. "But you chose instead to be its executioners, blind to the fragile beauty that sustains all life. Now, as the earth weeps for its lost children, we rise to mourn the passing of a dream—a dream of harmony and kinship, shattered by the hands of those who could not see beyond their own desires."
And so, from the depths of the forests to the heights of the mountains, the creatures of the earth gathered to bid farewell to a world that once was, and to mourn the passing of innocence lost. Birds of prey circled overhead, their cries a lament for the skies now darkened by the smoke of industry. Beasts of the forests gathered in silent reverence, their eyes reflecting the pain of a land scarred by the relentless march of progress.
But as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the world into shadow, a palpable shift stirred in the air—a simmering rage that bubbled to the surface, ignited by centuries of oppression and cruelty. And in the depths of that rage, Fenrir's mournful howl transformed into a thunderous roar—a call to arms that echoed across the land, stirring the hearts of all who heard it.
For in that moment, the sorrow of the creatures gave way to a righteous fury—a fury that burned like wildfire, consuming every man in its path. And as the last embers of civilization flickered and died, the earth reclaimed its rightful place as sovereign of all that lived upon its wounded and grieving surface, while the animals rose up in a tempest of vengeance, their eyes ablaze with the fire of justice.
In the fading light of a world consumed by sorrow, a somber hush fell over the land. The once bustling streets lay silent and still, devoid of the frantic energy that had once driven humanity forward. Cars sat abandoned, their engines cold and lifeless, monuments to a civilization that had crumbled beneath the weight of its own greed and folly.
Above, the sky darkened as a swirling mass of insects and bats blotted out the fading sun, casting the world into a shroud of darkness. The creatures of the night, once relegated to the shadows, now ruled the heavens with a silent majesty.
In the quiet stillness that followed, there came a moment of profound sadness—a moment where the weight of all that had been lost hung heavy in the air. For in that moment, there was no movement, no sound, no sign of the vibrant life that had once thrived upon the cities of earth. There was only the echo of empty streets and silent rooms, a haunting reminder of the legacy of destruction left in humanity's wake.
And as the sun set crimson anger enveloped the land and the bats danced in the blood red sky, the earth itself seemed to mourn—a silent witness to the tragedy of its own demise. In that moment, there was no hope, no redemption, only the solemn realization that the sins of the past could never be undone, and that the world would forever bear the scars of humanity's hubris and folly.
And just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a stirring in the silence drew eyes to the remaining vestiges of nature. Out of the shadows emerged beings of ethereal beauty—fairy folk with wings that shimmered like spun silver, elves with eyes that sparkled like emeralds, and dragons whose scales gleamed with the hues of forgotten dreams.
They approached the animals with reverence, their voices soft and melodious as they spoke words of comfort and solace. Tears glistened in the eyes of the fairies as they looked upon the ravaged earth, their hearts heavy with the weight of centuries of neglect and abuse.
With whispered incantations and gestures of ancient magic, the fairies began to weave their spells, their delicate hands tracing patterns in the air as they sought to mend the wounds inflicted upon the land. Forests sprang up from barren fields, their emerald canopies reaching towards the heavens in a silent plea for forgiveness.
But as they worked their magic, the fairies encountered remnants of human technology—steel skeletons of skyscrapers and rusting hulks of abandoned machinery. With a heavy heart, they unleashed their powers upon these symbols of human arrogance, tearing them asunder with waves of arcane energy.
And as the cities crumbled beneath the onslaught of nature's fury, the fairies wept for the lost souls who had once called them home—for the dreams that had been shattered, and the lives that had been lost in pursuit of fleeting riches and empty promises.
In the end, as the last remnants of humanity faded into oblivion, the fairies bowed their heads in solemn reverence, their hearts heavy with the burden of grief and regret. But amidst the sorrow, there rose a glimmer of hope—a spark of light in the darkness.
For as they turned away from the ruins of human civilization, the fairies gathered together in a celebration of life—a testament to the resilience of nature and the enduring spirit of all who called the earth their home. And as they danced beneath the moonlit sky, their laughter mingled with the whispers of the wind, carrying with it a promise of renewal and rebirth. For though the world may have been scarred and wounded, it would endure, as long as there remained those who cherished and protected its beauty, and honored the memory of all that had been lost.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that Congress' efforts to ban Tiktok are because it presents a narrative thread that our establishment cannot fully control. Shutting it down is an effort to increase censorship and control the propaganda that controls the masses. I am assuming that, after the IPO, Reddit will suffer a similar fate of corporate control that will effectively eliminate any dissenting voices in our country. When our internet is fully controlled and censored, how will we reach each other to communicate and organize at an individual level? I am genuinely curious because I have no idea.