A new subreddit has been created (not by me) called r/ApocalypseSocialism. I posted there in response to the group's description, but the admin saw fit to delete on the grounds that it was "totally off-topic". So I shall post it here instead.

This is the subreddit description:

Apocalypse Socialism is an anti-capitalist philosophy that unites the radical left around survival and reconstruction after climate collapse. Systemic reform will not stop catastrophe, so leftists must relocate to climate-resilient areas and build sustainable, autonomous communities.

My primary interest is the ideological unification of a movement focused on survival and reconstruction after the collapse of Western civilisation due to climate change (which I expect now to exceed 5 degrees by the time it stops). However, I am not a radical leftist. As things stand, neither the radical left nor any other large proportion of any western society can be united. The opposition to the status quo is completely shattered, and most people have abandoned hope that it can ever be re-united. Even the "populist right" is just as hostile to what it sees as the status quo. The left blames the right, the right blames the left, everybody blames the super-rich but nobody is capable of doing anything about them because they have too much power and the opposition is completely shattered...

As for moving to climate resilient areas in the hope of finding or building sustainable communities -- everybody who becomes collapse-aware (which will eventually be almost everybody) is going to have the same idea. Even in the United States, where there is a relative abundance of space and land, the most suitable locations will become magnets for migrants coming from both within the US and people trying to get into the US. In much of the rest of the world, especially Europe, the situation is already far more extreme -- Europe is already full, and its politics reflect this.

This situation may seem completely hopeless, and in many respect it is. I'd like to try to convince you that there is an outcome here that is genuinely possible, capable of uniting a much larger group of people than just the radical left, and offers a pathway to the transformation of western society and eventually the whole world. Does this sound crazy? A lot of people will dismiss it as absurd before even listening. That is part of the problem.

Apocalypse socialism is an attempt to re-unite the radical left around the idea of facing up to reality. I believe what is actually needed is an attempt to unite the whole of the opposition to the status quo -- not just the radical left. And the thing which can unite them is a shared commitment to face up to reality. The motto of this movement -- or meta-movement -- will need to be something like We must deal with reality or it will deal with us.

A typical reaction to this is "But how is this even possible?" Who gets to decide what is real? Doesn't everybody have their own take on reality? Isn't it subjective?

This is where the real hope lies, because although Western culture is currently deeply detached from reality (including the whole spectrum of pre-collapse politics, and most elements of society in general) there is a golden opportunity for a philosophical reset. This philosophical opportunity is right there, waiting to be grabbed. All that is needed is for enough people to understand what it is, how it works, and why it is needed.

A meta-movement is an umbrella -- a much bigger tent than the radical left can ever be. Such a meta-movement needs to bring together not just elements from across the whole political spectrum, but also from both spirituality/religion and science/rationalism. It must bring together everybody capable of agreeing to a certain set of rules about how debate should be conducted -- not just political debate, but all forms of ideological debate, and it needs to guide us practically also.

The rest of this post describes how western civilisation ended up so confused about truth and reality.

The scientific revolution changed the world, and Newton's Principia sealed the deal, but objective science only dealt with the material world, and left many fundamental philosophical problems unresolved. This led to an epic disagreement between two groups of philosophers, both of whom were trying to put philosophy on as secure a foundation as science. The Empiricists argued that knowledge must start with experience, and the Rationalists believed it must start with pure reason. This disagreement reached a pinnacle in the work of David Hume, who followed logic to the point of giving up on it – he could not figure out whether we are brains in vats who could not possibly have any knowledge of an external world, or whether our minds are being causally influenced by an external world. He had perfect arguments for both positions, but it seemed to him that both cannot be true.

Hume inspired Kant to write the book which is to philosophy what the Principia is to physics – the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant introduced a new distinction – between noumena (reality as it is in itself) and phenomena (reality as it appears to us). It was a synthesis of empiricism and rationalism, and it finally set science free from philosophy. It allowed science and philosophy to head off in opposite directions, and entirely lose contact with each other. Golden ages followed for both, but they were entirely incommensurate. Science's golden age was all about the material world, with the subjective systematically eliminated. Philosophy's golden age was based on idealism (mainly the German variety), reaching its own pinnacle in the work of GWF Hegel. Philosophy itself was also split – between “continental philosophy” derived from idealism and “Anglo-American philosophy” which was much more analytical.

The split between continental and Anglo-American philosophy widened as the two traditions developed. On the Anglo-American side, philosophers embraced logical positivism in the early 20th century, championed by thinkers like A.J. Ayer and the Vienna Circle. They aimed to align philosophy with the rigor of science, insisting that only empirical claims or logical tautologies were meaningful. This approach left little room for metaphysical speculation or questions about the subjective experience, which were deemed unverifiable and thus nonsensical.

Meanwhile, continental philosophy took a different trajectory. It remained more concerned with subjective experience, meaning, and culture, drawing heavily on the idealist tradition. The existentialists, like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and later Heidegger and Sartre, emphasized the lived human experience, individual freedom, and the meaning (or absurdity) of existence. They were deeply skeptical of science's claim to explain the totality of reality, arguing that it ignored the nuances of human life.

Postmodernism emerged in the mid-20th century as a critique of the grand narratives that had dominated Western thought—such as the Enlightenment faith in reason and progress, and the Marxist vision of history (which was in turn based on Hegel). Thinkers like Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida challenged the idea of universal truth, arguing that truth is socially constructed and mediated by power, language, and historical context. For them, reality was not something we could objectively know but something we interpreted through a web of cultural, linguistic, and ideological filters.

Postmodern anti-realism thus owes its origins to this philosophical trajectory, which questioned whether we could ever access the "noumenal" reality that Kant had posited. It radicalised Kant's distinction, suggesting that our knowledge is not merely limited but fundamentally constructed. The legacy of postmodernism has been a profound skepticism toward objective truth and a focus on the contingent, the relative, and the perspectival.

However, something is missing from this story. That thing is quantum mechanics. The whole of the philosophical history described above was based on the assumption that classical physics was going to be the last word – that phenomenal reality is “analog rather than digital” and fully deterministic rather than probabilistic. In the century since the discovery of QM, philosophy and western culture have not caught up. If Kant had been dealing with QM instead of Newtonian physics, then the Critique of Pure Reason would have been a very different book. Put very simply, the probabilistic and observer-dependent nature of quantum theory makes it much easier to resolve the apparent contradiction that Hume and Kant were dealing with. And the result is much easier to understand, if only you come at it without preconceptions we have inherited from the mainstream tradition of Western philosophy.

The noumenal world is the uncollapsed wave function. The phenomenal world is what happens when the Participating Observer interacts with it. This resolves Hume's problem – it turns out that the external world does exist, and does causally affect us, but not in the passive way that Hume was imagining. Instead, it is deeply participatory. That external world isn't like the material world we experience, because it is in a superposition – it is like the contents of Schrodinger's box. By observing it, we collapse the wave function. This also provides an explanation for how free will works, which is one of the key problems Kant was trying to solve.

There is a new synthesis available. Most of the bits of the puzzle already exist. It's just very few people have so far been able to put them together, and the people who do understand the puzzle have so far not been able to make themselves heard loudly enough. Postmodernism is not just wrong. It represents the final dead-end of a philosophical blind alley in which Western society is currently trapped. Objective reality does exist, human consciousness is in direct contact with it, and therefore scientific knowledge tends towards truth. The flipside of this -- and the main reason why the paradigm shift is proving so difficult to enact -- is that materialism is false -- materialistic science cannot even define consciousness, let alone explain it. There is a solution to this problem too, but this post is already far too long.

Ultimately ecocivilisation is the concept that can bring it all together, as a new great societal goal. It is a concept invented in the Soviet Union and now being trailblazed in China. It is as leftist as it gets, but now it needs to be westernised. If you would like to join me in an attempt to get the ball rolling, I recently took over the dormant subbreddit r/Ecocivilisation. Obviously I am very happy to discuss any of the above here.

Hi, I have a few questions about water: I've had bottled water that was bad 1 year later. It tasted quite strongly of chemicals. Are there any bottled waters that are safe to save for years, or would canned water be better? For canned foods: when I was a kid, there were no "best by" or expiration dates on canned food. If the the can wasn't puffy, it was considered still good. Would that still be the case or has something changed in the canning process? Thank you!

In need of a bayonet style cbrn rated gas mask canister thats also high rated in particulate filtering. My thinking is a m61 for the m50 mask is good for cbrn but if building are being bombed then there will be asbestos and other bad stuff in the air. I have a pd- 101 mask from parcil safety but their bayonet canisters dont say if they are cbrn rated.

I know that compost piles can get hot especially if they get beyond a certain size. I know they can get hot enough that self ignition is a problem. So could we crack an egg and kill two birds by using that heat to drive a generator? Think of the potential of running pipes through a pile. You could have water or super critical co2 as the working fluid. If the pile was getting out of control you could inject carbonated water into it to drive away oxygen from that area. I think this could be useful almost anywhere in the world. It is a source for energy that is almost inexhaustible. On top of that you could carefully manage the quality of the compost.

So, about to leave a 5million big city for an 8,000 people country town. I have always been a joke zombie apocalypse person... But the issue I always had with most prep for it was how incredibly short term it is. So I am thinking more medium term SHTF, all infrastructure gone, and not really going to come back, all easily hoardable foods gone, petrol all expired etc.

The town I am moving to is in a good bowl, super fertile, essentially supplies food for 5 million people already. So growing and raising food won't be a huge issue. Most of the town has solar power (enough to completely power a modern home exclusively during the day for 75% of the year) Winter is never dangerous cold... Naked outside in the depth of winter would suck, but you aren't going to die. Heat is a bigger issue, but only breaks 40C/100F 1 month of the year Western Victoria, Australia Water isn't really an issue, multiple, different, safe water supplies Less concerned with political instability or crime/defence. We aren't as inherently divided, and culturally are quite trusting of each other. Violence here is already rare. So yes, while there will obviously be more danger in that way when SHTF, honestly I don't see it getting worse than the US is now very quick. We are even the state that spent 190 days in lockdown, minimal complaints, and reelected the government with a bigger majority after.

My concern is over essentials, that we no longer make ourselves, and how to keep them.

Obvious one is soap. Animal fat is easy to get... But where do I find lye? Or make/extract lye?

Gun powder I have covered (which would be for general explosive, for clearing land mostly). You can make nitrate with urine and soil Charcoal is easy And then you heat fools gold in a pot with a tube connecting it to another pot which collects the pure sulphur.

-fools gold can be collected about 2hours walk away

Obviously that nitrate will be used to cure meats as well. And I can extract sea salt in a 6 hour by horse journey away.

I can make alcohol, and can refine it to 98% for cleaning etc

I can make chloroform out of bleach and isopropyl (would be scary without access to ice though, as that reaction gets crazy hot)

But yeah... What sorts of things along those lines do you have?

https://ardbark.com/shtf-survival-boot-camp/

PDF | 6 MB

SHTF Survival Boot Camp: A Course for Urban and Wilderness Survival during Violent, Off-Grid, & Worst Case Scenarios

Hello everyone, we would like to invite and introduce you to our new discord server called Kolaps.

A place to network with people from Czechia & Slovakia. We are searching for respectful folks looking to discuss and share skills, information, knowledge, and so on. Support one another and one day possibly materialize things of positive nature in real life. While speaking the language isn't required, our channels are language separated.

See you on the server!

Invite link: https://discord.gg/4u7eq8wSrp

The most dangerous person isn't the guy with the biggest gun. It's more often the guy who everyone trusts like family, the one who has people who will tell him what's happening, the one they ask for advice, the one who they will wake up early to help, the one who has lists, knows where everything and everyone can be found. This guy doesn't have 20 guns and exotic calibers, he has a couple that he's shot so much he replaced parts but not the gun because it feels weird to use any other.

Build a first world bubble in the collapse, because if it takes years you can't just keep your head down and when the 🎈 goes up, it's gonna be harder to build up trustworthy friendships.

GL

Been writing a guide on the yields involved in farming everything. Trying to write it for small scale farms, like what people with a few acres or a decent backyard might be able to work with.

Please let me know if you have any inputs on what I should add. Leave a comment, will update this as I go.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/185ce-NgnVqCBpva3R7j6XRnzknZE22mWGJIT6bNkJMg/edit?usp=sharing

I created a free course teaching how you can navigate using coordinates without a GPS. Here it is:

FREE COURSE: Land Navigation for Preppers

Order a custom MGRS map! Check me out here: hardballmaps.com

Personally I don’t think collapse is inevitable but I do think it is in the realm of possibility and I think there are many levels of possibility in the mix.

That being said I feel like in any of those situations we could lose a lot of knowledge because we lose the infrastructure necessary to act on it. Things like open source designs that require precision machine tooling.

But things like iron smelting once you know about it it can always be useful. I often wish for some sort of hard drive that contains all the information of that sort that we have found since the age of fossil fuels.

I’m sure that there are countless discoveries that we’ve made that would be useful to any large well organized community no matter their level of infrastructure.

Does something like this exist?

I used to frequent this sub. It was vibrant, full of intellectually stimulating information...

Where did everyone go?

Just finished watching “Greenland”, and it makes me wonder- is there actually any real plan by our government for something like that? And what would it really look like? Contacting “pre-selected” families seems completely unrealistic in the modern age of the Internet. Bunkers able to withstand a nuke exist, but what about food and water, medicine, or even TOILETS? Makes me want to just go back to sleep.

Don't know if anyone has posted this yet, but it shows prevalent wind direction broken down by month and region.

Windrose

So is there a gas mask that has a filter that can block out viruses/radiation/fungus and bacteria?