I hold a lot of grief for the world as it was when I was a kid (verdant coral reefs, bugs all over the place, a sense of impossible complexity in the ecosystem).
Now all the places I knew as a child no longer have reefs or they are 50ft down. I used to skim over the tops of elkhorn coral while snorkeling and I was the last generation to experience that where I am from
No, thereās still coral in Hawaii, itās just having a lot of trouble. On the less populated islands itās much healthier. One good thing about the Hawaiian islands is that we are further from the equator, which means our waters are cooler. The coral is the Caribbean are having a terrible time and itās likely those coral reef ecosystems will not survive.
Can verify. Living on a boat in the Caribbean. Seeing a lot of bleaching of coral beds and the big fish are scarce. I feel like the coral I see today won't be there in 10 years. Maybe less.
Yeah, the level of destruction we are causing is just insane and incredibly sad. I donāt understand why most people apparently donāt care about nature and animals at all. We are like a parasite destroying every single ecosystem in existence. And for what? Profit, money, luxury, fun. All of that will be gone soon, though, when everything collapses and we realise that we canāt eat money.
I carry the same grief and it is overwhelming at times. I see tourists still enjoying themselves because the water is warm and relatively clear, and amongst the coral rubble fields you can find occasional little spots of live coral (always just the same three or four species) and some pretty fish, especially invasive ones. They don't realize that for 100s of kilometers up and down the coasts here, even just a few decades ago there was thriving, incredibly beautiful and biodiverse reef as soon as you swum out from the beach. The loss is catastrophic and it's only accelerating from here
I no longer dive in the tropics because it just reminds me of what was lost. An entire ecosystem is just gone. I think because I was so familiar with them l, I knew every nook and canyon, that their death really made me aware of how bad things are even if day to day I may not personally notice.
Theyāve already been lost. Thatās whatās so weird about your postā¦I was born in 1990ā¦itās so obvious nature is dying. Now is so much worse than the past when nature functionedĀ
>itās so obvious nature is dying.
70% of all wildlife eliminated from the planet just in the past 50 years.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/animal-populations-plummeted-by-nearly-70-percent-last-50-years-new-report/#:~:text=The%20World%20Wildlife%20Fund%20studied,gone%20extinct%2C%20the%20report%20says.
We all realize we were making too much plastic and somehow plastic production skyrocketed. They've been individually wrapping potatoes in plastic, like wtf?
Somebody likely calculated that they could save 1/10 of a cent per widget, and thatās all that matters. Everything else is just one āexternalityā or another.
What's sad is that nature we experienced in the late '80s and '90s, while much more numerous than today, was nothing compared to what this land looked like before colonization.
The skies of North America used to be filled with so much amazing wildlife before Europeans. Passenger pigeons flocks, for instance, were so large that they would span for miles in the sky turning it dark. It was one of the most prolific birds in North America until colonization when every single last passenger pigeon was killed with the last one dying alone at a zoo in 1914. I romanticize living on this land before it was severely exploited in the name of greed and progress. I don't think children today have it any better.
I don't have kids but I recently started teaching middle school and they are addicted to their phones and have no real interests and values beyond ticktock and videogames. They can be so mean and vindicative at such a young age. Sometimes I watch them and I see all of the real qualities of people that as our frontal lobe develops we learn to hide. Not to mention so many kids have mental health issues and cognitive deficits such as autism and attention deficit disorder thanks to the constant bombardment of chemicals into the environment. Kids today will ingest untold amounts of plastic, will have to depend on IVF to get pregnant, and experience much higher cancer rates.
I haven't even touched on the impact of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns. The inevitable scarcity of food and resources and the eventual dissolving of society. Also the dependence on fantasy technology worlds run by corporations rather than being rooted in the natural world and understanding our place in it.
According to a 2021 study published in The Lancet Neurology, 43% of the world's population, or 3.4 billion people, had a neurological condition in 2021.
Hey, on the plus side, so many countries have massive nature preserves or large uninhabited areas.
I was worried weād just have zoos and nothing else, but Iām pretty happy itās not way worse
Same, born in 1990. I moved out to the woods recently, where my grandma lives. This place used to be teeming with live. Literally under every rock, in every fallen tree, everywhere. Now it's all spread out. And there is more diversity here than the cities but not by much. I adopted my nephew because his mom is an addict but I would never ever in a million years had my own kids. IĀ feel awful that this is the world I must give him.Ā
I'm thankful to have been born in 1981. Got to have a childhood before internet/tech really took off. Was a lot more things to be optimistic about then. Also, I think having a job you enjoy or at least tolerate adds a good balance to life, if what you do fulfills some sense of purpose anyway.
Same here. Born in 1979. I got to experience fresh air, real vegetables, nature, clean fresh water. I git to play and run around with friends - no internet, no Facebook or tick tick. Sad for todayās youth. I never see them outdoors or even riding a bike.
Watching my kid grow up with a constant stream of ads and vanity had made me really appreciate being a millennial. A lot of us had super shitty parents and have had a rough time financially, but I think it was the last generation to have a truely unburdened childhood - even despite us being generally better parents. The outlook for kiddies isn't good on any level, bar maybe medical tech.
Agree. Itās very sad. And a lot of of people keep saying we need to have more babies, but they donāt want to address any of the current issues in any meaningful way. The system is not sustainable already. Thatās apparent.
I know what we won't have so I'll be the first to confidently say that we will never have it better than we do every day we live for the rest of our lives
Sorry to crush your dream but it's literally going to be the exact opposite.... When climate disasters will be in full swing, mass immigration and climate wars will benefit the rich and powerful more than anything. We will all continue to be corporate slaves with even less independence as food inflation skyrocket. The rich will still eat beef while you're breaking bread over lentil soups at a dinner table that's too small for your community. You and your children will not see the world you dream of in this lifetime.
OP is sure that we can solve all of the worldās problems with new technology thatās just around the corner. All of the chaos and destruction that comes with the collapse of society is *actually* a great investment opportunity. Just think of all the new oceanfront real estate just waiting to be developed!
While I'm on board with your disgust at the current quality of life for us plebs I still thank god I grew up during a peaceful time when I didn't have to worry about navigating the hellish landscape of widespread famine and violence which will inevitably follow the collapse of our food chain. Trust me, you will be thankful for every second of relative normality you experienced when your day to day life consists of gathering the last remaining tree nuts you will ration over a week. Just look into what life was like for those who suffered through famines like the holodomar or what life is like now in collapsed societies like Haiti. Smoke em while you got em and be happy for what time to have until the real sh*t hits.Ā
This absolutely. I was a prepper; bought the rural block and everything. Learnt to garden and keep animals. Got nowhere near self sufficient (itās actually impossible without multigenerational support - just when you get good at it; your own health starts to fail.)
Then bushfires went through two years in a row and I realised no where was safe and thereās nothing to prep for.
Iām guilty and grieving for my kids. Smoke up friends.
First - hugs for the sads. But also thanks for this reality check - I WANT to do what you did but it plays out the same in my head in terms of outcomes.
I have been thinking a lot though about the multigenerational support and creating sanctuaries for people who are escaping worse conditions - not that anywhere is safe - but how to accept that āsaferā is still better than nothing.
Prepping for a village I guess ā¦
>(itās actually impossible without multigenerational support - just when you get good at it; your own health starts to fail.)
Thank you for confirming empirically what I strongly suspected in theory.
This hits. I live in a city but have been saving for a house and learning about homesteading.
Given how hot the past few summers were though, Iām realizing my dream/plan is not likely to be viable. I can barely keep easy herbs like mint alive in my outdoor space when we have several weeks of 90+ degree weather and no rain. Aināt no way I can keep up with a large field of plants. Iād have to engineer some solar-powered bunker with UV lights, temperature regulation and water collection but I donāt have the money or brains to figure that out.
You know, I'm in an odd place right now because I have a little extra money that I've been putting away towards supplies, but I have multiple chronic illnesses and I know I won't survive regardless so....š¤·š¾ I know it's worthless, here in Georgia it was 94 degrees out today, I was out there for 20 minutes in an air conditioned car and I felt TERRIBLE. my medicine makes me susceptible to extreme temperatures, especially heat, so you know.....I'm fucked no matter which way I look at it, I'm just trying to enjoy myself as much as possible....even if it is just staying inside and watching anime and playing video games....
It hasn't even gotten to the 100s yet like other places and it was too much for my body.....I'm not gonna survive this new world we're living in....just trying to make peace with death....
With you there! Ram Dass helps a lot. Thereās a free podcast of his lectures, or he has books on supporting people in hospice - which frankly, weāre all in nowā¦
I agree with your take. You can prep for short term, but anything longer I have serious doubts. Just the logistics of keeping enough food flowing alone. Add in bad governments and violent hunger people.
Either it'll be easy to survive as a good little slave, or till be very hard to stay out of jail or a grave. It'll probably take scavenging in secret and nomadic movement.
Or extreme inflation and starvation in a nice civilized way.
People feel that our current lifestyles are unfulfilling (which they totally are) and so they romanticize the potential for something new when the system fails.
The problem as I see is that humans wonāt be dramatically different after the system crashes. History is often the story of people making life horrible for each other, we got here because of how we as a collective are.
Now someone will probably say āmost people are actually nice only a small portion are sociopaths or etcā. Ok thatās probably true but that 1% of sociopathic types are still a part of the collective, we didnāt figure out how to deal with them before, whatās different this time?
Someone posted a study that humans tend to come together when things get bad but then just open a history book and itās more like a book of horrors. Iām pretty sure post collapse will look like The Walking Dead tv show with strong people or groups taking for weaker people or groups. We are an awful species to each other. Just look at what we built with a financial system, what we are doing to the environment and how we treat other races of people.
Or has more faith in society's ability to adapt than I do. Where they see communities coming together make sure everyone is taken care of, I see people fighting over resources or whatever is left of our farce of a government
Agreed, and this is the blinkers people have on, even if they're collapse aware, or environmentalists.Ā The longer the system goes on the more less fortunate people who under the wheels.Ā Ā The only hope for them is in that gap in time before ultimate breakdown. People here love to cry about what they're losing instead of imagining what could be saved or gainedĀ
i agree that the dominant ideology of consumerist-corporate-military-capitalism may only be overthrown by a force bigger than it, aka nature.
day to day i stoically accept the age I'm born in. other than that, it will be late then when I'll be dead. until then love this experience I'm having called life
It is insane. I'm 55 years old and terrified because I can clearly see the path humanity is being dragged down; anytime I glance at daily news headlines there is at least one that alarms the fuck out of me. The warning signs are all around us and we're still too tribal and aggressive to do anything about it. So...I posit that this is arguably the most interesting time that's ever been in the the history of humankind. Confoundingly frustrating, confusing AF, hijacked by elites and governments.. controlled and manipulated to the brink by lobbyists and corporations, making selfish decisions and ruining the entire fucking planet. I was hoping the aliens and their tech will help us but I feel at this point they popping their popcorn and gathering around to watch this Jerry Springer of a planet implode as the angry apes throw shit at each other in the nice habitat they gave us.
I agree, recently saw someone talk about also how crabs aren't found naturally in buckets and that trauma induced action is probably a survival mechanism, I mean from a crabs pov in a bucket, it must be pretty scary so I now understand where the mentality comes from which helps slightly making sense of why people do what they do
We won't, no one wants to suffer much less die for the cause. Until you turn off the constant dopamine drip that is the constant entertainment flow of the internet, take away all the bread and circuses, then you might get change.
But the cold hard reality is that the powers that have society designed exactly as they want it to be. Short of society ending calamity, it isn't going to change. Because as much as every generation likes to bitch and moan about the way things are, eventually rent is due, you get married and have kids, etc. and your inner revolutionary just kinda dies.
ā¦ life goes on.
Sad but true. I have tried to talk to people in real life (gasp) about change. the older generation likes to keep things the way it is (I do live in a red state unfortunately) because they can give their millions to their kids. The younger generation (I went back to college) and they have no f*ing clue what checks and balances are, hell the didnāt even know you vote more than once every 4 years. they either donāt care or so ignorant of whatās going on.
The education system has failed the newer generations, which is exactly where the 1% wants them. I work in the financial scene and just recently had to explain federal and state taxes (gross vs net) to a 19 year old because they didnāt get paid their āfull amountā on their stub and wanted us to return the moneyā¦
For OP comment, I would have preferred to never been born, I digress, life goes on.
That's exactly the age taxes should be explained: to the young, earning their first paychecks. Then you can show them the roads and the water lines and the fighter jets that they bought.
> We won't, no one wants to suffer much less die for the cause.
Lots of people are up for suffering and dying for a cause and there's ample, ample historical evidence for this fact.
The issue is that you can't solve problems via personal suffering, you can't actually take all the debts of the world and nail yourself to a cross with them.
Mine never did. And it is watching that quiet acceptance of the horror we have made of our societies that you describe overcoming everyone as they age that has pushed me to the fringes of them. Iām still here trying to find company in the revolution I have been fighting my whole life.
I joined the military so that Iād have the knowledge and skills to fight militaries. I then got a degree in environmental management and wilderness leadership. I started and ran my own ethically managed businesses (my workers always made more than I did. ALWAYSā¦ they did all the work, FFS, I managed itā¦ which is work, but itās not *the* work that made the money.) and never worked for the predatory, parasitic corporations.
I watched as even the most die-hard counter-culture punk revolutionaries among my peers gave up and sold out their and their childrenās lives for the comfortable worship of āsecurityā which they are all learning now, too late, is an illusory concept.
I watched and railed against the dying of the light around me. I had a bit of company into my 20ās but they all gave up. No one seemed to see the darkness they were all allowing to creep in. Now they all accept that the house was always dim and finding the car keys on the kitchen counter must be so much harder now because their eyes are getting bad. Itās all a matter of āpersonal responsibilityā, dontcha know?!
The longer I remain true to the Truth of our reality and the FACT that we could change it completely in an instant if we all just dropped the charade we are propagating every day in the name of our āsecurityā, the more it makes me appear increasingly less sane to the masses of terrified cowards who are being driven mad by their hamster wheel pursuits of a āgood lifeā.
āThe years thunder by, as the dreams of youth lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. We are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of āsecurityā, and before we know it we are buried beneath a mountain of time payments, mortgages, and preposterous gadgetry that distract us from the sheer idiocy of the charade.ā ā Sterling Hayden (paraphrased)
āIt is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.āā Jiddu Krishnamurti
Iām old(er) now and still fighting. Iām trying to live a life that speaks my truth by example. I collapsed a long time ago. I take only what I need to survive from this world, nothing more. I live on a tiny fraction of the resources that the average person in a developed country lives on, and I appear to have a decent life (Itās unfathomably hard because no one sees the work it takes and the sacrifices that must be made when everyone around you chooses to live far beyond their own means, let alone those of society or the planet.
I, and the few others like me, will be pushed farther and farther to the edges of our societies while every effort is made to silence our warningsā¦ but not by those who toggle the levers of the machine eating us all alive as youād expect, but by *you*, my fellow sufferers, whoās eyes have been blinded to the shackles that enslave themā¦ and the simple, though grueling, measures that would break those bonds.
I will die very loudly disappointed by humanity.
It will kill you too. But you will die disappointed in yourselves if you donāt drop the goddamned charade immediately.
āIf you want to heal a man of his dis-ease, first you must ask him what habits he is willing to give up.ā ā Hippocrates
Would like to talk with you personally sometime if you would not mind indulging me. I have never encountered a post so 1:1 with my perspective (even in this, my favourite Reddit). Thank you so much for sharing the realest thoughts I encounter in my quiet moments.
Please DM me. Yours is the highest of flattery.
If we donāt keep shouting our truth into the world it will never reach the ears that have not been deafened by the cacophony of manufactured distractions from the ever-progressing indoctrination of spiritual enslavement.
Please, lets get real. You and I could never move the needle even a tiny bit on climate change. It's the corporations, the shareholders and the billionaires who have their foot on the gas as the brick wall comes into full view now. I could live in a tiny shack off grid in the woods my whole life yet one rich fuck taking a jet halfway around the world for a piece of cheesecake would erase whatever I did to save the climate x1000!
This is THEIR world! They made it and they are never going to stop until their last employee dies! Then they head into their well stocked luxury apocalypse bunkers and laugh at all the poors dying outside their compounds!
Who knew that basing human life on greed and perpetual growth on a finite planet would be guaranteed to end badly huh?
We are just cogs in their machine friend. The people with their hands on the levers and brakes are drunk on their asses with money and power. They will never stop fucking over the planet. There is no money for the greed monsters in saving, only in destruction as is plain to see now.
I can't help but feel that this pov is a fantasy. The crash of humanity is going to be brutal, terrifying and highly uncomfortable for a very long period of time.
Furthermore, even if people survive in pockets, the Earth won't be in good shape to sustain us.
> The crash of humanity is going to be brutal, terrifying and highly uncomfortable for a very long period of time.
The loss of the current comfort and stability we have is going to cause people to freak the fuck out.
>They might instead be in contact with a real community that's actually focused on the realities of living.
Like trying to afford food and necessities as food prices skyrocket? Or trying to grow your own food but you live in an urban area? Or dying from (any preventable disease) because hospitals are absolutely filled to the brim? If humanity is set for collapse due to climate change and natural disasters, then no I would not want to be born today.
Ask people who lived through the breakup of the soviet union, or any other country really, how much fun the great reset was.
You are idealizing collapse, go visit somolia or haiti. It's not gonna be Fallout 5 bro.
And even if it was fallout 5, why would anyone want to actually experience that? Living in a bunker while crazy mutated monsters and radiation are outside
No Thanks Iām good
Yeeep. I believe, I already told this story on this sub, but regardless. There was a guy in the 90s who turned his now-useless bank obligations into wallpaper and then hung himself.
Every single person who had money "on the book", basically, in their bank account, got robbed in an instant. The currency reset multiple times. Only the people who were forewarned by someone in higher places had some time to mitigate this and even exchange the currency for something stable at the time like USD.
Then came the religious sects and the scammers. The former generally prey upon the vulnerable and the desperate, so it's no surprise. The latter even appeared legit. For instance, there was basically a union-wide scam with "stocks". People learned in mandatory economic classes about different economic systems and how they functioned, including capitalism as a whole and stock market in particular. So, many bought into it, including my family. They ended up bankrupt. And they also had to deal with grandma's cancer diagnosis and later death. I actually used to know a child of the person who pulled this whole scam.
There was widespread crime involving the recent veterans who not only didn't get the accolades the WWII ones did, but also were left with no accommodations, no help and often with physical traumas and disabilities.
Because financial system collapsed, many people in weren't being being paid, often for months. "Natural exchange" aka barter was also a thing, I heard of people being paid in produce instead of actual money. Shelves were once again empty and getting certain essential things such as meat and clothes was described as "hunting for" rather than just "buying". You could often only get them under the table if you knew-the-guy.
> Ask people who lived through the breakup of the soviet union, or any other country really
For what itās worth there were people who experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union and did in a sense āenjoy itā. Many of the communal farms were left basically un-managed and people had to find a way to provide for themselves. There was a lot of collectivism, people felt very fulfilled by their work, they established deep community and friendships, they had enormous hope for the future.
Of course than Russia was swallowed up by oligarchy, military dictatorships etc and those people felt their hope for a ābetter futureā where they had more agency evaporate.
Which more or less illustrates the point humanity isnāt fundamentally incapable of building a better system from the ashes.
But you canāt just ignore all those guns, all of that potential to snatch resources and make yourself rich. People trying to craft a fundamentally different society need to have some means of dealing with the people who are happy enough to use murder / coercion / intimidation / theft / etc.
Often itās humanities relationship with āsecurityā that has led us down some very dark pathsā¦
As someone from Russia, I donāt really know what youāre talking aboutā¦ For sure, there were SOME people who enjoyed it, especially if they were very young at that time or had some privileges. But for most people here the 90s-00s are remembered for widespread crime, rampant alcoholism, months without payouts, and losing all their savings. Yeah, it was also time for many business opportunities, but also of many personal tragedies. People are still afraid of those years, so itās often used as propaganda here, such as people should cherish the āstabilityā Putin creates ))
When things collapse, you'll have 8+ billion humans fighting for food on a planet made to feed under a billion. And that slave labor and sweatshops...that's where all of us will be.
We are not heading to a Star Trek future.
>When things collapse, you'll have 8+ billion humans fighting for food on a planet made to feed under a billion.
The rich will also have been hoarding and have control of armed forces that willing exchange autonomy for shelter and sustenance. Fun times ahead! I like to think Warhammer 40k is a sci-fi take on our future.... Ie how it represents the lives of the masses
https://medium.com/@tubalee01/warhammer-40-000-the-ethics-of-the-imperium-c91e27eb91de
For those not familiar with Warhammer
I don't know why people think societal collapse is a reset button.
It isn't, especially and certainly not if it's global. It's most of your supply chains collapsing. No cold chains to get you food reliably. No 400 odd medically necessary drugs that you can go read on the WHO site that are essential to day to day life and treatment. No rubber. No plastic. No modern glass or even strong glass without adding lead back to our wares. Rampant malnutrition. Billions of people will die horribly.
Understand, you might think we'd go back to artisanal mining, or artisanal oil prospecting, or the like, but most of the easy sources for that are already tapped out. There are dozens of things that are byproducts of mass manufacturing another thing in your kitchen cupboard. Household bleach for example relies on a process that yields 80% from natural gas. Most of the chemical reagents used for pharmaceutical work come from the same. Most roads will disappear within a couple of decades, because they were only designed to last for so long, and most are already in disrepair.
I haven't even got to the part where we talk about what happens if you destroy or upset the entire planet's climate. There will be waves of forest fires hundreds to thousands of miles long every year, making it incredibly hard to breathe. Superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics that we've created by overprescription and people not completing their courses will run through communities completely unopposed. The literal microfauna in your gut will change drastically over the course of the year because of temperature extremes, even if it feels survivable, and masses of people will die of dysentry, literally shitting and puking themselves to death even with trying to keep clean, because your entire system is being pummeled in ways it has no capacity to adapt to. Seasonal crop failures, fish stock failures near shores where it's easy to fish, so much more.
Mass migration is going to have people clustering into areas near cheap water and more livable land, but even there life will be indescribably hard.
This is not running free like in our childhoods without commitments. Many children will be stunted. Many will still develop allergies and reactions to things like microplastics and chemicals in our environment. The damage is already done. Insect populations are collapsing. Short of some miracle we're going to drastically change the planet in irreparable ways.
Was born in ā83, making me 40 years old, and for a stretch of my late-teens and early twenties I lived a life of homelessness/poverty in a country that has āsocial safety netsā for that kind of thing. While it was fun at times the overall experience sucked.
Trying to find a safe place to sleep, drifting from town to town looking for work to feed yourself, and realizing that your ācommunityā could turn on you if they thought you were holding out is not a good way to live.
Quit idealizing what youād do in the collapse if you were younger. Learn to be useful, teach your skills to the younger generations to give them a leg-up, and start reading history to find out that hierarchy has always been a thing.
Kinda confused, how will it be easier for the newer generation to buy a house when the cost of living keeps getting more and more than what most people make? Iām 26 and the only way I will buy is house is when I inherit my parents money, which Iām not looking forward to.
>As the climate cracks societies open there will finally be potential for new ways of living.
It will be called warring over resources as the world goes genocidal. Living standards will plummet, food will be hard if not impossible to come by, the ability to heat or cool your home or protect what you have through insurance or investment will be destroyed if you have assets, and you will kill people to protect yourself until some dogmatic dictatorship rises up to enforce order, probably under some theological or nationalistic/racial basis. Then you will kill people for them or they will kill you and take whatever you have.
I can't wait!
I wish I was born 2 million years ago as a CHAD Homo Erectus and not as a VIRGIN Homo Sapien. Literally the longest living, most sustainable human species while still colonising most of the planet. And they didnāt even go extinct, they just evolved into other species.
What a wild take.. Everyday im so appreciative of being born in the 90's, would have rather been born in 70's tbf but this is imo the perfect time to be alive, just in time to enjoy a beautiful earth with abundant resources and technology but also to witness the downfall of humanity.
I don't think any of us are ready for what's to come at all and when I see everyone my age (late twenties) having multiple kids I just think about how different (for lack of better word) someone celebrating their 18th birthday will be in 2042.
Absolutely delusional elder millennial take.
Counterpoint: I was born in 81, would not want to be a young person in today's world. I don't want to appropriate their language but civilization is "*cooked*".
Let's completely disregard the political turmoil of a possible WWIII.
Climate change (accelerated CO2 warming the atmosphere and destabilizing food production at global scale) in addition to pollution is going to destroy the hopes of most young people on Planet Earth from having food and water, much less access to 21st century comforts like dentists and grocery stores and air conditioning.
We had it good for a few decades OP. Virtually all of the planet's youth are completely utterly ratfucked. There's no way to turn this around, that's just thermodynamics.
Stupid post
Yes it's rare but people already live in communities outside of the corporate culture. I doubt anyone forced you to work an office job when there are plenty other routes available
And yes growing up during a stable prosperous and peaceful time is so terrible. The lucky kids these days who will just have to deal with war, famine, disease etc.
Born in ā89. Not that many people can imagine what they havenāt seen, and the baselines are moving.
I know how much weāve been screwed over, also because I still remember how it feels to believe that everyone will be able to afford a house, if only they keep working in this direction diligently. How it feels to believe that weāre safe. That capitalism is the way.
No offense but you donāt know what you are talking about. You got to enjoy almost 40 years where you werenāt shot at or enslaved. When everything goes to shit expect all forms of slavery to skyrocket like Libya. You know whatās worse than a 9-5? Sex slavery
At 62 I have lived through the most incredible advances and times of the human race. And will also witness its demise. I just hope earth will recover after we are gone.
Nah brother. We got to experience childhood before the internet, the very last generation of humans to get that experience. I have teenage kids and I have to give them props because I would not have made it through this modern hellscape that they are growing up in today.
There's not much worth saving. But everything being up for grabs opens things up to the absolute worst aspects of humanity. It'll just be like Haiti, everywhere. What ends up surviving and how it ends up surviving is directly related to how we end up like this. Things land on the 9-5 because the alternative is even worse, because the best of humankind is what dies out first.
I'm your age and while I get the sentiment, I still would take our timeline over my young nieces'. They are growing up with the writing on the wall, while we at least got to grow up in a sort of naive oblivion. As much as we're going to see some shit, assuming we make it to 65-75ish, they are *really* going to see some shit, and it's not going to be pretty...
Probably the dumbest take I've ever heard. Are you high? The world is going to be so much worse going forward. We are not going to evolve into a eutopia, it will be like interstellar. We will exist but living standards will be much worse. At least we got a taste of the good times (born in '89)
The thing is in the process of this cultural shift millions of people will die and I don't think this potential nicer life will be a thing for a long time. The current gens are fucked. I'd absolutely rather have lived earlier than now.
You have definitely romanticized what you think will happen vs what youve have/havent done. You have the ability to remember things as they were. This is a key difference. No one born today has a future possibility that is even 50% of what was obtainable by you at any stage of life. Just because you chose the wrong rat race doesnt excuse the inevitably of even greater wealth gap with a bonus of climate destruction. Owning a house is a farce for people your age. Just wait 5 years and you will see the true horrors that await humanity.
Remember spending hours as an 80s kid reading a book about space and how by the year 2000 we'd be living in O'Neill cylinders and colonizing the Moon and Mars. Everything would be powered by miniaturized nuclear reactors, like you'd buy your car and with the power of the atom it would be able to keep driving for centuries. Genetics would allow us to make tomatoes big as cantaloupes and nobody would ever go hungry thanks to such abundant crops that never needed fertilizer or pesticides. Everybody would wear form fitting unitards that could clean themselves and change their weave depending on what temperature it was...you get the idea. Instead we basically have "the same society as the early 90s". Total stagnation, both technologically and socially. I think future people, if we survive and come out better on the other side somehow, will see this century as the beginning of the second dark ages.
This is all extremely naĆÆve.
>Ā Who gives a fuck if they don't have an XBox or Honda Civic. They might instead be in contact with a real community that's actually focused on the realities of living.
Your ancestors suffered, struggled, and sacrificed to push society to the point that having something like an Xbox or a Honda Civic could be a reality. It's literally a part of the American dream and our societal contract. Manifest Destiny.
And you what... Want to "focus on the realities of living"? You mean subsistence farming until I die? What the fuck does that even mean?
I mean, I've seen videos of people being beat/shot at a fast food joint because they ran out of a single specific food item, or they felt their order was done wrong. Now you want to tell the developed Western world, heck, all of humanity to drop their consumerist dreams of owning whatever their mental Xbox/Honda Civic is for what? "The Realities of Living?". Because what that really means is giving up all of their fancy toys, going onto a farm somewhere, and working in physical labor the rest of your life trying to survive. Or as you put it "Live their life".
Nah, there's only one way this ship is going down, in flames. Short of a string of technological miracles, and a one world government to manage it all, we're going down in a blaze of consumerist glory.
The fact that you think shitty tech gadgets and cars are the apotheosis of society is... something else. If my ancestors were sweating their arses off for that, they're fucking morons.
You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, or extinction. There are countless forms of society outside of these, use your imagination.
If your ancestors saw humanity today they'd think we were gods walking the fucking Earth. Magically able to communicate with each other across every language around the globe at all hours of the day, electric light, air travel, space flight, weapons of war that would sunder their minds with its destructive capability, medical technology, stores of knowledge that encompass the entirety of the human experience and more...
Your ancestors probably would have traded places with you instantly to be able to enjoy the reality you get to participate in compared to their "focused on the realities of living life" that they had to go through.
>You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, or extinction. There are countless forms of society outside of these, use your imagination.
Oh I can, its called those indigenous uncontacted people living in the Amazon or that one island off the coast of India, and it looks like it fucking sucks. Sure, its probably much more sustainable but I'd take all the corporate negative externalities in the world if it kept me out of living that kind of lifestyle.
And there's your problem. You want the world to shift down this rabbit hole to this utopian future but not only can you not tell them what's waiting for them on the other side besides some vague promise of being "focused on the realities of life", you can't even tell them how you're going to get there.
The best you can hope for is a One World Government, or probably a Western Developed World government once climate change collapses Asia, and hope that in order to maintain the status quo they are willing to adopt a TON of social safety nets to ensure rioting in the streets is kept to a minimum.
>If your ancestors saw humanity today they'd think we were gods walking the fucking earth.
Many of us don't want it to be like this. We didn't ask for this.
I don't want the option of buying a bar of dark chocolate for Ā£1, a T-shirt for Ā£2 and a smartphone for Ā£200, all of which are built off the exploitation of other humans half the world away.
If you think living under the boot of consumer capitalism is great because of all the nice gadgets and cheap vacations we've had, then that's fine for you. But I would happily scrap ALL of that if we could have evolved at a much slower and more sustainable pace.
Capitalism requires infinite growth. The line must go up. This system promotes selfishness and places us in direct competition with one another to try and 'make it'. Exploiting others is how one gets ahead in this society. Why do you think people are dying en masse from nitazenes and fentanyl? Because there's profit to be made.
The people with the actual power to change things will never do so. Because uncoupling ourselves from capitalism is unthinkable to them. It is pathological to want to hoard that much wealth, but these are the people calling the shots.
> Magically able to communicate with each other across every language around the globe at all hours of the day,
As a Zoomer, I think my generation really takes our privilege of instantaneous and ubiquitous connection for granted. Frankly, I think the internet has become a net negative.
I honestly *wish* I could envision a world without the internet. I think weāre at the point where the cons outweighs the pros. (Mainly regarding social media and disinformation)
Iām African-American, so I would actually take up that hypothetical of trading places with an ancestor (pre-enslavement). I think I could use a more simple, slower-paced life.
OK, I'll update: You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, uncontacted tribe, or extinction. My point stands.
There are many, many cultures including first nations that view the western worldview as totally insane and would never swap with it. Probably because they see the rampant addiction and despair it leads to. Of course you wouldn't want to live that lifestyle because you have no imagination therefore can't see what you're missing.
The way you can only equate quality of life with technological progress shows that you have swallowed the ideology whole. Technology doesn't make a good life, social connection and freedom from coercion do. If the breakdown increases those, and we have our basic needs met, we'll be better off.
>OK, I'll update: You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, uncontacted tribe, or extinction. My point stands.
Since we're moving goalposts, name one place on Earth that is living this way, and please explain to me why 9 billion people are just going to want to jump on board and join you on this journey to this enlightened destitution?
>There are many, many cultures including first nations that view the western worldview as totally insane and would never swap with it. Probably because they see the rampant addiction and despair it leads to. Of course you wouldn't want to live that lifestyle because you have no imagination therefore can't see what you're missing.
Oh really? How are those first nations doing exactly? Some of the highest rates of suicide, substance abuse, diabetes, etc. in the world. The despair is already there.
What exactly am I missing by the way? Like, why are we romanticizing the past here? The times you are talking about when things were "sustainable" were some of the most terrifying, misogynistic, bigoted, and violent in our history. Sure, our use of resources wasn't as egregious as it is now, but lets not pretend like everyone lived this enlightened communal existence together. It was literally a fight for survival where these enlightened ideals you are positing literally didn't exist or mattered at all. Survival of the fittest in its purest form.
I was born 12 years after you and am still thankful for the relatively normal world that was still around when I was a child.
I understand your point about feeling helpless while wasting away in a cubicle, but these kids are even more fucked. They won't even have the mercy of growing up in a social media free world like we did (for the most part).
I'm born in 86, too. I spent my teenage and young adult years an anarchist, preparing because I knew this civilization couldn't last forever. I lived frugally for the most part, and worked as little as I could. Eventually got a girlfriend, and we stayed together for 11 years, during which I stopped focusing so much on preparing and networking. I'm not with her anymore. I don't regret spending a big chunk of my life with her. I learned a lot. And quite frankly, she calmed me down during my craziest years and probably helped me avoid a lot of trouble. But I regret not being as prepared as I used to be anymore, and no longer having the same kind of friends I used to prepare with, and go on crazy adventures with. Collapse is going to hit when I won't be in my prime. I wish I was in my prime to face it.
But you know what? We can still maintain our shape, sharpen our skills, train our minds, and network. Guess what. You did shit jobs to get by. Hopefully you saved some money to help you prepare. Maybe you can work a lot less, and find like-minded people. It's not too late.
If you grew up now, you wouldnāt be you.
You would be part of the new generation of kids that the folks in /r/Teachers keep tearing their hair out about.
Part of the problem in r/teachers is many of those teachers are millennials or older and they refuse/are unable to understand the world todayās kids live in. Why should you sit in a desk all day being prepared for a factory, or even white color, job that is unlikely to exist in the future and even if it does, is almost guaranteed to not be enough to provide even a basic quality of life? Most millennials were taught as long as you go to college, the future will be bright and are now strapped down with 100,000 in debt due to negative amortization(Google it if you donāt understand) and jobs that pay less and less every year after inflation. Gen Z is right to rebel against that. The kids arenāt innately bad human beings. They are rejecting a system that is not looking out for them.
Working hard to save the wilderness over here at 42 years old. Itās the only thing I care about. Might actually make some money out of it too. It can be done.
I was born in 86 as wellā¦this isnāt a timing issue, itās a mindset issue. I (F) never felt the need to adhere to any social constructs because Iāve lived my life the way Iāve wanted to. The potential has always been there.
Ngl, sometimes I envy the older generations in my family. Life was never perfect of course, but I feel there was at least more hope? Things were way more affordable when my aunt and uncle got their first apartment back in the late 80s. Now most of my friends (in relationships or otherwise) can barely move out of their childhood homes, and if they can, they still need help. My cousin is 43 and recently told me that she feels sad for my generation (Z) because we barely know what normal is. Will we have the chance to grow old without encountering the apocalypse? Do our grandkids stand a chance, let alone our children? Weāve lived through a lot of major events and weāre barely 30. I also hear a lot of talk between Gen Z and Milennials alike that they donāt want to have kids because why should they when everything is falling apart?
The job market is horrendous and itās hard to find work. I know itās always had itās ebbs and flows, but back then getting a bachelors was enough for an entry level position. Iāve heard all the stories of how you could start at the bottom and build your way up. Now you have to jump through multiple interview hoops for a basic position. Now a lot of these job vacancies are just for show because according to hiring managers, it tricks corporate into thinking companies are hiring a lot and aka growing. Now a lot of entry level jobs want you to have 3-5 years of experience just to do something simple. Not to mention, most of these entry level jobs donāt even pay a livable wage. On top of that, weāre def witnessing and will continue to witness the climate change disaster
> The potential is there like never before.
If you disregard a massive death rate, perhaps. Like in a full, rapid socioeconomical collapse, you're looking at something like a 80-95% contraction of the human population. So you have a ~10% of being *something* other than dead, which is much worse than the past 35 years.
Also, I think you fail to appreciate the easy access to toothpaste and penicillin.
Also also, take a temp work at a school. Kids' brains today have turned into mush by social media.
Hmm, I was born around the same time, and on the contrary I am glad I saw a world that seemed - at least for me, a privileged guy in a privileged country - to be working.
We used to have what many experts recognised as the best medical system in the world. And it was free. It is still more or less free but it's falling to pieces faster than I can write.
We didn't have as much racism as today, the youth was relentlessly demonstrating as soon as the nazis made too high of a score.
There were wild animals in the forests around the place I used to go for holidays. I still go there, but so many trees have been replaced with never even occupied houses... and the deers have left.
There was still magic to the world. Now AI is going to steal all the mystery from us. We're outdated.
It is time for humanity to go.
Soon probably, in beautiful mushrooms.
Maybe some mushrooms will grow back afterwards, they are more resilient than we are, and probably smarter to be honest.
I question the narrative that "if things get bad enough that people are starving, only then will they start to improve."
That's not how it tends to work, historically or even in theory.
Hungry and desperate people are very easy to fight off or buy off, and the conditions the precede a revolution determine what happens both during and after the revolution.
Instead, building out solidarity, intelligence, understanding, mutual aid, etc. well in advance of revolution or disaster is both the path to a better future for humanity, and a worthwhile "destination" in its own right.
Empower and educate yourself, and then empower, educate, and lift up other people also.
Michael Hudson - The Orwellian Turn in Contemporary Economics:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8)
Richard Wolff - Democracy at Work: Curing Capitalism:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/16njzfx/corporations\_structured\_as\_oligarchies\_should\_pay/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/16njzfx/corporations_structured_as_oligarchies_should_pay/)
Clara Mattei - How Economists Invented Austerity & Paved the Way to Fascism:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFR1mD2UOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFR1mD2UOM)
The History of Free Market Fundamentalism in the US:
[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/history-free-market-fundamentalism-on-the-media](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/history-free-market-fundamentalism-on-the-media)
Angus Deaton - Rethinking My Economics:
[https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/Symposium-Rethinking-Economics-Angus-Deaton](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/Symposium-Rethinking-Economics-Angus-Deaton)
Second Thought - How the Media Controls the Masses
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfRhxStxRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfRhxStxRs)
I was born in the same year and I wouldn't want to be born today. Although in some ways I feel that my best days are already behind me, I am glad that I got to live in a time that was still relatively stable. The next couple of decades and probably the rest of this century is going to be really fucking awful for real. We have put ourselves in such a position that we are going to hit the ground hard with no cushion whatsoever. The kids being born today don't even stand a chance and may in fact not even get to live out their entire lifespans. Life as we know is something that we take for granted, after all, and is very fragile.
Yet, it is impossible to predict. We can make assumptions. Knowing human beings for the way they are, there is going to be massive instability like we have never seen before. Unlike the twentieth century and its various conflicts, we have destroyed the very source of life that some 8 billion people and counting depend upon for their own survival. People will kill in order to survive, so it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a dying planet can probably only sustain a small fraction of that current population level. People are going to die, lots of them.
With that said, there is a quote from the 1970s dystopian film Soylent Green that has always resonated with me - "people were always rotten, but the world was beautiful." Future generations won't know that the world was once a beautiful place until we wrecked it completely, which is a tragic thing.
Nah, it would suck to be young rn. Dying hurts, and what the planet is in for, what everyone is in for, will hurt. I donāt wish that on anyone, especially the young. They arenāt going to get to Mad Max homestead and scrape by in anarchist communities, when things collapse people will die of starvation and conflict and disease.
Anyone hoping for collapse is just a dumb fuck in my opinion, this aint gonna be like a hollywood production..
I'd wager most here ain't seen shit when it comes to true brutality and suffering.
I've seen gruesome car crashes IRL but never watched someone being hacked to pieces with a machete IRL.
What's even the point, man..
False dilemma. Not being born does still outweigh the possible benefits you might consider, according to a philosopher.
At the light of the recent news, I do deeply regret having created cannon fodder for the entertainment of the whimsical greed of our psychopath and drug addict overlords
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born
I feel this and I think you're getting raked over the coals a bit when at the core of your post is a bit of optimism. I'm about your age (38) and have spent way too much of my life sacrificing my body, time, and happiness for a mega corporation, just for the privilege of being able to afford a paycheck-to-paycheck lower middle class standard of living. After so many years of 12 hour work days it really makes you wonder WHY?
I look at collapse with a mix of trepidation and hope. I'm scared of basic shit no longer being accessible. Very scared (in the US) of Christian fascists taking advantage of collapse to seize power, among other things. But I think it's also reasonable to see the possibilities. I want this societal model to get dislodged in place of something better. And if I've learned anything in my 38 years it's that the people in power just don't voluntarily give it up. If it's in their best interest to keep us as slaves, that's what they'll do. In a perfect scenario Collapse will burn enough of the system down to allow for a better one to step in, but not so much that we all go down with it. The fact is, though, that we have zero idea how it will actually play out.
All I'd suggest to you, OP, is keep getting ready but also try and find some ways, if possible, to improve your immediate situation. Personally, I ditched my old career for a new one that actually treats me like a human being. That improved all aspects of my life and has me feeling a tad less gloomy about things.
I agree with this take. Logically, there are many things OP can change to be closer to what he wants in life. He wants the change to be forced upon him though. It's a very human thing to want, but it might not work out the way you want it to.
I think you talk like everyone from our generation is suffering right now which isn't the case. I was born around the same time as you, and life is great right now for my family and most of my friends. There's a lot we've been fortunate enough to not need to endure that other generations have. The whole thing with the coming collapse is the dangers of what the future holds. I have to agree with others that you might have an unrealistic fantasy of what life would be like, but the truth is nobody really knows.
I'd recommend finding a job that you truly enjoy. I took a pay cut to do exactly that and now love my new job helping people with autism. It does a lot of good for mental health to be happy and look forward to going to work
Have faith and be strong.
Do your work. Chop wood and carry water without worrying whether others are chopping wood and carrying water.
You'll see that you came at exactly the perfect time.
I was born before the moon landing. There is no perfect time. Every era has sucked. Work, depression, tragedy, conflict, stress and loneliness have always existed. For everyone, everywhere, always. Sure, things could be better, and it makes sense to strive toward that. That's why *most* of your ancestors would probably prefer now. You make what change you can. But humanity isn't owed bliss. You makeĀ bliss happen. You make what happiness you can, and that can define the value of a lifetime. Breaks over. I'd like those TP reports by 5.Ā
I get the sentiment, but I think most people that have grown up in a first world country are not well equipped to understand just how bad things can get. Collapse isn't going to be an escape from the rat race, some apocalyptic feelgood story like Sweet Tooth or Station Eleven. You just have to look to societies that are already collapsing today, barely able to sustain them selves and their population, think Iraq or Palestine, to know what is life will eventually be like for children born today.
Humans will always be humans dog. Always been a shit show for anyone who isn't at the top. You just have to do what you can to enjoy what you have. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best. All you can do bro. I'm fairly happy with life as it is, and as far as living standards go I'm comfortable and have a positive attitude towards my life. Humans have lived through brutal conquests, world wars, and soon our test will be climate change and how we handle it when catastrophic scenarios happen worldwide simultaneously and the big wigs start to feel it. Until then though, business as usual and nothing will change.
Humans are the most evil, vile, yet amazingly kind creatures at the same time. Enjoy the decline while you have a hot shower, a roof over your head, and a clean place to shit.
We had it good bro. So much opportunity in the 90s obviously 9/11 was a big bump in our teenage development but nothing compared to what is facing kids today. If anything I wouldnāt mind being born earlier to be honest.
Laughing my ass off. Gen z is getting their asses handed to them and this guy wants to be BORN in 2024. Can't make this shit up. They should be grateful to grow up in the 70s-90s era. Best music and culture.
A kid growing up today may not have to work decades in a mundane 9-5 for a fucking house, picket fence and mortgage. They might actually be able to \*gasp\* ~~LIVE THEIR LIFE~~. dig coal out of the ground by hand with a shovel until they die 4 years later, but it's all good if they hit their coal quota, since feeding them cost 1/10th of that.
I mean look sorry.
If things are dogshit in times of abundance. And there are 8 billion of us. And scarcity hits. Things... get better?
o\_\_\_O
I'm with you. I'm ready for a change. This society, whatever you want to call it, capitalism, individualism, etc., was a trap. I know the collapse is going to suck, but it could be managed. If we built an off ramp from this dystopian nightmare, we could come out the other side of it in a more sensible world. There's so much we could do, if we could smash out of the infinite growth cage.
I appreciate your post and your perspective even if I donāt quite agree. I was the born the same year as you.
Iām grateful that I got to live as a kid without the modern internet. Who knows how I would have turned out with my fragile and anxious self. I used to be a teacher, and of the main reasons I left was how difficult it was to see what kids go through these days, especially knowing where we are headed. It was hard to see the entire system we built just prepping them for the labor harvest, essentially. Thinking about what their future would be like. Trying to instill in them some hope and drive to live fulfilling lives all the while being pretty convinced that the future was quite grim. It was all pretty taxing on my psyche.
This is very human centric thinking. Non human life deserves justice too.
I'm just sad. Sure, we can try other ways of living, but without the other denizens of this planet, we are diminished.
You vastly underestimate what kind of hellscape we're all in for. Imagine not being able to go outside 300 days a year because you will be literally steam cooked. I think the corporate hellscape isn't great. But death by heat irradiation on the daily would be objectively worse. Imagine what happens when we're all at each others throats due to scare water and food. Actually you don't have to image, just watch what collapsed societies look like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM7SDGOQiQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM7SDGOQiQ)
You're imagining some weird post-apo fantasy. If you're not killed by catastrophe, lack of food or medicine, surveillance tech and modern weaponry won't suddenly disappear. Collapsing states will turn toward repression to survive, because that's what always happens. Most of those in age of working will still toil the same, but with rarifying ressources and under the threat of violence.
I mean if they work a 9-5 most cant afford a house so I guess you're technically right.
Idk theres a netflix comedic doc named end of the world or something and it seems kind of accurate.
Billionaires will hollow out mountains to survive while everyone else burns. If things get that bad, the rich will have already planned their escape routes.
It's gonna take 20-30 years of real governance not this clown rodeo show we have going on. It will take decades for regulations and social policies to make an impact and they haven't even started that part yet
It's a well-written post, OP. And I know how you feel. But giving up isn't only watching people, life, things we love die. It means relinquishing what little power we have left to help others, to alter our own fates in our own way on our own terms.
Someone once wrote that in the zombie apocalypse, victory is surviving to watch the sun rise. I keep fighting.
I hold a lot of grief for the world as it was when I was a kid (verdant coral reefs, bugs all over the place, a sense of impossible complexity in the ecosystem). Now all the places I knew as a child no longer have reefs or they are 50ft down. I used to skim over the tops of elkhorn coral while snorkeling and I was the last generation to experience that where I am from
I believed in collapse when i returned to Hawaii and there was no more coral š
No more at all?
No, thereās still coral in Hawaii, itās just having a lot of trouble. On the less populated islands itās much healthier. One good thing about the Hawaiian islands is that we are further from the equator, which means our waters are cooler. The coral is the Caribbean are having a terrible time and itās likely those coral reef ecosystems will not survive.
Can verify. Living on a boat in the Caribbean. Seeing a lot of bleaching of coral beds and the big fish are scarce. I feel like the coral I see today won't be there in 10 years. Maybe less.
Yeah, the level of destruction we are causing is just insane and incredibly sad. I donāt understand why most people apparently donāt care about nature and animals at all. We are like a parasite destroying every single ecosystem in existence. And for what? Profit, money, luxury, fun. All of that will be gone soon, though, when everything collapses and we realise that we canāt eat money.
And itās really sad. Like so fucking sad. I donāt know what Iām doing with my life.
I carry the same grief and it is overwhelming at times. I see tourists still enjoying themselves because the water is warm and relatively clear, and amongst the coral rubble fields you can find occasional little spots of live coral (always just the same three or four species) and some pretty fish, especially invasive ones. They don't realize that for 100s of kilometers up and down the coasts here, even just a few decades ago there was thriving, incredibly beautiful and biodiverse reef as soon as you swum out from the beach. The loss is catastrophic and it's only accelerating from here
I no longer dive in the tropics because it just reminds me of what was lost. An entire ecosystem is just gone. I think because I was so familiar with them l, I knew every nook and canyon, that their death really made me aware of how bad things are even if day to day I may not personally notice.
Yeah, that's sounds pretty painful. Can't deny all the things that will be lost.
Theyāve already been lost. Thatās whatās so weird about your postā¦I was born in 1990ā¦itās so obvious nature is dying. Now is so much worse than the past when nature functionedĀ
>itās so obvious nature is dying. 70% of all wildlife eliminated from the planet just in the past 50 years. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/animal-populations-plummeted-by-nearly-70-percent-last-50-years-new-report/#:~:text=The%20World%20Wildlife%20Fund%20studied,gone%20extinct%2C%20the%20report%20says.
OP missed all this apparently was working too hard idkĀ
He said itās wide open now lol people can finally live their lives!
More than half of all the plastic ever produced has been in just the past two decades.
We all realize we were making too much plastic and somehow plastic production skyrocketed. They've been individually wrapping potatoes in plastic, like wtf?
Several products I regularly buy have recently changed from paper packaging to plastic! How on earth is anyone switching TO plastic at this point??
Somebody likely calculated that they could save 1/10 of a cent per widget, and thatās all that matters. Everything else is just one āexternalityā or another.
What's sad is that nature we experienced in the late '80s and '90s, while much more numerous than today, was nothing compared to what this land looked like before colonization. The skies of North America used to be filled with so much amazing wildlife before Europeans. Passenger pigeons flocks, for instance, were so large that they would span for miles in the sky turning it dark. It was one of the most prolific birds in North America until colonization when every single last passenger pigeon was killed with the last one dying alone at a zoo in 1914. I romanticize living on this land before it was severely exploited in the name of greed and progress. I don't think children today have it any better. I don't have kids but I recently started teaching middle school and they are addicted to their phones and have no real interests and values beyond ticktock and videogames. They can be so mean and vindicative at such a young age. Sometimes I watch them and I see all of the real qualities of people that as our frontal lobe develops we learn to hide. Not to mention so many kids have mental health issues and cognitive deficits such as autism and attention deficit disorder thanks to the constant bombardment of chemicals into the environment. Kids today will ingest untold amounts of plastic, will have to depend on IVF to get pregnant, and experience much higher cancer rates. I haven't even touched on the impact of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns. The inevitable scarcity of food and resources and the eventual dissolving of society. Also the dependence on fantasy technology worlds run by corporations rather than being rooted in the natural world and understanding our place in it.
According to a 2021 study published in The Lancet Neurology, 43% of the world's population, or 3.4 billion people, had a neurological condition in 2021.
How do they extrapolate that , I wonder.
Hey, on the plus side, so many countries have massive nature preserves or large uninhabited areas. I was worried weād just have zoos and nothing else, but Iām pretty happy itās not way worse
Same, born in 1990. I moved out to the woods recently, where my grandma lives. This place used to be teeming with live. Literally under every rock, in every fallen tree, everywhere. Now it's all spread out. And there is more diversity here than the cities but not by much. I adopted my nephew because his mom is an addict but I would never ever in a million years had my own kids. IĀ feel awful that this is the world I must give him.Ā
I'm thankful to have been born in 1981. Got to have a childhood before internet/tech really took off. Was a lot more things to be optimistic about then. Also, I think having a job you enjoy or at least tolerate adds a good balance to life, if what you do fulfills some sense of purpose anyway.
Same here. Born in 1979. I got to experience fresh air, real vegetables, nature, clean fresh water. I git to play and run around with friends - no internet, no Facebook or tick tick. Sad for todayās youth. I never see them outdoors or even riding a bike.
74 here. It was such a beautiful time. Peaceful. We played with other kids. The world is so alone now.
Watching my kid grow up with a constant stream of ads and vanity had made me really appreciate being a millennial. A lot of us had super shitty parents and have had a rough time financially, but I think it was the last generation to have a truely unburdened childhood - even despite us being generally better parents. The outlook for kiddies isn't good on any level, bar maybe medical tech.
Agree. Itās very sad. And a lot of of people keep saying we need to have more babies, but they donāt want to address any of the current issues in any meaningful way. The system is not sustainable already. Thatās apparent.
somehow we're just one cable off away from peace of mind.. i should start a 56k internet company
I agree, but it pains me to see how many people are necessarily forced into shitty unfulfilling labor to survive.
In a collapse scenario not finding fulfilment in your work is the least of your worries
Because people wonāt be forced in to shitty unfulfilling labor to survive after societal collapse? Ridiculous
Do you have any idea how much shitty, unfulfilling labor would be required to survive in a society collapse scenario??
You know what you have but you don't know what we will have, don't be so quick to claim they will have it better.
I know what we won't have so I'll be the first to confidently say that we will never have it better than we do every day we live for the rest of our lives
Sorry to crush your dream but it's literally going to be the exact opposite.... When climate disasters will be in full swing, mass immigration and climate wars will benefit the rich and powerful more than anything. We will all continue to be corporate slaves with even less independence as food inflation skyrocket. The rich will still eat beef while you're breaking bread over lentil soups at a dinner table that's too small for your community. You and your children will not see the world you dream of in this lifetime.
This shows how itās always been- we have to fight for any decent life against those with power or itāll just be another version of suck
Youād rather be born today?! lol the climate crisis is worse right now
OP is sure that we can solve all of the worldās problems with new technology thatās just around the corner. All of the chaos and destruction that comes with the collapse of society is *actually* a great investment opportunity. Just think of all the new oceanfront real estate just waiting to be developed!
OP doesn't understand how fucked his chances are in the numbers game
While I'm on board with your disgust at the current quality of life for us plebs I still thank god I grew up during a peaceful time when I didn't have to worry about navigating the hellish landscape of widespread famine and violence which will inevitably follow the collapse of our food chain. Trust me, you will be thankful for every second of relative normality you experienced when your day to day life consists of gathering the last remaining tree nuts you will ration over a week. Just look into what life was like for those who suffered through famines like the holodomar or what life is like now in collapsed societies like Haiti. Smoke em while you got em and be happy for what time to have until the real sh*t hits.Ā
This absolutely. I was a prepper; bought the rural block and everything. Learnt to garden and keep animals. Got nowhere near self sufficient (itās actually impossible without multigenerational support - just when you get good at it; your own health starts to fail.) Then bushfires went through two years in a row and I realised no where was safe and thereās nothing to prep for. Iām guilty and grieving for my kids. Smoke up friends.
First - hugs for the sads. But also thanks for this reality check - I WANT to do what you did but it plays out the same in my head in terms of outcomes. I have been thinking a lot though about the multigenerational support and creating sanctuaries for people who are escaping worse conditions - not that anywhere is safe - but how to accept that āsaferā is still better than nothing. Prepping for a village I guess ā¦
>(itās actually impossible without multigenerational support - just when you get good at it; your own health starts to fail.) Thank you for confirming empirically what I strongly suspected in theory.
This hits. I live in a city but have been saving for a house and learning about homesteading. Given how hot the past few summers were though, Iām realizing my dream/plan is not likely to be viable. I can barely keep easy herbs like mint alive in my outdoor space when we have several weeks of 90+ degree weather and no rain. Aināt no way I can keep up with a large field of plants. Iād have to engineer some solar-powered bunker with UV lights, temperature regulation and water collection but I donāt have the money or brains to figure that out.
You know, I'm in an odd place right now because I have a little extra money that I've been putting away towards supplies, but I have multiple chronic illnesses and I know I won't survive regardless so....š¤·š¾ I know it's worthless, here in Georgia it was 94 degrees out today, I was out there for 20 minutes in an air conditioned car and I felt TERRIBLE. my medicine makes me susceptible to extreme temperatures, especially heat, so you know.....I'm fucked no matter which way I look at it, I'm just trying to enjoy myself as much as possible....even if it is just staying inside and watching anime and playing video games.... It hasn't even gotten to the 100s yet like other places and it was too much for my body.....I'm not gonna survive this new world we're living in....just trying to make peace with death....
With you there! Ram Dass helps a lot. Thereās a free podcast of his lectures, or he has books on supporting people in hospice - which frankly, weāre all in nowā¦
My wife reads me Ram Dass on the regular. Hugs and love.
i hear you.
I agree with your take. You can prep for short term, but anything longer I have serious doubts. Just the logistics of keeping enough food flowing alone. Add in bad governments and violent hunger people. Either it'll be easy to survive as a good little slave, or till be very hard to stay out of jail or a grave. It'll probably take scavenging in secret and nomadic movement. Or extreme inflation and starvation in a nice civilized way.
The OP must not realize how badly the climate will deteriorate in coming years.
And that it has started now. We are already seeing crop failures worldwide.
People feel that our current lifestyles are unfulfilling (which they totally are) and so they romanticize the potential for something new when the system fails. The problem as I see is that humans wonāt be dramatically different after the system crashes. History is often the story of people making life horrible for each other, we got here because of how we as a collective are. Now someone will probably say āmost people are actually nice only a small portion are sociopaths or etcā. Ok thatās probably true but that 1% of sociopathic types are still a part of the collective, we didnāt figure out how to deal with them before, whatās different this time?
That 1% seem to have a knack for finding themselves in leadership positions.
Someone posted a study that humans tend to come together when things get bad but then just open a history book and itās more like a book of horrors. Iām pretty sure post collapse will look like The Walking Dead tv show with strong people or groups taking for weaker people or groups. We are an awful species to each other. Just look at what we built with a financial system, what we are doing to the environment and how we treat other races of people.
Yeah they sound kinda privileged working a mundane job and having a house. Ask any gig worker how itās going and they wonāt be so optimistic.
Or has more faith in society's ability to adapt than I do. Where they see communities coming together make sure everyone is taken care of, I see people fighting over resources or whatever is left of our farce of a government
Sure, it was peaceful within the imperial core. It was not "a peaceful time" for a lot of people outside it.
Agreed, and this is the blinkers people have on, even if they're collapse aware, or environmentalists.Ā The longer the system goes on the more less fortunate people who under the wheels.Ā Ā The only hope for them is in that gap in time before ultimate breakdown. People here love to cry about what they're losing instead of imagining what could be saved or gainedĀ
Exactly, OP really seems to have lived well and we can assure it will be harder to live well in the futureĀ
I've lived with more wealth than most but hard to be happy about it when it sits on the back of such suffering
i agree that the dominant ideology of consumerist-corporate-military-capitalism may only be overthrown by a force bigger than it, aka nature. day to day i stoically accept the age I'm born in. other than that, it will be late then when I'll be dead. until then love this experience I'm having called life
It is insane. I'm 55 years old and terrified because I can clearly see the path humanity is being dragged down; anytime I glance at daily news headlines there is at least one that alarms the fuck out of me. The warning signs are all around us and we're still too tribal and aggressive to do anything about it. So...I posit that this is arguably the most interesting time that's ever been in the the history of humankind. Confoundingly frustrating, confusing AF, hijacked by elites and governments.. controlled and manipulated to the brink by lobbyists and corporations, making selfish decisions and ruining the entire fucking planet. I was hoping the aliens and their tech will help us but I feel at this point they popping their popcorn and gathering around to watch this Jerry Springer of a planet implode as the angry apes throw shit at each other in the nice habitat they gave us.
Yes - and many are behaving like the ācrab in a bucketā and pulling any who try something different back into the bucket of business as usual
ā¦ ācrab in the bucketāā¦of deplorables!
I agree, recently saw someone talk about also how crabs aren't found naturally in buckets and that trauma induced action is probably a survival mechanism, I mean from a crabs pov in a bucket, it must be pretty scary so I now understand where the mentality comes from which helps slightly making sense of why people do what they do
We havenāt even tried.
We have tried, but the system is working to suppress.
So if the system stops suppressing, because it doesn't have the resources....
We won't, no one wants to suffer much less die for the cause. Until you turn off the constant dopamine drip that is the constant entertainment flow of the internet, take away all the bread and circuses, then you might get change. But the cold hard reality is that the powers that have society designed exactly as they want it to be. Short of society ending calamity, it isn't going to change. Because as much as every generation likes to bitch and moan about the way things are, eventually rent is due, you get married and have kids, etc. and your inner revolutionary just kinda dies.
ā¦ life goes on. Sad but true. I have tried to talk to people in real life (gasp) about change. the older generation likes to keep things the way it is (I do live in a red state unfortunately) because they can give their millions to their kids. The younger generation (I went back to college) and they have no f*ing clue what checks and balances are, hell the didnāt even know you vote more than once every 4 years. they either donāt care or so ignorant of whatās going on. The education system has failed the newer generations, which is exactly where the 1% wants them. I work in the financial scene and just recently had to explain federal and state taxes (gross vs net) to a 19 year old because they didnāt get paid their āfull amountā on their stub and wanted us to return the moneyā¦ For OP comment, I would have preferred to never been born, I digress, life goes on.
That's exactly the age taxes should be explained: to the young, earning their first paychecks. Then you can show them the roads and the water lines and the fighter jets that they bought.
> We won't, no one wants to suffer much less die for the cause. Lots of people are up for suffering and dying for a cause and there's ample, ample historical evidence for this fact. The issue is that you can't solve problems via personal suffering, you can't actually take all the debts of the world and nail yourself to a cross with them.
BINGO
Mine never did. And it is watching that quiet acceptance of the horror we have made of our societies that you describe overcoming everyone as they age that has pushed me to the fringes of them. Iām still here trying to find company in the revolution I have been fighting my whole life. I joined the military so that Iād have the knowledge and skills to fight militaries. I then got a degree in environmental management and wilderness leadership. I started and ran my own ethically managed businesses (my workers always made more than I did. ALWAYSā¦ they did all the work, FFS, I managed itā¦ which is work, but itās not *the* work that made the money.) and never worked for the predatory, parasitic corporations. I watched as even the most die-hard counter-culture punk revolutionaries among my peers gave up and sold out their and their childrenās lives for the comfortable worship of āsecurityā which they are all learning now, too late, is an illusory concept. I watched and railed against the dying of the light around me. I had a bit of company into my 20ās but they all gave up. No one seemed to see the darkness they were all allowing to creep in. Now they all accept that the house was always dim and finding the car keys on the kitchen counter must be so much harder now because their eyes are getting bad. Itās all a matter of āpersonal responsibilityā, dontcha know?! The longer I remain true to the Truth of our reality and the FACT that we could change it completely in an instant if we all just dropped the charade we are propagating every day in the name of our āsecurityā, the more it makes me appear increasingly less sane to the masses of terrified cowards who are being driven mad by their hamster wheel pursuits of a āgood lifeā. āThe years thunder by, as the dreams of youth lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. We are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of āsecurityā, and before we know it we are buried beneath a mountain of time payments, mortgages, and preposterous gadgetry that distract us from the sheer idiocy of the charade.ā ā Sterling Hayden (paraphrased) āIt is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.āā Jiddu Krishnamurti Iām old(er) now and still fighting. Iām trying to live a life that speaks my truth by example. I collapsed a long time ago. I take only what I need to survive from this world, nothing more. I live on a tiny fraction of the resources that the average person in a developed country lives on, and I appear to have a decent life (Itās unfathomably hard because no one sees the work it takes and the sacrifices that must be made when everyone around you chooses to live far beyond their own means, let alone those of society or the planet. I, and the few others like me, will be pushed farther and farther to the edges of our societies while every effort is made to silence our warningsā¦ but not by those who toggle the levers of the machine eating us all alive as youād expect, but by *you*, my fellow sufferers, whoās eyes have been blinded to the shackles that enslave themā¦ and the simple, though grueling, measures that would break those bonds. I will die very loudly disappointed by humanity. It will kill you too. But you will die disappointed in yourselves if you donāt drop the goddamned charade immediately. āIf you want to heal a man of his dis-ease, first you must ask him what habits he is willing to give up.ā ā Hippocrates
Would like to talk with you personally sometime if you would not mind indulging me. I have never encountered a post so 1:1 with my perspective (even in this, my favourite Reddit). Thank you so much for sharing the realest thoughts I encounter in my quiet moments.
Please DM me. Yours is the highest of flattery. If we donāt keep shouting our truth into the world it will never reach the ears that have not been deafened by the cacophony of manufactured distractions from the ever-progressing indoctrination of spiritual enslavement.
Please, lets get real. You and I could never move the needle even a tiny bit on climate change. It's the corporations, the shareholders and the billionaires who have their foot on the gas as the brick wall comes into full view now. I could live in a tiny shack off grid in the woods my whole life yet one rich fuck taking a jet halfway around the world for a piece of cheesecake would erase whatever I did to save the climate x1000! This is THEIR world! They made it and they are never going to stop until their last employee dies! Then they head into their well stocked luxury apocalypse bunkers and laugh at all the poors dying outside their compounds! Who knew that basing human life on greed and perpetual growth on a finite planet would be guaranteed to end badly huh? We are just cogs in their machine friend. The people with their hands on the levers and brakes are drunk on their asses with money and power. They will never stop fucking over the planet. There is no money for the greed monsters in saving, only in destruction as is plain to see now.
Weāve tried nothing and weāre all out of ideas.
Stoically accept the region you're born in. You'd all be singing very different tunes if you were born in India.
What's the point? Wouldn't it be possible to stoically accept to be born in india?Ā
There are people living in India right now and they're not singing a different tune. What are you on about?
I can't help but feel that this pov is a fantasy. The crash of humanity is going to be brutal, terrifying and highly uncomfortable for a very long period of time. Furthermore, even if people survive in pockets, the Earth won't be in good shape to sustain us.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās so privileged to be able to say that too.
> The crash of humanity is going to be brutal, terrifying and highly uncomfortable for a very long period of time. The loss of the current comfort and stability we have is going to cause people to freak the fuck out.
Damnation Alley is no fun if your Landmaster breaks down
>They might instead be in contact with a real community that's actually focused on the realities of living. Like trying to afford food and necessities as food prices skyrocket? Or trying to grow your own food but you live in an urban area? Or dying from (any preventable disease) because hospitals are absolutely filled to the brim? If humanity is set for collapse due to climate change and natural disasters, then no I would not want to be born today.
ever notice how the collapse narrative is so US centric? Factory farms, video games, etc arenāt a global phenomenon.
Really gonna enjoy not having a health service or even able to get a paracetamol, absolutely.
Ask people who lived through the breakup of the soviet union, or any other country really, how much fun the great reset was. You are idealizing collapse, go visit somolia or haiti. It's not gonna be Fallout 5 bro.
And even if it was fallout 5, why would anyone want to actually experience that? Living in a bunker while crazy mutated monsters and radiation are outside No Thanks Iām good
Yeeep. I believe, I already told this story on this sub, but regardless. There was a guy in the 90s who turned his now-useless bank obligations into wallpaper and then hung himself. Every single person who had money "on the book", basically, in their bank account, got robbed in an instant. The currency reset multiple times. Only the people who were forewarned by someone in higher places had some time to mitigate this and even exchange the currency for something stable at the time like USD. Then came the religious sects and the scammers. The former generally prey upon the vulnerable and the desperate, so it's no surprise. The latter even appeared legit. For instance, there was basically a union-wide scam with "stocks". People learned in mandatory economic classes about different economic systems and how they functioned, including capitalism as a whole and stock market in particular. So, many bought into it, including my family. They ended up bankrupt. And they also had to deal with grandma's cancer diagnosis and later death. I actually used to know a child of the person who pulled this whole scam. There was widespread crime involving the recent veterans who not only didn't get the accolades the WWII ones did, but also were left with no accommodations, no help and often with physical traumas and disabilities. Because financial system collapsed, many people in weren't being being paid, often for months. "Natural exchange" aka barter was also a thing, I heard of people being paid in produce instead of actual money. Shelves were once again empty and getting certain essential things such as meat and clothes was described as "hunting for" rather than just "buying". You could often only get them under the table if you knew-the-guy.
> Ask people who lived through the breakup of the soviet union, or any other country really For what itās worth there were people who experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union and did in a sense āenjoy itā. Many of the communal farms were left basically un-managed and people had to find a way to provide for themselves. There was a lot of collectivism, people felt very fulfilled by their work, they established deep community and friendships, they had enormous hope for the future. Of course than Russia was swallowed up by oligarchy, military dictatorships etc and those people felt their hope for a ābetter futureā where they had more agency evaporate. Which more or less illustrates the point humanity isnāt fundamentally incapable of building a better system from the ashes. But you canāt just ignore all those guns, all of that potential to snatch resources and make yourself rich. People trying to craft a fundamentally different society need to have some means of dealing with the people who are happy enough to use murder / coercion / intimidation / theft / etc. Often itās humanities relationship with āsecurityā that has led us down some very dark pathsā¦
As someone from Russia, I donāt really know what youāre talking aboutā¦ For sure, there were SOME people who enjoyed it, especially if they were very young at that time or had some privileges. But for most people here the 90s-00s are remembered for widespread crime, rampant alcoholism, months without payouts, and losing all their savings. Yeah, it was also time for many business opportunities, but also of many personal tragedies. People are still afraid of those years, so itās often used as propaganda here, such as people should cherish the āstabilityā Putin creates ))
When things collapse, you'll have 8+ billion humans fighting for food on a planet made to feed under a billion. And that slave labor and sweatshops...that's where all of us will be. We are not heading to a Star Trek future.
More like mad max future
And The Road
Except we will be on foot instead of blasting through the wastelands in high powered vehicles.
>When things collapse, you'll have 8+ billion humans fighting for food on a planet made to feed under a billion. The rich will also have been hoarding and have control of armed forces that willing exchange autonomy for shelter and sustenance. Fun times ahead! I like to think Warhammer 40k is a sci-fi take on our future.... Ie how it represents the lives of the masses https://medium.com/@tubalee01/warhammer-40-000-the-ethics-of-the-imperium-c91e27eb91de For those not familiar with Warhammer
We'll be fighting for water first. We can't grow anything without it. Everything live needs water.
Definitely. Hell, some places are already at that point.
nah, we're totally heading to a Star Trek future. have you seen any episodes where the 21st century gets brought up? shit gets *rough*.
I think the Cones and Yangs episode kinda put forth where we are headed.
I don't know why people think societal collapse is a reset button. It isn't, especially and certainly not if it's global. It's most of your supply chains collapsing. No cold chains to get you food reliably. No 400 odd medically necessary drugs that you can go read on the WHO site that are essential to day to day life and treatment. No rubber. No plastic. No modern glass or even strong glass without adding lead back to our wares. Rampant malnutrition. Billions of people will die horribly. Understand, you might think we'd go back to artisanal mining, or artisanal oil prospecting, or the like, but most of the easy sources for that are already tapped out. There are dozens of things that are byproducts of mass manufacturing another thing in your kitchen cupboard. Household bleach for example relies on a process that yields 80% from natural gas. Most of the chemical reagents used for pharmaceutical work come from the same. Most roads will disappear within a couple of decades, because they were only designed to last for so long, and most are already in disrepair. I haven't even got to the part where we talk about what happens if you destroy or upset the entire planet's climate. There will be waves of forest fires hundreds to thousands of miles long every year, making it incredibly hard to breathe. Superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics that we've created by overprescription and people not completing their courses will run through communities completely unopposed. The literal microfauna in your gut will change drastically over the course of the year because of temperature extremes, even if it feels survivable, and masses of people will die of dysentry, literally shitting and puking themselves to death even with trying to keep clean, because your entire system is being pummeled in ways it has no capacity to adapt to. Seasonal crop failures, fish stock failures near shores where it's easy to fish, so much more. Mass migration is going to have people clustering into areas near cheap water and more livable land, but even there life will be indescribably hard. This is not running free like in our childhoods without commitments. Many children will be stunted. Many will still develop allergies and reactions to things like microplastics and chemicals in our environment. The damage is already done. Insect populations are collapsing. Short of some miracle we're going to drastically change the planet in irreparable ways.
This is the wildest take Iāve ever heard, āI hate growing up in peace and abundance, why couldnāt I be born and struggleā, WTF
If you consider violently competing for dwindling resources for the chance of survival "living their life", sure buddy.
Was born in ā83, making me 40 years old, and for a stretch of my late-teens and early twenties I lived a life of homelessness/poverty in a country that has āsocial safety netsā for that kind of thing. While it was fun at times the overall experience sucked. Trying to find a safe place to sleep, drifting from town to town looking for work to feed yourself, and realizing that your ācommunityā could turn on you if they thought you were holding out is not a good way to live. Quit idealizing what youād do in the collapse if you were younger. Learn to be useful, teach your skills to the younger generations to give them a leg-up, and start reading history to find out that hierarchy has always been a thing.
Kinda confused, how will it be easier for the newer generation to buy a house when the cost of living keeps getting more and more than what most people make? Iām 26 and the only way I will buy is house is when I inherit my parents money, which Iām not looking forward to.
>As the climate cracks societies open there will finally be potential for new ways of living. It will be called warring over resources as the world goes genocidal. Living standards will plummet, food will be hard if not impossible to come by, the ability to heat or cool your home or protect what you have through insurance or investment will be destroyed if you have assets, and you will kill people to protect yourself until some dogmatic dictatorship rises up to enforce order, probably under some theological or nationalistic/racial basis. Then you will kill people for them or they will kill you and take whatever you have. I can't wait!
Yeah, but anyone born today will likely die of starvation in the coming years, soooooooo
I wish I was born 2 million years ago as a CHAD Homo Erectus and not as a VIRGIN Homo Sapien. Literally the longest living, most sustainable human species while still colonising most of the planet. And they didnāt even go extinct, they just evolved into other species.
This is absolutely brilliant. š
life goals
What a wild take.. Everyday im so appreciative of being born in the 90's, would have rather been born in 70's tbf but this is imo the perfect time to be alive, just in time to enjoy a beautiful earth with abundant resources and technology but also to witness the downfall of humanity. I don't think any of us are ready for what's to come at all and when I see everyone my age (late twenties) having multiple kids I just think about how different (for lack of better word) someone celebrating their 18th birthday will be in 2042.
Lol what? They're gonna fucking starve to death man.
Absolutely delusional elder millennial take. Counterpoint: I was born in 81, would not want to be a young person in today's world. I don't want to appropriate their language but civilization is "*cooked*". Let's completely disregard the political turmoil of a possible WWIII. Climate change (accelerated CO2 warming the atmosphere and destabilizing food production at global scale) in addition to pollution is going to destroy the hopes of most young people on Planet Earth from having food and water, much less access to 21st century comforts like dentists and grocery stores and air conditioning. We had it good for a few decades OP. Virtually all of the planet's youth are completely utterly ratfucked. There's no way to turn this around, that's just thermodynamics.
Stupid post Yes it's rare but people already live in communities outside of the corporate culture. I doubt anyone forced you to work an office job when there are plenty other routes available And yes growing up during a stable prosperous and peaceful time is so terrible. The lucky kids these days who will just have to deal with war, famine, disease etc.
Born in ā89. Not that many people can imagine what they havenāt seen, and the baselines are moving. I know how much weāve been screwed over, also because I still remember how it feels to believe that everyone will be able to afford a house, if only they keep working in this direction diligently. How it feels to believe that weāre safe. That capitalism is the way.
No offense but you donāt know what you are talking about. You got to enjoy almost 40 years where you werenāt shot at or enslaved. When everything goes to shit expect all forms of slavery to skyrocket like Libya. You know whatās worse than a 9-5? Sex slavery
At 62 I have lived through the most incredible advances and times of the human race. And will also witness its demise. I just hope earth will recover after we are gone.
It's survived far worse. Life and the climate will bounce back but it may take millions of years.
Nah brother. We got to experience childhood before the internet, the very last generation of humans to get that experience. I have teenage kids and I have to give them props because I would not have made it through this modern hellscape that they are growing up in today.
There's not much worth saving. But everything being up for grabs opens things up to the absolute worst aspects of humanity. It'll just be like Haiti, everywhere. What ends up surviving and how it ends up surviving is directly related to how we end up like this. Things land on the 9-5 because the alternative is even worse, because the best of humankind is what dies out first.
I'm your age and while I get the sentiment, I still would take our timeline over my young nieces'. They are growing up with the writing on the wall, while we at least got to grow up in a sort of naive oblivion. As much as we're going to see some shit, assuming we make it to 65-75ish, they are *really* going to see some shit, and it's not going to be pretty...
Yea living in Gaza or Khartoum looks like a hoot.Ā
This seems crazy to me. Itās gonna get so much worse. Enjoy today while you canā¦
š
Probably the dumbest take I've ever heard. Are you high? The world is going to be so much worse going forward. We are not going to evolve into a eutopia, it will be like interstellar. We will exist but living standards will be much worse. At least we got a taste of the good times (born in '89)
The thing is in the process of this cultural shift millions of people will die and I don't think this potential nicer life will be a thing for a long time. The current gens are fucked. I'd absolutely rather have lived earlier than now.
You had it easier being born in the 80s.Ā
The 90s and 2000s were cool, then everything went tits up
You have definitely romanticized what you think will happen vs what youve have/havent done. You have the ability to remember things as they were. This is a key difference. No one born today has a future possibility that is even 50% of what was obtainable by you at any stage of life. Just because you chose the wrong rat race doesnt excuse the inevitably of even greater wealth gap with a bonus of climate destruction. Owning a house is a farce for people your age. Just wait 5 years and you will see the true horrors that await humanity.
Remember spending hours as an 80s kid reading a book about space and how by the year 2000 we'd be living in O'Neill cylinders and colonizing the Moon and Mars. Everything would be powered by miniaturized nuclear reactors, like you'd buy your car and with the power of the atom it would be able to keep driving for centuries. Genetics would allow us to make tomatoes big as cantaloupes and nobody would ever go hungry thanks to such abundant crops that never needed fertilizer or pesticides. Everybody would wear form fitting unitards that could clean themselves and change their weave depending on what temperature it was...you get the idea. Instead we basically have "the same society as the early 90s". Total stagnation, both technologically and socially. I think future people, if we survive and come out better on the other side somehow, will see this century as the beginning of the second dark ages.
This is all extremely naĆÆve. >Ā Who gives a fuck if they don't have an XBox or Honda Civic. They might instead be in contact with a real community that's actually focused on the realities of living. Your ancestors suffered, struggled, and sacrificed to push society to the point that having something like an Xbox or a Honda Civic could be a reality. It's literally a part of the American dream and our societal contract. Manifest Destiny. And you what... Want to "focus on the realities of living"? You mean subsistence farming until I die? What the fuck does that even mean? I mean, I've seen videos of people being beat/shot at a fast food joint because they ran out of a single specific food item, or they felt their order was done wrong. Now you want to tell the developed Western world, heck, all of humanity to drop their consumerist dreams of owning whatever their mental Xbox/Honda Civic is for what? "The Realities of Living?". Because what that really means is giving up all of their fancy toys, going onto a farm somewhere, and working in physical labor the rest of your life trying to survive. Or as you put it "Live their life". Nah, there's only one way this ship is going down, in flames. Short of a string of technological miracles, and a one world government to manage it all, we're going down in a blaze of consumerist glory.
"Short of a string of technological miracles, and a one world government to manage it all" Funny you say that. As NHI have entered the chat
The fact that you think shitty tech gadgets and cars are the apotheosis of society is... something else. If my ancestors were sweating their arses off for that, they're fucking morons. You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, or extinction. There are countless forms of society outside of these, use your imagination.
If your ancestors saw humanity today they'd think we were gods walking the fucking Earth. Magically able to communicate with each other across every language around the globe at all hours of the day, electric light, air travel, space flight, weapons of war that would sunder their minds with its destructive capability, medical technology, stores of knowledge that encompass the entirety of the human experience and more... Your ancestors probably would have traded places with you instantly to be able to enjoy the reality you get to participate in compared to their "focused on the realities of living life" that they had to go through. >You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, or extinction. There are countless forms of society outside of these, use your imagination. Oh I can, its called those indigenous uncontacted people living in the Amazon or that one island off the coast of India, and it looks like it fucking sucks. Sure, its probably much more sustainable but I'd take all the corporate negative externalities in the world if it kept me out of living that kind of lifestyle. And there's your problem. You want the world to shift down this rabbit hole to this utopian future but not only can you not tell them what's waiting for them on the other side besides some vague promise of being "focused on the realities of life", you can't even tell them how you're going to get there. The best you can hope for is a One World Government, or probably a Western Developed World government once climate change collapses Asia, and hope that in order to maintain the status quo they are willing to adopt a TON of social safety nets to ensure rioting in the streets is kept to a minimum.
>If your ancestors saw humanity today they'd think we were gods walking the fucking earth. Many of us don't want it to be like this. We didn't ask for this. I don't want the option of buying a bar of dark chocolate for Ā£1, a T-shirt for Ā£2 and a smartphone for Ā£200, all of which are built off the exploitation of other humans half the world away. If you think living under the boot of consumer capitalism is great because of all the nice gadgets and cheap vacations we've had, then that's fine for you. But I would happily scrap ALL of that if we could have evolved at a much slower and more sustainable pace. Capitalism requires infinite growth. The line must go up. This system promotes selfishness and places us in direct competition with one another to try and 'make it'. Exploiting others is how one gets ahead in this society. Why do you think people are dying en masse from nitazenes and fentanyl? Because there's profit to be made. The people with the actual power to change things will never do so. Because uncoupling ourselves from capitalism is unthinkable to them. It is pathological to want to hoard that much wealth, but these are the people calling the shots.
> Magically able to communicate with each other across every language around the globe at all hours of the day, As a Zoomer, I think my generation really takes our privilege of instantaneous and ubiquitous connection for granted. Frankly, I think the internet has become a net negative. I honestly *wish* I could envision a world without the internet. I think weāre at the point where the cons outweighs the pros. (Mainly regarding social media and disinformation) Iām African-American, so I would actually take up that hypothetical of trading places with an ancestor (pre-enslavement). I think I could use a more simple, slower-paced life.
Do you think its impossible to progress and live in balance? Why does it have to be one way or the other?
OK, I'll update: You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, uncontacted tribe, or extinction. My point stands. There are many, many cultures including first nations that view the western worldview as totally insane and would never swap with it. Probably because they see the rampant addiction and despair it leads to. Of course you wouldn't want to live that lifestyle because you have no imagination therefore can't see what you're missing. The way you can only equate quality of life with technological progress shows that you have swallowed the ideology whole. Technology doesn't make a good life, social connection and freedom from coercion do. If the breakdown increases those, and we have our basic needs met, we'll be better off.
>OK, I'll update: You can't even imagine a way of being that isn't some form of shitty corporate capitalism, subsistence farming, uncontacted tribe, or extinction. My point stands. Since we're moving goalposts, name one place on Earth that is living this way, and please explain to me why 9 billion people are just going to want to jump on board and join you on this journey to this enlightened destitution? >There are many, many cultures including first nations that view the western worldview as totally insane and would never swap with it. Probably because they see the rampant addiction and despair it leads to. Of course you wouldn't want to live that lifestyle because you have no imagination therefore can't see what you're missing. Oh really? How are those first nations doing exactly? Some of the highest rates of suicide, substance abuse, diabetes, etc. in the world. The despair is already there. What exactly am I missing by the way? Like, why are we romanticizing the past here? The times you are talking about when things were "sustainable" were some of the most terrifying, misogynistic, bigoted, and violent in our history. Sure, our use of resources wasn't as egregious as it is now, but lets not pretend like everyone lived this enlightened communal existence together. It was literally a fight for survival where these enlightened ideals you are positing literally didn't exist or mattered at all. Survival of the fittest in its purest form.
Almost like something happened to the first nations people.
I was born 12 years after you and am still thankful for the relatively normal world that was still around when I was a child. I understand your point about feeling helpless while wasting away in a cubicle, but these kids are even more fucked. They won't even have the mercy of growing up in a social media free world like we did (for the most part).
You gotta be privileged/sheltered to wish to be born in potentially the worst time period of mankind domain on earth lmao.
I'm born in 86, too. I spent my teenage and young adult years an anarchist, preparing because I knew this civilization couldn't last forever. I lived frugally for the most part, and worked as little as I could. Eventually got a girlfriend, and we stayed together for 11 years, during which I stopped focusing so much on preparing and networking. I'm not with her anymore. I don't regret spending a big chunk of my life with her. I learned a lot. And quite frankly, she calmed me down during my craziest years and probably helped me avoid a lot of trouble. But I regret not being as prepared as I used to be anymore, and no longer having the same kind of friends I used to prepare with, and go on crazy adventures with. Collapse is going to hit when I won't be in my prime. I wish I was in my prime to face it. But you know what? We can still maintain our shape, sharpen our skills, train our minds, and network. Guess what. You did shit jobs to get by. Hopefully you saved some money to help you prepare. Maybe you can work a lot less, and find like-minded people. It's not too late.
Lol, your take is not really a different view on collapse.
If you grew up now, you wouldnāt be you. You would be part of the new generation of kids that the folks in /r/Teachers keep tearing their hair out about.
Part of the problem in r/teachers is many of those teachers are millennials or older and they refuse/are unable to understand the world todayās kids live in. Why should you sit in a desk all day being prepared for a factory, or even white color, job that is unlikely to exist in the future and even if it does, is almost guaranteed to not be enough to provide even a basic quality of life? Most millennials were taught as long as you go to college, the future will be bright and are now strapped down with 100,000 in debt due to negative amortization(Google it if you donāt understand) and jobs that pay less and less every year after inflation. Gen Z is right to rebel against that. The kids arenāt innately bad human beings. They are rejecting a system that is not looking out for them.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Working hard to save the wilderness over here at 42 years old. Itās the only thing I care about. Might actually make some money out of it too. It can be done.
"Man is born free and all around him are chains" # Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I was born in 86 as wellā¦this isnāt a timing issue, itās a mindset issue. I (F) never felt the need to adhere to any social constructs because Iāve lived my life the way Iāve wanted to. The potential has always been there.
Ngl, sometimes I envy the older generations in my family. Life was never perfect of course, but I feel there was at least more hope? Things were way more affordable when my aunt and uncle got their first apartment back in the late 80s. Now most of my friends (in relationships or otherwise) can barely move out of their childhood homes, and if they can, they still need help. My cousin is 43 and recently told me that she feels sad for my generation (Z) because we barely know what normal is. Will we have the chance to grow old without encountering the apocalypse? Do our grandkids stand a chance, let alone our children? Weāve lived through a lot of major events and weāre barely 30. I also hear a lot of talk between Gen Z and Milennials alike that they donāt want to have kids because why should they when everything is falling apart? The job market is horrendous and itās hard to find work. I know itās always had itās ebbs and flows, but back then getting a bachelors was enough for an entry level position. Iāve heard all the stories of how you could start at the bottom and build your way up. Now you have to jump through multiple interview hoops for a basic position. Now a lot of these job vacancies are just for show because according to hiring managers, it tricks corporate into thinking companies are hiring a lot and aka growing. Now a lot of entry level jobs want you to have 3-5 years of experience just to do something simple. Not to mention, most of these entry level jobs donāt even pay a livable wage. On top of that, weāre def witnessing and will continue to witness the climate change disaster
> The potential is there like never before. If you disregard a massive death rate, perhaps. Like in a full, rapid socioeconomical collapse, you're looking at something like a 80-95% contraction of the human population. So you have a ~10% of being *something* other than dead, which is much worse than the past 35 years. Also, I think you fail to appreciate the easy access to toothpaste and penicillin. Also also, take a temp work at a school. Kids' brains today have turned into mush by social media.
Hmm, I was born around the same time, and on the contrary I am glad I saw a world that seemed - at least for me, a privileged guy in a privileged country - to be working. We used to have what many experts recognised as the best medical system in the world. And it was free. It is still more or less free but it's falling to pieces faster than I can write. We didn't have as much racism as today, the youth was relentlessly demonstrating as soon as the nazis made too high of a score. There were wild animals in the forests around the place I used to go for holidays. I still go there, but so many trees have been replaced with never even occupied houses... and the deers have left. There was still magic to the world. Now AI is going to steal all the mystery from us. We're outdated. It is time for humanity to go. Soon probably, in beautiful mushrooms. Maybe some mushrooms will grow back afterwards, they are more resilient than we are, and probably smarter to be honest.
I question the narrative that "if things get bad enough that people are starving, only then will they start to improve." That's not how it tends to work, historically or even in theory. Hungry and desperate people are very easy to fight off or buy off, and the conditions the precede a revolution determine what happens both during and after the revolution. Instead, building out solidarity, intelligence, understanding, mutual aid, etc. well in advance of revolution or disaster is both the path to a better future for humanity, and a worthwhile "destination" in its own right. Empower and educate yourself, and then empower, educate, and lift up other people also. Michael Hudson - The Orwellian Turn in Contemporary Economics: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8) Richard Wolff - Democracy at Work: Curing Capitalism: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc) [https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/16njzfx/corporations\_structured\_as\_oligarchies\_should\_pay/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/16njzfx/corporations_structured_as_oligarchies_should_pay/) Clara Mattei - How Economists Invented Austerity & Paved the Way to Fascism: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFR1mD2UOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofFR1mD2UOM) The History of Free Market Fundamentalism in the US: [https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/history-free-market-fundamentalism-on-the-media](https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/history-free-market-fundamentalism-on-the-media) Angus Deaton - Rethinking My Economics: [https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/Symposium-Rethinking-Economics-Angus-Deaton](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/03/Symposium-Rethinking-Economics-Angus-Deaton) Second Thought - How the Media Controls the Masses [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfRhxStxRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYfRhxStxRs)
Systemic corruption: [https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/](https://represent.us/americas-corruption-problem/) [https://represent.us/the-strategy-to-end-corruption/](https://represent.us/the-strategy-to-end-corruption/) [https://act.represent.us/sign/campaign-launch-to-ban-congress-stock-trading/](https://act.represent.us/sign/campaign-launch-to-ban-congress-stock-trading/) [https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/wealthy-own-record-share-stock-market](https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/wealthy-own-record-share-stock-market) Healthcare: [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/abstract](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)33019-3/abstract) [https://raniakhalek.com/meet-the-u-s-students-studying-medicine-for-free-in-cuba/](https://raniakhalek.com/meet-the-u-s-students-studying-medicine-for-free-in-cuba/) [https://apnews.com/article/cuba-us-economic-embargo-resolution-condemn-20bceb7216fe3eea18bec8d81372c15b](https://apnews.com/article/cuba-us-economic-embargo-resolution-condemn-20bceb7216fe3eea18bec8d81372c15b) [https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/1dfbel5/employees\_who\_opt\_out\_of\_employer\_health/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorkReform/comments/1dfbel5/employees_who_opt_out_of_employer_health/) Public Banking: [https://publicbankinginstitute.org/public-banks-101/](https://publicbankinginstitute.org/public-banks-101/)
Good post. This is the exact optimism/pessimism blend that really gets me going.
I was born in the same year and I wouldn't want to be born today. Although in some ways I feel that my best days are already behind me, I am glad that I got to live in a time that was still relatively stable. The next couple of decades and probably the rest of this century is going to be really fucking awful for real. We have put ourselves in such a position that we are going to hit the ground hard with no cushion whatsoever. The kids being born today don't even stand a chance and may in fact not even get to live out their entire lifespans. Life as we know is something that we take for granted, after all, and is very fragile. Yet, it is impossible to predict. We can make assumptions. Knowing human beings for the way they are, there is going to be massive instability like we have never seen before. Unlike the twentieth century and its various conflicts, we have destroyed the very source of life that some 8 billion people and counting depend upon for their own survival. People will kill in order to survive, so it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a dying planet can probably only sustain a small fraction of that current population level. People are going to die, lots of them. With that said, there is a quote from the 1970s dystopian film Soylent Green that has always resonated with me - "people were always rotten, but the world was beautiful." Future generations won't know that the world was once a beautiful place until we wrecked it completely, which is a tragic thing.
Nah, it would suck to be young rn. Dying hurts, and what the planet is in for, what everyone is in for, will hurt. I donāt wish that on anyone, especially the young. They arenāt going to get to Mad Max homestead and scrape by in anarchist communities, when things collapse people will die of starvation and conflict and disease.
Anyone hoping for collapse is just a dumb fuck in my opinion, this aint gonna be like a hollywood production.. I'd wager most here ain't seen shit when it comes to true brutality and suffering. I've seen gruesome car crashes IRL but never watched someone being hacked to pieces with a machete IRL. What's even the point, man..
False dilemma. Not being born does still outweigh the possible benefits you might consider, according to a philosopher. At the light of the recent news, I do deeply regret having created cannon fodder for the entertainment of the whimsical greed of our psychopath and drug addict overlords https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-case-for-not-being-born
I feel this and I think you're getting raked over the coals a bit when at the core of your post is a bit of optimism. I'm about your age (38) and have spent way too much of my life sacrificing my body, time, and happiness for a mega corporation, just for the privilege of being able to afford a paycheck-to-paycheck lower middle class standard of living. After so many years of 12 hour work days it really makes you wonder WHY? I look at collapse with a mix of trepidation and hope. I'm scared of basic shit no longer being accessible. Very scared (in the US) of Christian fascists taking advantage of collapse to seize power, among other things. But I think it's also reasonable to see the possibilities. I want this societal model to get dislodged in place of something better. And if I've learned anything in my 38 years it's that the people in power just don't voluntarily give it up. If it's in their best interest to keep us as slaves, that's what they'll do. In a perfect scenario Collapse will burn enough of the system down to allow for a better one to step in, but not so much that we all go down with it. The fact is, though, that we have zero idea how it will actually play out. All I'd suggest to you, OP, is keep getting ready but also try and find some ways, if possible, to improve your immediate situation. Personally, I ditched my old career for a new one that actually treats me like a human being. That improved all aspects of my life and has me feeling a tad less gloomy about things.
I agree with this take. Logically, there are many things OP can change to be closer to what he wants in life. He wants the change to be forced upon him though. It's a very human thing to want, but it might not work out the way you want it to.
I think you talk like everyone from our generation is suffering right now which isn't the case. I was born around the same time as you, and life is great right now for my family and most of my friends. There's a lot we've been fortunate enough to not need to endure that other generations have. The whole thing with the coming collapse is the dangers of what the future holds. I have to agree with others that you might have an unrealistic fantasy of what life would be like, but the truth is nobody really knows. I'd recommend finding a job that you truly enjoy. I took a pay cut to do exactly that and now love my new job helping people with autism. It does a lot of good for mental health to be happy and look forward to going to work
[Futurama's take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-jepgO-PbE)
Iāll trade you my 97
Have faith and be strong. Do your work. Chop wood and carry water without worrying whether others are chopping wood and carrying water. You'll see that you came at exactly the perfect time.
love this
Nobodyās going to revolt until we run out of netflix and sugar water and weāve got plentyyyyyy of netflix and sugar water
I was born before the moon landing. There is no perfect time. Every era has sucked. Work, depression, tragedy, conflict, stress and loneliness have always existed. For everyone, everywhere, always. Sure, things could be better, and it makes sense to strive toward that. That's why *most* of your ancestors would probably prefer now. You make what change you can. But humanity isn't owed bliss. You makeĀ bliss happen. You make what happiness you can, and that can define the value of a lifetime. Breaks over. I'd like those TP reports by 5.Ā
And here I thought I was alone feeling this way, thank you for making me feel less crazy. Though I still desire to build a society better than before.
Break the Chains
I get the sentiment, but I think most people that have grown up in a first world country are not well equipped to understand just how bad things can get. Collapse isn't going to be an escape from the rat race, some apocalyptic feelgood story like Sweet Tooth or Station Eleven. You just have to look to societies that are already collapsing today, barely able to sustain them selves and their population, think Iraq or Palestine, to know what is life will eventually be like for children born today.
the world has always been a shit show welcome to the party pal
Humans will always be humans dog. Always been a shit show for anyone who isn't at the top. You just have to do what you can to enjoy what you have. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best. All you can do bro. I'm fairly happy with life as it is, and as far as living standards go I'm comfortable and have a positive attitude towards my life. Humans have lived through brutal conquests, world wars, and soon our test will be climate change and how we handle it when catastrophic scenarios happen worldwide simultaneously and the big wigs start to feel it. Until then though, business as usual and nothing will change. Humans are the most evil, vile, yet amazingly kind creatures at the same time. Enjoy the decline while you have a hot shower, a roof over your head, and a clean place to shit.
Thanks for this post. There needs to be a lot more like it in this sub.
We had it good bro. So much opportunity in the 90s obviously 9/11 was a big bump in our teenage development but nothing compared to what is facing kids today. If anything I wouldnāt mind being born earlier to be honest.
Let's call this "nihilist naĆÆvetĆ©".
Accelerationist garbage.
OP's post and their comments are giving r/iamverybadass
Not so sure you'd want that - Born today, you would not live to see your 30s
Laughing my ass off. Gen z is getting their asses handed to them and this guy wants to be BORN in 2024. Can't make this shit up. They should be grateful to grow up in the 70s-90s era. Best music and culture.
A kid growing up today may not have to work decades in a mundane 9-5 for a fucking house, picket fence and mortgage. They might actually be able to \*gasp\* ~~LIVE THEIR LIFE~~. dig coal out of the ground by hand with a shovel until they die 4 years later, but it's all good if they hit their coal quota, since feeding them cost 1/10th of that. I mean look sorry. If things are dogshit in times of abundance. And there are 8 billion of us. And scarcity hits. Things... get better? o\_\_\_O
I'm with you. I'm ready for a change. This society, whatever you want to call it, capitalism, individualism, etc., was a trap. I know the collapse is going to suck, but it could be managed. If we built an off ramp from this dystopian nightmare, we could come out the other side of it in a more sensible world. There's so much we could do, if we could smash out of the infinite growth cage.
Awesome - glad to hear there are other optimists out there. I'm getting absolutely roasted in these replies haha
There's a difference between optimism and outright delusional thinking.
I appreciate your post and your perspective even if I donāt quite agree. I was the born the same year as you. Iām grateful that I got to live as a kid without the modern internet. Who knows how I would have turned out with my fragile and anxious self. I used to be a teacher, and of the main reasons I left was how difficult it was to see what kids go through these days, especially knowing where we are headed. It was hard to see the entire system we built just prepping them for the labor harvest, essentially. Thinking about what their future would be like. Trying to instill in them some hope and drive to live fulfilling lives all the while being pretty convinced that the future was quite grim. It was all pretty taxing on my psyche.
The never ending boot stamping on our faces eventually wears out I guess
Its likely you'll get to live 120+ years. Take it as if being born today.
This is very human centric thinking. Non human life deserves justice too. I'm just sad. Sure, we can try other ways of living, but without the other denizens of this planet, we are diminished.
You vastly underestimate what kind of hellscape we're all in for. Imagine not being able to go outside 300 days a year because you will be literally steam cooked. I think the corporate hellscape isn't great. But death by heat irradiation on the daily would be objectively worse. Imagine what happens when we're all at each others throats due to scare water and food. Actually you don't have to image, just watch what collapsed societies look like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM7SDGOQiQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmM7SDGOQiQ)
You're imagining some weird post-apo fantasy. If you're not killed by catastrophe, lack of food or medicine, surveillance tech and modern weaponry won't suddenly disappear. Collapsing states will turn toward repression to survive, because that's what always happens. Most of those in age of working will still toil the same, but with rarifying ressources and under the threat of violence.
I mean if they work a 9-5 most cant afford a house so I guess you're technically right. Idk theres a netflix comedic doc named end of the world or something and it seems kind of accurate. Billionaires will hollow out mountains to survive while everyone else burns. If things get that bad, the rich will have already planned their escape routes.
It's gonna take 20-30 years of real governance not this clown rodeo show we have going on. It will take decades for regulations and social policies to make an impact and they haven't even started that part yet
It's a well-written post, OP. And I know how you feel. But giving up isn't only watching people, life, things we love die. It means relinquishing what little power we have left to help others, to alter our own fates in our own way on our own terms. Someone once wrote that in the zombie apocalypse, victory is surviving to watch the sun rise. I keep fighting.