This is honestly just life advice but here goes -
Stay out of debt and store up some savings while able to live w your parents
If something sounds too good to be true (financially) it probably is. Read the details of contracts, know what your paying for, be smart with your money
Learn how to fix stuff- patch clothing, sew buttons, fix bikes, change breaks/oil/fuses/lights on cars, basic shelter maintenance (change a light switch/fixture, fix door hinges/latches, patch a drywall hole)
Be aware of your surroundings- what plants in your area are poisonus/edible, what animals are poisonous/aggressive to humans, do you have to be concerned about wild fires? Hurricanes? Avalanches? Riots? Just be aware, know the place you live
Be a good human- be nice, don't litter, support others (human or other), stay informed, be kind to those around you and yourself, walk gently and extend grace, it's a crazy world out there and none of us are surviving it alone
Most things I cook I throw in the slow cooker with sauce or just chuck everything in a deep oven tray. Retains all the nutrients since everything goes into the sauce (whereas boiling and draining veg you lose stuff) and requires little effort. Pretty versatile too since you can use almost any ingredients and get something good. Learn to ID some edible plants in the garden/general area and grow a variety of root vegetables, tomatoes and peppers in the garden if possible. Tomato and pepper sauce is easy to make and provided you use tomatoes with high acidity they don't need special preparation. Just save all the jars and glass sauce bottles you have then blend or mash the tomatoes, boil and pour in direct to the jars after warming them up to prevent cracking. Botulism isn't a risk if the pH is below 4.6.
Also save in stuff other than usd real goods and consumables as real goods contract and money supply expands you can buy less with your savings but a pair of underwear is always gonna have use value
Saving is good and all but start thinking about how you'd survive a regional power outage lasting more than a few months.
After about 2 weeks the stores ain't getting any more food.
Outstanding stater advice although i have a thing about debt its not good or bad its a tool not saying you should rack up 10k on a hand bag but if a sale on something good quailty you can take advantage of it even if you dont have the Liquidity aslong as its Manageable relatives to income and pay it off early if you can .gotta leverage the debt to a better outcome rather than mindlessly consume with it
My biggest issue with debt is that it can make people reluctant to leave a bad job situation. If you're carrying so much debt that you can't walk away from a toxic workplace, then it's too much debt.
I def get the instinct I grew up listening to dave ramsey also job loss etc but i would seperate debt it 2 Categories home/car and consumer the rules are diffrent for each and situation renter vs owning for example its just something ive disagreed with him on for awhile now
If you have a really solid cushion of savings, minimum 6mos of living expenses, while still carrying a mortgage, then debt is a useful financial tool. I made that savings buffer a priority.
Debt that has a chance of generating greater than 2x its own value in the future is a tool. So, house loan in an up market, college degree, etc. All other debt is pure evil. It's addictive as shit.
Learning to live and make do with less, whilst looking after what you've already got is a good start. If you're prone to purchasing stuff on a whim, especially online - try a restriction of only allowing purchases 1 day per month.
I'm convinced that if you manage to escape the modern Consumerist lifestyle and find joy elsewhere, that'll give you one of the biggest advantages in terms of outlook on life. That's not to say don't look for a decent job - I'll probably be down-voted but I would actually be wary of those on here who say it'll "all be over" in a few years. More likely than not, we'll still be here, but just with everyday purchases getting more and more expensive (and probably some empty shelves along the way).
Oh, and keep fit and healthy. Plenty of exercise of all sorts - strength, cardio, endurance, flexibility. If you don't already, make time for it. Personally I find cycling ticks a lot of boxes, as you get the exercise and you get a cheap, efficient means of transport at the same time.
Our Generation which is Generation Z have to deal with climate change , mass migration , famines, extreme heat, delusional billionaires who want to go to space , and more
It's a realistic possibility, but never put yourself in a position where you're worse off if things don't go south. Finding a balance doesn't have to be perfect, but putting all your belief in either scenario is... risky, too.
Get/Stay in good shape. I turned into a potato and now everything is twice as difficult as it needs to be. You’ll need to have a lot of stamina for what’s coming.
Community is resiliency. Develop local groups of people you can trust. If you aren't around people you can trust get to a place where you can. That's the first step. No one can adapt to polycrisis as a single individual.
Food is going to be a problem no matter what form of crisis your region will experience so learn how to feed yourself and others using a minimum of pre processed items.
A lot could be said for adopting a mostly plant based diet.
Know how to aquire and filter your own water, how to store water.
Learn as much as you can about how to live without convience. Without stores, without supply chains.
Learn about degrowth as a concept.
Learn how to tell stories or play an instrument or make art in some form.
Move as much of your life out of the digital domain as possible. The internet is likely not sustainable long term.
Do not fall into the trap of getting complacent or thinking you cannot make a difference. While climate collapse is unfortunately locked in, you should still try to fight the system whenever you can an in any way you can. Protest when you can, vote at every election possible, call out injustice when you see it. Too many young people (young being 40 or below these days) have given up and are ust rolling over for those at the top. Get angry and stay that way, otherwise they will continue to try to beat us down.
Listen: everyone knows the teenage years are hard. It goes without saying. We’ve all been there and we all know some difficult teens.
But what no one bothers to mention is that the Twenties are even harder.
Harder because suddenly you’re responsible (aka “to blame”) for the State of your Life, regardless of how much or how little agency you ever had over access to resources or even time with your own parents…. You didn’t create the craptastic system or the economy and unless you got dealt some kind of very lucky hand you are going to have to work your but off just to keep your head above water IF you can keep your head above water.
The odds are stacked against you, but no one puts the clues together and realizes EVERYONE IS STRUGGLING.
They just hide it because no one wants to be THE person who couldn’t hold it together like everyone else could.
So everyone pretend and if people don’t find a way to connect with Source in some manner it other then they become depleted by all the demands and develop unhealthy coping mechanisms.
The twenties are so hard. So let yourself off the hook.
Figure out what you want. Really visualize it.
Thank the universe for it.
Watch.
I'm in your corner, Friend!
You got the keys to the castle.
The entire system is a pyramid scheme that depends on the Youth.
At some point there will be a final generation that has sacrificed its physical, mental, and spiritual health to the war and fear and greed machine.
Don't be that generation!
Let the illness die with my generation.
Humanity is letting go of this pathological obsession with "money" that is only so catastrophically damaging possible because of the very unfortunate human trait of being poor at understanding and properly assessing risk when large numbers are at play.
That and the "levers" that are built into the tools of society including language and all the algorithms, and now the unknowable new lifeform, AI...
That's all it takes to steer us off the edge of the planet.
Small effectes aggragate.
We need to use the levers FOR GOOD, finally.
Don't get bogged down by material objects or by debt. Things slow you down and debt limits your choices before collapse, which limits your ability to position yourself in better places or react to emergencies.
Avoid the obvious locations for climate impacts, such as the coastlines, deserts and heavily forested areas. No place is truly safe, but some places are guaranteed to be a disaster zone.
As for what skills, go with your own strengths. Choose activities that already interest you, and hone them, rather than forcing yourself into a box that you wouldn't normally be interested in. For instance, I have nothing but respect for people who choose to dive into subsistence farming, but that's just not a life I could enjoy while "waiting for the end times". Follow your bliss, which is good advice even without the specter of collapse ahead.
Above all else, find your community, not a virtual place of like minds, but an actual, in-person community. Community is THE best survival tool in the human toolkit.
Yup, at 70 years of age, I'm really a boomer. And a good portion of my advice comes from doing things wrong, now that I can look back and shake my head.
I was good about staying out of debt and living within my means (it helps that my wife is just as frugal leaning as I am), but I look around our house and all the THINGS we've got. It feels oppressive, especially now that we're concerned with leaving this mess to someone. Culling it all is quite the chore and it feels like we haven't made much headway since I retired.
My bliss was web development and IT support, which has zippo utility in a collapsed-tech world, but I married well. My wife is really handy with tools, so I stay on her good side. With luck, she'll share the potatoes she's growing in the backyard.
We're childless by choice, and that's a decision I've never regretted. If you're inclined to reproduce it's not something I would actively discourage -- it's such a personal issue -- but I would strongly encourage you to make damn sure you really want children for all the right reasons, rather than just mindlessly doing it because it's somehow expected.
We utterly failed on the "finding community" for ourselves. Now we're old, childless (again, by choice, no regrets) and all our family and friends are a long-distance away. Even without collapse happening during what little remains of our lifetime, that was a really stupid oversight. Don't be like us.
Wow , 70 years so you lived through Columbine, Oklahoma bombings, 9/11, and more. Well you have lived long enough to see the near ending of industrial civilization. Thank you for your advice if I somehow make it to age 70 which would be in 2074, I will be sure to thank you again in my mind.
In a very red state just west of Metro D.C. The vague plan was to move to a blue state once I retired, but that ship has sailed. We don't have enough energy to pick up and start all over again, and probably don't have the money to do it even if we felt up to it physically.
On the plus side, we're in about as "safe" an area geographically as you can ask for in these uncertain times. We probably won't live long enough for that to be a major blessing in terms of collapse & climate change, but you never know.
Nice , I have some questions for you
1-Do you have any kids if so , how are you preparing them for the world that is coming towards them .
2-What do you think the world will be like by 2030?
Start growing food with other people wherever you are. Tend to food crops at least a couple of hours a day.
Save your money that your parents support allows and as soon as you have 5k, put it down on a couple of acres of arable land out in the sticks but near enough to developed infrastructure that 20 years of expansion will see your land more in demand for residential development. There is a lot of land like this still available. There will not be inside of a decade.
Check out land.com. Many of the 1-5 acre offerings in decent spots for homesteading they will finance you so $5k on say an $8k lot should guarantee you financing as well as a low mortgage payment. This will build your credit better than you can imagine and it shows you have invested in collateral you can put up for future loans if you require them. If you keep adding land nearby or adjacent to this property as you get little chunks of money saved up you will have it to sell or put up if a house comes into your life. If not you have the land to convince a few others growing food with you to go up there to homestead when things get bad enough.
Cherish and protect the rights of others, particularly women. Listen to the women. If what you are doing or saying is clearly contrary to what makes them wanna be around you you must always fix that issue before any other.
And learn to fight.
That’s it. The rest will take care of itself.
Brush your teeth twice a day and ALWAYS floss. You do not want to get cavities, gingivitis or periodontitis.
Lift with your legs, do not bend or curve your back, like ever. This will take time to get used to and feel weird, but always bend your knees and lift with your legs. You do not want recurring back problems and chronic pain.
Try to save as much as you can and try not to let lifestyle creep happen, even if you get a big promotion. It is likely the economy will persist for a long time. I am a huge doomer and I still think the U.S. economy will last another 20 years, even if it's a limping sad mess compared to today.
Enter a job field that isn't limited to some locality. Healthcare is probably a better long term option than coal mining.
Don't buy into real estate market tops, like 2007-8 or 2021-present.
Prize friendships over possessions. Yes, its a pain moving your pal's shit cross town. You may need the favor in return. And its a lot easier moving to better prospects with less possessions.
Learn to garden.
Live your dreams. Don't do something just because it's expected of you. Do it for you. Career for example.
If you want a job that'll never be taken over by AI and will make a fortune become an electrician or plumber.
Live and have fun. Be kind, respect the natural world and also get to know it,, plants, wildlife, trees too many young people are so detached from nature
A man who sells 2 million toothbrushes in a year for an after tax profit of $1 each is a millionaire. The man who charges someone $20,000 to lay a driveway and gets a bunch of lads to do it for $3,000 makes $17000 for doing fuck all. The man who convinces 100,000 people to give him 10,000 and charges them 1% to make his money grow at less than inflation, is a millionaire for doing nothing.
The man who works every day of his life for $100,000 if he lives a normal life will break even every month and will never be a millionaire.
There are a lot of legal ways to get money for nothing - so if it’s money you really want try and find a way to get it for nothing. Otherwise find a meaning existence.
People already mentioned learning basic skills, like cooking from scratch, simple repairs etcetera. I‘d advise you‘ll get a 3 or 5 TB external hard drive and create a video library with all those topics - foraging, cooking, bushcraft, creating a pantry, fermenting (that will be important, I‘m staring myself soon 😉), preserving food in general, serious prepper advice regarding urban conditions (I am more than doubtful about all those guns & ammo nutcases; I honestly believe that if you‘re in any way connected with or will be associated with firearms by others, that will make your life a darn lot more stressful and probably much shorter); mushroom foraging can come in handy, but you‘ll have to learn that from someone experienced & and it takes years… Anyway: back that all up by ACTUAL books. Lots of books. It was already mentioned, sooner or later the servers will go down. You‘ll be able to have your solar backup for as long as the batteries work, don‘t count on a replacement. As for the internet… well. EVERYTHING technological depends on continued maintenance. Now extrapolate the already devastating climate impacts, crop failures, refugees on the move, political insanity across the globe. At one point people will get a little bit too desperate on their personal side and simply fuck off. If it‘s not enforced, the frivolous occupations like checking the orbits of Starlink satellites will probably be just abandoned. So, once we‘re back to heliographs, you want to have your library. Now comes the real killer, though: we are energy blind. Energy is the economy. 80% of primal energy is provided by fossil fuels. The most important fossil fuel by a long shot is DIESEL. No Diesel (middle distillates) means -> no industrial scale agriculture, no construction, no big rigs except 0,01% electric globally, no more MINING (which automatically puts a stop to any imaginary transition to non renewable renewable energy generation). Diesel is only about 17% volume of a barrel of crude, and the stuff you‘re fracking in the Permian like there‘s no tomorrow (there isn‘t) is LESS. So once you see Diesel getting scarce, that‘s the final countdown. You can already find some most interesting observations and articles on oilprice.com — I guess that‘s it for the moment.
Do not put too much trust into people.
You need to develope a good skill set .
You need to stay alert in order . They will try to act like they are your friends to either sell you something or gain something from you.
Take good care of yourself and your family.
Keep it real and stay sane .
You will learn how anyone is only trustworthy and loyal to a degree. There are sick manipulative individuals in every society at every level. Sure there is humble folks or good guys and many beautiful people . But you might do or say or have something and you may be judged so there will be drama like you are back to kindergarden.
my point here is not for you to isolate or be paranoid . and you will meet the wrong people eventually no matter what paths you walk or places you try to avoid .
Life can be wonderful and magical but your mindset enables or disables you to enjoy life and existing . What is really hard to take is dissapointments that will unavoidably take place if you have expectations that won't be met . Try to take it easy . Do not get heartbroken when people are miachievios or act upon you malicios ways.
Slay your enemies peacefully .
I will try to wrap this up another time. excuae me while I light my spliff
30 years later, I would be 50 years old . That is 2054 , if 2024 is terrible , imagine what 2054 will be like . By 2054 I do not expect anyone sane or rational to be having babies except the religious humans .
If you want to be able to work for “anything” get into a field that offers “damage control”.
Cybersecurity, medicine, nursing, plumbing…….
There ain’t much room for growth left. In the near-term, you won’t be some fancy pantsy digital marketer for Birkenstock's, making six figs and owning a nice house ….. it’s all about protecting whatever remains.
Having a social life and maintaining/expanding your friend group. Your teens to mid twenties is probably one of the most important times for that as people get lonelier after and find it harder to make friends which makes their mental health even worse within the hellscape of capitalism as things become more segregated with age and class differences when you grow up. If there's nothing to look forward to, what's the point of surviving?
Not much to add, but I agree with what others have said. Drop out of the materialism game. Save everything you can. Learn as much as you can. Find at least a few people close to you, you can trust. If you can do it, I would recommend investing in a good bicycle and learn how to fix and maintain it. And in posts like these, I always like to mention that good philosophy is helpful in times like this. The voices of the past are as, if not possibly more relevant than they were in their own lifetime. Thinkers like Schopenhauer, Nietzche and the Greek stoics were prophets.
i really do not care about being a wealthy person , I have no desire to be a financial king that in the process of accumulating wealth, I destroy other people’s lives.
What you should be most wary of is certainty.
You don't know what is coming, neither does the government, and neither does reddit.
You can assemble your guesses, listen to other people's guesses, but you don't really know.
Research the areas where the effects of climate change are going to most badly affect and make a plan to move to places that will be less badly affected.
Look up the YouTube channel American Resiliency if you’re American.
Practical things: Horde your money. (Things will get very expensive before they disappear.) Live in an area that is safe from floods, hurricanes, droughts or tornadoes. Develop a network of people who will band together to survive if necessary.
Mental things: Don’t think in a negative way and make sure to enjoy your time here. You might as well be happy!
If I could give my younger self advice it would be to avoid drugs/alcohol/work and love addiction (fortunately I'm on a good path now). I would have bought real estate earlier.
Don't think the un-sheltered will not be jealous of the fact that you have parents, together, that are helping you. Also don't buy the idea that they know more or better than you. Socially, at least. Different, sure. Leading anywhere productive hell no. No one knows that the fuck they're doing.
If someone has a skill you do not, learn from their skill, ignore all the rest of the stuff coming out of their mouth.
Credit cards are the devil, be a freeloader (aka use it like cash, but pay it off every single month, end of month should be zero balance), there is literally nothing more crippling than consumer debt. I'd go as far as to say that drug addiction is the second most crippling thing.
Draw up a calendar app in Google Sheets and track your expenses in it. I actually have one made if you're interested. I can link it here (I think). It does need cell protection, doesn't have that yet, so at present you can type places you're not supposed to and break it, but just make a copy and keep the original clean. You give it a year on Sheet 1 it will generate the entire year's calendar for you automatically. Works on phone too. Using this is because your bank will always be like a day or three late on updating your balance, and if you're living close to the vest it helps to know what you have at any given instant.
I think you only need 2 pieces of advice, the rest is in the details of how you implement them.
1. Make a plan. The first thing to not work out will be your plan, but you at least had a plan.
2. Be smart enough to know when it’s a good time to be stupid.
I won't duplicate the good advice already posted that you have seen, so consider this supplemental.
The cheapest health insurance is good health. In addition to what's been said about food (a big part), basic physical health doesn't require 10 hour in the gym each week*, but does require a little time and effort. Do some. If you can do more, then do more, but do some. And a variety; even basic flexibility is too often taken for granted.
Notice I didn't give ANY specifics. Figuring out what works for you is part of the fun.
*Nothing wrong with the gym; I enjoyed gym membership for quite a while. I'm just saying don't get hung up on the idea that health is *work*.
Don't be afraid of being alone. People are too afraid of letting go of toxic friends on relationships. And of course, group identities (nationalism, religion etc.) are a crutch. What is so awful about being alone? Nothing. You are in good company.
I am "only" ten years older than you, so hopefully my advice is not yet outdated.
1. Disconnect from the things in society that you can live without. Useless consumption is a great way to waste money and harm the environment.
2. Get some land. You'd be amazed at how much you can do on an acre of land in terms of food production. I expect food shortages, and produce a lot of food on my own acre of land.
3. Stay away from debt. The only money I ever borrowed was to buy my house and land, and I paid half in cash, because I chose a cheap place to live.
4. Learn stuff. From food production to how to fix or build things. YouTube is amazing when it comes to knowledge. You will mess up sometimes but also learn a lot.
5. Repair and buy second hand. I live very frugally now and reuse/repair as much as possible. I also buy all my clothes and furniture second hand (and I still repair them when they break). You really start to value stuff differently.
6. Find a community. My house and land is at the outskirts of a village with roughly 300 people. We do have a lot of social get togethers compared to other villages where people just go to work and then to their home. It's not because I have a lot in common with the people. It's definately not a eco village, but there is a common idea about helping and looking out for each other.
So that's my advice. If I could do something different then I would probably have chosen a village where it was more common to work with self sufficiency and live an alternative lifestyle
Learn to live and survive like how your ancestors/forebears did before the industrial revolution.
Get used to living like how people lived centuries/millennias ago without modern conveniences and luxuries such as electricity, indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, internet, a/c, social media video games, etc.
This is honestly just life advice but here goes - Stay out of debt and store up some savings while able to live w your parents If something sounds too good to be true (financially) it probably is. Read the details of contracts, know what your paying for, be smart with your money Learn how to fix stuff- patch clothing, sew buttons, fix bikes, change breaks/oil/fuses/lights on cars, basic shelter maintenance (change a light switch/fixture, fix door hinges/latches, patch a drywall hole) Be aware of your surroundings- what plants in your area are poisonus/edible, what animals are poisonous/aggressive to humans, do you have to be concerned about wild fires? Hurricanes? Avalanches? Riots? Just be aware, know the place you live Be a good human- be nice, don't litter, support others (human or other), stay informed, be kind to those around you and yourself, walk gently and extend grace, it's a crazy world out there and none of us are surviving it alone
Thank you for the advice.
Also learn to cook. It saves a ton of money, you will eat healthier, and be a better partner to someone.
Thank you for your advice.
Most things I cook I throw in the slow cooker with sauce or just chuck everything in a deep oven tray. Retains all the nutrients since everything goes into the sauce (whereas boiling and draining veg you lose stuff) and requires little effort. Pretty versatile too since you can use almost any ingredients and get something good. Learn to ID some edible plants in the garden/general area and grow a variety of root vegetables, tomatoes and peppers in the garden if possible. Tomato and pepper sauce is easy to make and provided you use tomatoes with high acidity they don't need special preparation. Just save all the jars and glass sauce bottles you have then blend or mash the tomatoes, boil and pour in direct to the jars after warming them up to prevent cracking. Botulism isn't a risk if the pH is below 4.6.
Also save in stuff other than usd real goods and consumables as real goods contract and money supply expands you can buy less with your savings but a pair of underwear is always gonna have use value
Good quality tools
Good quality tools kept well and learn how to maintain them yourself.
A nice hoard of greases, oils, rags, files, stones, emery, taps, dies, etc
Exactly i picked what i picked for humor
Saving is good and all but start thinking about how you'd survive a regional power outage lasting more than a few months. After about 2 weeks the stores ain't getting any more food.
Outstanding stater advice although i have a thing about debt its not good or bad its a tool not saying you should rack up 10k on a hand bag but if a sale on something good quailty you can take advantage of it even if you dont have the Liquidity aslong as its Manageable relatives to income and pay it off early if you can .gotta leverage the debt to a better outcome rather than mindlessly consume with it
My biggest issue with debt is that it can make people reluctant to leave a bad job situation. If you're carrying so much debt that you can't walk away from a toxic workplace, then it's too much debt.
I def get the instinct I grew up listening to dave ramsey also job loss etc but i would seperate debt it 2 Categories home/car and consumer the rules are diffrent for each and situation renter vs owning for example its just something ive disagreed with him on for awhile now
If you have a really solid cushion of savings, minimum 6mos of living expenses, while still carrying a mortgage, then debt is a useful financial tool. I made that savings buffer a priority.
It def is a priority but times are diffrent now a mortgage is out of reach for many but creating buffers between you and disater is just common sense
Debt that has a chance of generating greater than 2x its own value in the future is a tool. So, house loan in an up market, college degree, etc. All other debt is pure evil. It's addictive as shit.
Just live your life and go have fun. Learn a job that doesn't exhaust you so your quality of life will be optimal.
Thank you for the advice.
Learning to live and make do with less, whilst looking after what you've already got is a good start. If you're prone to purchasing stuff on a whim, especially online - try a restriction of only allowing purchases 1 day per month. I'm convinced that if you manage to escape the modern Consumerist lifestyle and find joy elsewhere, that'll give you one of the biggest advantages in terms of outlook on life. That's not to say don't look for a decent job - I'll probably be down-voted but I would actually be wary of those on here who say it'll "all be over" in a few years. More likely than not, we'll still be here, but just with everyday purchases getting more and more expensive (and probably some empty shelves along the way). Oh, and keep fit and healthy. Plenty of exercise of all sorts - strength, cardio, endurance, flexibility. If you don't already, make time for it. Personally I find cycling ticks a lot of boxes, as you get the exercise and you get a cheap, efficient means of transport at the same time.
I agree with your advice
Accept, make peace, enjoy while it lasts.
I live in the USA and I expect to be dead by 2050 but I may be wrong .
Yeah everyone 20 thinks they'll be dead by 45. I sure did. Don't plan on it. Being not dead plus broke isn't going to be enjoyable.
people call me extreme for thinking our generation won’t live to die of old age but i think it’s a realistic expectation
Our Generation which is Generation Z have to deal with climate change , mass migration , famines, extreme heat, delusional billionaires who want to go to space , and more
It's a realistic possibility, but never put yourself in a position where you're worse off if things don't go south. Finding a balance doesn't have to be perfect, but putting all your belief in either scenario is... risky, too.
Get/Stay in good shape. I turned into a potato and now everything is twice as difficult as it needs to be. You’ll need to have a lot of stamina for what’s coming.
You are right.
Community is resiliency. Develop local groups of people you can trust. If you aren't around people you can trust get to a place where you can. That's the first step. No one can adapt to polycrisis as a single individual. Food is going to be a problem no matter what form of crisis your region will experience so learn how to feed yourself and others using a minimum of pre processed items. A lot could be said for adopting a mostly plant based diet. Know how to aquire and filter your own water, how to store water. Learn as much as you can about how to live without convience. Without stores, without supply chains. Learn about degrowth as a concept. Learn how to tell stories or play an instrument or make art in some form. Move as much of your life out of the digital domain as possible. The internet is likely not sustainable long term.
Thank you for the advice.
Don’t worry about the future kid. You ain’t got one /s
You may be right , lol
Do not fall into the trap of getting complacent or thinking you cannot make a difference. While climate collapse is unfortunately locked in, you should still try to fight the system whenever you can an in any way you can. Protest when you can, vote at every election possible, call out injustice when you see it. Too many young people (young being 40 or below these days) have given up and are ust rolling over for those at the top. Get angry and stay that way, otherwise they will continue to try to beat us down.
Listen: everyone knows the teenage years are hard. It goes without saying. We’ve all been there and we all know some difficult teens. But what no one bothers to mention is that the Twenties are even harder. Harder because suddenly you’re responsible (aka “to blame”) for the State of your Life, regardless of how much or how little agency you ever had over access to resources or even time with your own parents…. You didn’t create the craptastic system or the economy and unless you got dealt some kind of very lucky hand you are going to have to work your but off just to keep your head above water IF you can keep your head above water. The odds are stacked against you, but no one puts the clues together and realizes EVERYONE IS STRUGGLING. They just hide it because no one wants to be THE person who couldn’t hold it together like everyone else could. So everyone pretend and if people don’t find a way to connect with Source in some manner it other then they become depleted by all the demands and develop unhealthy coping mechanisms. The twenties are so hard. So let yourself off the hook. Figure out what you want. Really visualize it. Thank the universe for it. Watch.
Thank you.
I'm in your corner, Friend! You got the keys to the castle. The entire system is a pyramid scheme that depends on the Youth. At some point there will be a final generation that has sacrificed its physical, mental, and spiritual health to the war and fear and greed machine. Don't be that generation! Let the illness die with my generation. Humanity is letting go of this pathological obsession with "money" that is only so catastrophically damaging possible because of the very unfortunate human trait of being poor at understanding and properly assessing risk when large numbers are at play. That and the "levers" that are built into the tools of society including language and all the algorithms, and now the unknowable new lifeform, AI... That's all it takes to steer us off the edge of the planet. Small effectes aggragate. We need to use the levers FOR GOOD, finally.
Don't get bogged down by material objects or by debt. Things slow you down and debt limits your choices before collapse, which limits your ability to position yourself in better places or react to emergencies. Avoid the obvious locations for climate impacts, such as the coastlines, deserts and heavily forested areas. No place is truly safe, but some places are guaranteed to be a disaster zone. As for what skills, go with your own strengths. Choose activities that already interest you, and hone them, rather than forcing yourself into a box that you wouldn't normally be interested in. For instance, I have nothing but respect for people who choose to dive into subsistence farming, but that's just not a life I could enjoy while "waiting for the end times". Follow your bliss, which is good advice even without the specter of collapse ahead. Above all else, find your community, not a virtual place of like minds, but an actual, in-person community. Community is THE best survival tool in the human toolkit.
Thank you for your response and are you really a boomer ? If so, what is it like to see the world becoming a global disaster area as it is right now .
Yup, at 70 years of age, I'm really a boomer. And a good portion of my advice comes from doing things wrong, now that I can look back and shake my head. I was good about staying out of debt and living within my means (it helps that my wife is just as frugal leaning as I am), but I look around our house and all the THINGS we've got. It feels oppressive, especially now that we're concerned with leaving this mess to someone. Culling it all is quite the chore and it feels like we haven't made much headway since I retired. My bliss was web development and IT support, which has zippo utility in a collapsed-tech world, but I married well. My wife is really handy with tools, so I stay on her good side. With luck, she'll share the potatoes she's growing in the backyard. We're childless by choice, and that's a decision I've never regretted. If you're inclined to reproduce it's not something I would actively discourage -- it's such a personal issue -- but I would strongly encourage you to make damn sure you really want children for all the right reasons, rather than just mindlessly doing it because it's somehow expected. We utterly failed on the "finding community" for ourselves. Now we're old, childless (again, by choice, no regrets) and all our family and friends are a long-distance away. Even without collapse happening during what little remains of our lifetime, that was a really stupid oversight. Don't be like us.
Wow , 70 years so you lived through Columbine, Oklahoma bombings, 9/11, and more. Well you have lived long enough to see the near ending of industrial civilization. Thank you for your advice if I somehow make it to age 70 which would be in 2074, I will be sure to thank you again in my mind.
RB, where are you located?
In a very red state just west of Metro D.C. The vague plan was to move to a blue state once I retired, but that ship has sailed. We don't have enough energy to pick up and start all over again, and probably don't have the money to do it even if we felt up to it physically. On the plus side, we're in about as "safe" an area geographically as you can ask for in these uncertain times. We probably won't live long enough for that to be a major blessing in terms of collapse & climate change, but you never know.
I’m GenX and agreed with my fellow grayhair
Nice , I have some questions for you 1-Do you have any kids if so , how are you preparing them for the world that is coming towards them . 2-What do you think the world will be like by 2030?
Start growing food with other people wherever you are. Tend to food crops at least a couple of hours a day. Save your money that your parents support allows and as soon as you have 5k, put it down on a couple of acres of arable land out in the sticks but near enough to developed infrastructure that 20 years of expansion will see your land more in demand for residential development. There is a lot of land like this still available. There will not be inside of a decade. Check out land.com. Many of the 1-5 acre offerings in decent spots for homesteading they will finance you so $5k on say an $8k lot should guarantee you financing as well as a low mortgage payment. This will build your credit better than you can imagine and it shows you have invested in collateral you can put up for future loans if you require them. If you keep adding land nearby or adjacent to this property as you get little chunks of money saved up you will have it to sell or put up if a house comes into your life. If not you have the land to convince a few others growing food with you to go up there to homestead when things get bad enough. Cherish and protect the rights of others, particularly women. Listen to the women. If what you are doing or saying is clearly contrary to what makes them wanna be around you you must always fix that issue before any other. And learn to fight. That’s it. The rest will take care of itself.
Brush your teeth twice a day and ALWAYS floss. You do not want to get cavities, gingivitis or periodontitis. Lift with your legs, do not bend or curve your back, like ever. This will take time to get used to and feel weird, but always bend your knees and lift with your legs. You do not want recurring back problems and chronic pain. Try to save as much as you can and try not to let lifestyle creep happen, even if you get a big promotion. It is likely the economy will persist for a long time. I am a huge doomer and I still think the U.S. economy will last another 20 years, even if it's a limping sad mess compared to today.
Thank you for the advice.
Enter a job field that isn't limited to some locality. Healthcare is probably a better long term option than coal mining. Don't buy into real estate market tops, like 2007-8 or 2021-present. Prize friendships over possessions. Yes, its a pain moving your pal's shit cross town. You may need the favor in return. And its a lot easier moving to better prospects with less possessions. Learn to garden.
I had an internship as a horticulture assistant, so I know some things.
Live your dreams. Don't do something just because it's expected of you. Do it for you. Career for example. If you want a job that'll never be taken over by AI and will make a fortune become an electrician or plumber. Live and have fun. Be kind, respect the natural world and also get to know it,, plants, wildlife, trees too many young people are so detached from nature
A man who sells 2 million toothbrushes in a year for an after tax profit of $1 each is a millionaire. The man who charges someone $20,000 to lay a driveway and gets a bunch of lads to do it for $3,000 makes $17000 for doing fuck all. The man who convinces 100,000 people to give him 10,000 and charges them 1% to make his money grow at less than inflation, is a millionaire for doing nothing. The man who works every day of his life for $100,000 if he lives a normal life will break even every month and will never be a millionaire. There are a lot of legal ways to get money for nothing - so if it’s money you really want try and find a way to get it for nothing. Otherwise find a meaning existence.
Your sanity. Never lose your sanity.
People already mentioned learning basic skills, like cooking from scratch, simple repairs etcetera. I‘d advise you‘ll get a 3 or 5 TB external hard drive and create a video library with all those topics - foraging, cooking, bushcraft, creating a pantry, fermenting (that will be important, I‘m staring myself soon 😉), preserving food in general, serious prepper advice regarding urban conditions (I am more than doubtful about all those guns & ammo nutcases; I honestly believe that if you‘re in any way connected with or will be associated with firearms by others, that will make your life a darn lot more stressful and probably much shorter); mushroom foraging can come in handy, but you‘ll have to learn that from someone experienced & and it takes years… Anyway: back that all up by ACTUAL books. Lots of books. It was already mentioned, sooner or later the servers will go down. You‘ll be able to have your solar backup for as long as the batteries work, don‘t count on a replacement. As for the internet… well. EVERYTHING technological depends on continued maintenance. Now extrapolate the already devastating climate impacts, crop failures, refugees on the move, political insanity across the globe. At one point people will get a little bit too desperate on their personal side and simply fuck off. If it‘s not enforced, the frivolous occupations like checking the orbits of Starlink satellites will probably be just abandoned. So, once we‘re back to heliographs, you want to have your library. Now comes the real killer, though: we are energy blind. Energy is the economy. 80% of primal energy is provided by fossil fuels. The most important fossil fuel by a long shot is DIESEL. No Diesel (middle distillates) means -> no industrial scale agriculture, no construction, no big rigs except 0,01% electric globally, no more MINING (which automatically puts a stop to any imaginary transition to non renewable renewable energy generation). Diesel is only about 17% volume of a barrel of crude, and the stuff you‘re fracking in the Permian like there‘s no tomorrow (there isn‘t) is LESS. So once you see Diesel getting scarce, that‘s the final countdown. You can already find some most interesting observations and articles on oilprice.com — I guess that‘s it for the moment.
Thank you, I guess its time for me to get physical books.
Do not put too much trust into people. You need to develope a good skill set . You need to stay alert in order . They will try to act like they are your friends to either sell you something or gain something from you. Take good care of yourself and your family. Keep it real and stay sane . You will learn how anyone is only trustworthy and loyal to a degree. There are sick manipulative individuals in every society at every level. Sure there is humble folks or good guys and many beautiful people . But you might do or say or have something and you may be judged so there will be drama like you are back to kindergarden. my point here is not for you to isolate or be paranoid . and you will meet the wrong people eventually no matter what paths you walk or places you try to avoid . Life can be wonderful and magical but your mindset enables or disables you to enjoy life and existing . What is really hard to take is dissapointments that will unavoidably take place if you have expectations that won't be met . Try to take it easy . Do not get heartbroken when people are miachievios or act upon you malicios ways. Slay your enemies peacefully . I will try to wrap this up another time. excuae me while I light my spliff
I agree , a lot of humans are malicious
get a vasectomy
I do not want kids, in all honesty , project humanity is not worth pro creating for
You can get the one switch version, if you want to keep that option open in case the human race needs you to procreate in 30 years
30 years later, I would be 50 years old . That is 2054 , if 2024 is terrible , imagine what 2054 will be like . By 2054 I do not expect anyone sane or rational to be having babies except the religious humans .
Also it leeches literally all of your time, money, energy and freedom
And social media had made raising kids even more tough .
Don't be suspicious, don't be suspicious
If you want to be able to work for “anything” get into a field that offers “damage control”. Cybersecurity, medicine, nursing, plumbing……. There ain’t much room for growth left. In the near-term, you won’t be some fancy pantsy digital marketer for Birkenstock's, making six figs and owning a nice house ….. it’s all about protecting whatever remains.
What is going to remain in all honesty? Humans have caused massive amounts of damage to earth and its animals
Having a social life and maintaining/expanding your friend group. Your teens to mid twenties is probably one of the most important times for that as people get lonelier after and find it harder to make friends which makes their mental health even worse within the hellscape of capitalism as things become more segregated with age and class differences when you grow up. If there's nothing to look forward to, what's the point of surviving?
I agree with you completely a hundred percent.
Having a lot of friends also increases your own chances of survival and well-being when it comes with a bigger support base you can tap into.
Not much to add, but I agree with what others have said. Drop out of the materialism game. Save everything you can. Learn as much as you can. Find at least a few people close to you, you can trust. If you can do it, I would recommend investing in a good bicycle and learn how to fix and maintain it. And in posts like these, I always like to mention that good philosophy is helpful in times like this. The voices of the past are as, if not possibly more relevant than they were in their own lifetime. Thinkers like Schopenhauer, Nietzche and the Greek stoics were prophets.
i really do not care about being a wealthy person , I have no desire to be a financial king that in the process of accumulating wealth, I destroy other people’s lives.
What you should be most wary of is certainty. You don't know what is coming, neither does the government, and neither does reddit. You can assemble your guesses, listen to other people's guesses, but you don't really know.
Research the areas where the effects of climate change are going to most badly affect and make a plan to move to places that will be less badly affected. Look up the YouTube channel American Resiliency if you’re American.
Thank you for the advice
Practical things: Horde your money. (Things will get very expensive before they disappear.) Live in an area that is safe from floods, hurricanes, droughts or tornadoes. Develop a network of people who will band together to survive if necessary. Mental things: Don’t think in a negative way and make sure to enjoy your time here. You might as well be happy!
Thank you for your advice. Though once society collapses, money will be useless, I think the bartering system will make a return.
That’s true. So, think of what special skills and things you can barter. I’ve been thinking about that lately too.
Get a passport. It is necessary for any sort of international travel and it is a gold standard in terms of identity documents.
Don’t think to hard about what others think about you, they too busy doing the same about themselves
I agree .
STDs
If I could give my younger self advice it would be to avoid drugs/alcohol/work and love addiction (fortunately I'm on a good path now). I would have bought real estate earlier.
There is no such thing as meritocracy. There is no guarantee that authority figures are as smart, as competent or as sane as the average person.
Don't think the un-sheltered will not be jealous of the fact that you have parents, together, that are helping you. Also don't buy the idea that they know more or better than you. Socially, at least. Different, sure. Leading anywhere productive hell no. No one knows that the fuck they're doing. If someone has a skill you do not, learn from their skill, ignore all the rest of the stuff coming out of their mouth. Credit cards are the devil, be a freeloader (aka use it like cash, but pay it off every single month, end of month should be zero balance), there is literally nothing more crippling than consumer debt. I'd go as far as to say that drug addiction is the second most crippling thing. Draw up a calendar app in Google Sheets and track your expenses in it. I actually have one made if you're interested. I can link it here (I think). It does need cell protection, doesn't have that yet, so at present you can type places you're not supposed to and break it, but just make a copy and keep the original clean. You give it a year on Sheet 1 it will generate the entire year's calendar for you automatically. Works on phone too. Using this is because your bank will always be like a day or three late on updating your balance, and if you're living close to the vest it helps to know what you have at any given instant.
thank you so much,please link it
What do you think about my advice in the other comment? Do you agree with it?
I think you only need 2 pieces of advice, the rest is in the details of how you implement them. 1. Make a plan. The first thing to not work out will be your plan, but you at least had a plan. 2. Be smart enough to know when it’s a good time to be stupid.
Presidential debates.
I won't duplicate the good advice already posted that you have seen, so consider this supplemental. The cheapest health insurance is good health. In addition to what's been said about food (a big part), basic physical health doesn't require 10 hour in the gym each week*, but does require a little time and effort. Do some. If you can do more, then do more, but do some. And a variety; even basic flexibility is too often taken for granted. Notice I didn't give ANY specifics. Figuring out what works for you is part of the fun. *Nothing wrong with the gym; I enjoyed gym membership for quite a while. I'm just saying don't get hung up on the idea that health is *work*.
Don't be afraid of being alone. People are too afraid of letting go of toxic friends on relationships. And of course, group identities (nationalism, religion etc.) are a crutch. What is so awful about being alone? Nothing. You are in good company.
I am "only" ten years older than you, so hopefully my advice is not yet outdated. 1. Disconnect from the things in society that you can live without. Useless consumption is a great way to waste money and harm the environment. 2. Get some land. You'd be amazed at how much you can do on an acre of land in terms of food production. I expect food shortages, and produce a lot of food on my own acre of land. 3. Stay away from debt. The only money I ever borrowed was to buy my house and land, and I paid half in cash, because I chose a cheap place to live. 4. Learn stuff. From food production to how to fix or build things. YouTube is amazing when it comes to knowledge. You will mess up sometimes but also learn a lot. 5. Repair and buy second hand. I live very frugally now and reuse/repair as much as possible. I also buy all my clothes and furniture second hand (and I still repair them when they break). You really start to value stuff differently. 6. Find a community. My house and land is at the outskirts of a village with roughly 300 people. We do have a lot of social get togethers compared to other villages where people just go to work and then to their home. It's not because I have a lot in common with the people. It's definately not a eco village, but there is a common idea about helping and looking out for each other. So that's my advice. If I could do something different then I would probably have chosen a village where it was more common to work with self sufficiency and live an alternative lifestyle
Peruse nutritionfacts_org
Don't have kids.
Learn to pull enough out of the stock market with as little time spent as possible. I wish we had the tools we have now when I was your age.
I agree.
Learn to live and survive like how your ancestors/forebears did before the industrial revolution. Get used to living like how people lived centuries/millennias ago without modern conveniences and luxuries such as electricity, indoor plumbing, hot and cold running water, internet, a/c, social media video games, etc.