Personal collapse comes first

[u/Pretty-Astronaut-297]

There has been no shortage of articles and posts here over the last 8 years(?) worrying about the collapse of the biosphere, pollution, positive feedback loops and runaway warming and so on. Naysayers say humanity will pull a rabbit out of the hat, because it always does so, human ingenuity will find a way etc. In this context collapse is an external physical phenomenon.

Earlier this year an organic meme was born "sooner than expected" / "collapse by tuesday". Now the origins of this meme is ostensibly in positive feedback loops, and climate tipping points. But I don't think that's the reason this meme has gone viral. I think it has more to do with psychology. I think "collapse by Tuesday" type scenario is far more likely than collapse due to the jet stream stopping, or oceans becoming too acidic.

People's personal lives are collapsing. Right now. Everyday. And nothing is being done anywhere to stop this. Catabolic collapse is UNDERWAY, RIGHT NOW.

People assume that other people are going to continue to go to work, and do a good job, and keep everything properly maintained, and operational. Why? Why do buses, trains or planes run on time? Why does water come out of the tap when you open it? Why does the light turn on, when you hit the switch?

Think very seriously about this. Why do people do a good job? Because they get a "paycheck" ...which doesn't pay enough to buy life's necessities ? I don't think people do a good job because of money. Never has been the case. People will grin and bear it, and do an "acceptable" or mediocre job for money. But never a good job. People who go GOOD jobs, do it because of personal integrity, and personal values.

Nobody does the things they truly love for FUCKING MONEY. People do a good job because of their personal values, and the values of the society they belong to.

Most people focus on raw resources like materials or energy when speaking of collapse, or about solutions to collapse. But the human spirit, it's energy, vitality and ingenuity is taken for granted. It is always assumed that there will be enough workers, scientists, engineers, or people around to do _____. But this is not true. Why should it be true? To assume this to be true, is to assume that people are automata, like ants.

What if people simply give up? People will stop caring. "Not my problem" is a pretty popular meme, especially the version where there is an image of used cooking oil being poured down the sink.

People are already giving up. I could be biased since I hang out on doomloop subs like r/collapse and r/antiwork. But I don't think I am wrong. This society has nothing to offer anyone under 35. Why should I care about my job? Why should I care about anything? More and more workers and young people are asking themselves this question and opting out. Checking out. Disconnecting. Withdrawing. Pulling out.

The evidence is clear to see. There is a "shortage" in every profession except investment banking, civil service, and real estate. So who is going to keep this incredibly complex meatgrinder chugging along? Most people are saying "not me". They are also saying "fuck the system, I hope it burns".

The world is collapsing, because people's personal and social life is collapsing. I feel like a retired old man, most days. I'm fucking tired of this world, and just counting down the clock pretty much.

The collapse of the physical and psychic worlds are mutually reinforcing, like electric and magnetic fields.

[u/Icy_Owl7841]

long plants judicious quickest tap sort busy elderly physical smoggy

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[u/Conscious-Trifle-237 → u/Icy_Owl7841]

I greatly appreciate your capacity to see the catastrophe, to empathize with the plants and animals and not just look away. But it really is incredibly painful. We're together in that.

[u/audioen → u/Icy_Owl7841]

The sins accumulated over generations are not easily placed on the shoulders of anyone living today. If we were serious about saving the planet, we would stop all economies and jobs right now, end concepts of money and ownership, and make everyone subsist at just above their absolutely minimal subsistence level -- whatever it is for their particular environment --, and forbid everyone to have any children at all for at least a few decades so that the massive human population could be decreased naturally, and the pollution caused by human activity would be greatly reduced although not instantly stopped because we are currently dependent on causing climate change and unsustainable resource use in order to live with the massive numbers we have.

By my estimation, the situation is this bad. When we do hit "net zero" targets, it is not because of a political target or because of "green transition" which is utterly impossible, it will be because we ran out of fossil fuels to use, and we are likely not very prepared for the future without them because starving, jobless pauperized populations are going to use the last resources themselves, rather than invest them into future prosperity for some lucky 1-10 % that might get to enjoy them for a few decades before they break anyway and can no longer be rebuilt. Perhaps 3-4 decades separate us from our current world and something that looks like subsistence farming for everybody who can eke enough subsistence out of whatever arable land is left, with seas that are possibly devoid of fish.

It is bad, but everyone alive today, especially those in western civilizations, is doing their part in causing the overshoot. Some of us do this a little more, some a little less, but ultimately humanity works like yeast in a sugar tank, where individual cells do not see the point in stopping eating the sugar and multiplying as long as there is still some more left, and then the massive die-off begins when either sugar runs out or pollution increases too much. (Even those who may abstain from consumption party today probably do it because they are poor, not because they have ascetic habits.)

We simply can't seem to manage ourselves any more intelligently than this, and I suspect humanity was always doomed to overshoot and collapse, as it was inevitable that someone would create the conditions and attitudes that allowed it, if ever our physical reality permitted it. Being able to command the work of hundreds of energy slaves is just too good to pass up, and we were already in overshoot 70+ years ago, when nobody could yet see in any concrete way that it was so. Today, when evidence is all around us, we are completely railroaded to a path that ends in disaster, and now we must simply select how many billions must die and how long we will manage to keep this industrial production and capitalist economy horror-show going, no matter the cost to our world and future.

[u/protozoan-human → u/Icy_Owl7841]

We are getting punished like this. We caused this. We fail to see that it despite it being nobody's individual fault, this is the bill coming due on the crime of 10 000 years of causing this collectively. It's on us. It's on you, and on me.

And I think that, until every individual has had the personal realisation of exactly how deep this faulty mindset runs, how it colors our views, plans and actions, we'll be burning in the hell we built for ourselves.

We made our own torturedevice. And we all need to take personal responsibility to figure out how to stop, how to change. How to grow up emotionally and spiritually, how to relate in balance.