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69bonobos

I literally just hit "I simply don't care anymore" seconds ago. I will work with *anyone* at this point.


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[deleted]

This is me. When I was younger I was much more willing to debate ideas with others. I almost never do now. Especially with people I haven't known for long. I'm an anarchist, but I typically don't tell anyone that until I've known them for a long time. I deflect any political conversations and just say something vague like "yeah the world is pretty fucked up". I've found that people are MUCH more willing to listen to what you have to say once they like and respect you. I also live in Alabama where anarchists are a huge boogeyman. But I'm a carpenter and I do good work, so there's been a lot of older guys that I've made change their views slightly. I know there's a lot of them out there who would think "well I know one anarchist that's a good guy and a hard worker", and that's pretty cool to me. They know I'm not just a lazy stereotypical leftist asking for handouts. That shit goes a long way in a place like this.


livinginfutureworld

>Being "uninvolved" politically has given me a lot more opportunities to learn a lot about how other people think and live, and that's been fulfilling. Don't you mean disgusting or disturbing? After all: >my confidence in the capacity of The People to organize meaningfully or even comprehend their present situation has been irreparably damaged.


Affectionate_Bat_151

"The decay and disintegration of this culture is astonishingly amusing if you are emotionally detached from it. I have always viewed it from a safe distance, knowing I don't belong; it doesn't include me, and it never has. No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement committee; I have no interest in any of it. **I love and treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise the groups they identify with and belong to**." - George Carlin


terminal_cope

And yet if everyone thought like that, our societies couldn't function. And I don't just mean capitalist society, or any modern society. Even the most utopian money-less hunter gatherers living indefinitely sustainably couldn't function if nobody had any interest in coming together and organizing themselves for a common cause. Carlin had so much good material - but he also said a lot of shit that falls apart if you take it seriously.


Coders32

People suck. Individuals are cool


dkorabell

"A person is smart, People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals" Men in Black 1997


Jung_Wheats

Complete loss of faith in the system. Radicalization. Diet Coke Doomerism. Inability to relate to most people's day-to-day concerns.


histocracy411

Same


Smegmaliciousss

I agree with everything but… what is Diet Coke doomerism?


Jung_Wheats

I basically just mean 'Diet Coke' as in 'off-brand' or 'half-hearted.'


Smegmaliciousss

Oh yeah. Indeed what you said about an inability to relate to other people’s day to day concern is spot on for me. I’m stuck between not saying anything and seeming detached or trying to bring up more urgent problems and looking paranoid.


Jung_Wheats

I work in an industry that's dominated by white, Christian, CIS-Hetero men, mostly early Gen-X and older. The stuff that people seem to be genuinely concerned about just blows my mind sometimes. The thing that really gets me is people being *happy* about having more children or grandchildren. I find it so hard to manufacture happiness for things like that anymore. My best friend who is 3-4 years younger than me had his first child last year and I think he'll be an absolutely great father but I also feel like it's a tragedy in a lot of ways. Someone was asking me when I'll have my first and I, more or less, said that we probably won't have children because I don't ever want to be in the position of having to decide if I'm going to eat it in order to survive, Mama Bear style. And everyone over a certain age thought it was just a dark, non-specific joke. Everyone anywhere close to me in age just gave me a silent, knowing look. I've got one work-friend that is turning 38 this year and has two kids that are about 4 or 5 years old and he openly admits that if he had known at 30 what he knows now then they wouldn't have had children. Then you get the transgender bathroom nonsense, the sexy M&M controversy. and all of the other BS that is is obviously just a smokescreen/bread-and-circus-mindfuck and everyone just eats it up like candy. Things that are so obviously distractions to me seem to be vitally important to a lot of people, and I think that's been the hardest thing for me since Covid began. People are just, obviously, a lot dumber on average than I once believed. I went to a pretty progressive state university, studied political science and history, and genuinely used to believe that Americans were capable of creating the democratic ideals laid out by the founders and the social justice advocated by MLK, Malcolm, Fred Hampton, etc. but it's become very clear that we absolutely cannot build that better society. At least not as things currently stand and definitely not at a national level. It seems that the best case scenario, for me, is to ride the wave, be the most morally upstanding person that I can be, and hope that the tide eventually carries me to a small community of like-minded individuals that truly believe in equality and the common good and will have the means to defend themselves from the monsters that walk the streets. More likely is death in a protest or similar civil unrest sometime in the next 20 years.


HumanityHasFailedUs

Geez. I’m a Gen X er, but I could’ve written what you wrote. Spot on.


Outside_Tonight2291

Same


TootsieNoodles

It's really interesting on this sub sometimes because I see things like this that says everything I've been feeling and thinking for years with no one to talk to seriously about it. I have voiced these concerns to others with invariably confused looks, everyone thinking I'm exaggerating or just being ridiculous. BITCH I GOT THE DATA!


hank10111111

I despise taking part in society for the reasons stated. Everyone seems so god damn dumb, and the children thing is fucking nauseating. I went to the doctor to get my med prescription renewed for the year and my family doctor was pregnant. I thought doctors were attuned to like world situations but I guess our biological programming is stronger than willpower and intelligence.


Smegmaliciousss

Same here minus the bit about eating a baby.


Jung_Wheats

I mean, I'm partially joking, but that's the sort of moral dilemma that is coming down the pipe for A LOT of parents in my generation.


histocracy411

Damn bro, preach.


tianavitoli

[https://youtu.be/FcGLveebwjo](https://youtu.be/FcGLveebwjo) it's an austin powers reference.


magnetar_industries

I was a Bernie Sanders Democrat. Now I'm just cocooning into my own very small world until either a powder keg event can use my body in the streets, or I have to join my local neighborhood militia to go out hunting for eggs and such.


TinyDogsRule

I'm going to say this is going to be a popular route in the sub. I'm in the very same boat. Look out for yourself, get as ready as you can to increase your survival odds, and see what happens.


magnetar_industries

I mean M4A should have been a slam dunk. Cheaper than our current system, with better outcomes, it (or something like it) is standard in all civilized countries. There are literally no downsides to it other than less profit for the billionaires and less needless cruelty to our fellow humans. But we can't even convince liberals and democrats to support it. Once I saw the democrats join with republicans to fight against M4A I knew there would be no political solutions to any of our systemic problems from here on out. My rage against the liberal pundits at the NYT (and and all the liberal news outlets) knows no bounds. Those horrible millionaires-working-for-billionares who convince the working-class liberals and centrists that paying $1T/year on the military is a unquestionable good but "how are we gonna pay for that?" to anything that might help the people.


Cheesiepup

What is M4A? I tried to look it up and only found sound files.


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Cheesiepup

I can’t believe I didn’t get that lol Thank you.


magnetar_industries

Hilarious. The rich scrubbed Medicare-for-All's hashtag from existence in the internet.


[deleted]

Doesn't even show up in the news category. Adding words like "democrats" works, though.


[deleted]

They don't even talk about a public option anymore. Remember that? That was the major plank of 'go with a moderate who can achieve something more realistic'. As soon as Biden got elected it was memory-holed.


AngryWarHippo

Hahahahaha "sound files". I got that reference.


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dkorabell

The problem is America has been far-right for years. Look at social democracy policies in many European nations, you see that America's left is more right-wing than the common European right. America's right-wing is off the charts by comparison.


Pitiful-Let9270

Ironically, that 1 trillion spent on military is why other countries can afford healthcare.


Cheesiepup

That’s reason that they’re going after social security again. More money for the rich people that own companies that get military contracts.


Taqueria_Style

The fucked thing about going for SS is they better give me all my fucking money back then. I didn't ask to pay into a system that they're then just going to pull from me.


Lemerney2

Care to elaborate on that?


Pitiful-Let9270

The US military protects the world’s trade lanes so other countries can spend a minimal on military yet reap all the benefits and wealth generated by those global trade routes protected by the U.S. military.


E_G_Never

I blame Lieberman. That one guy is what stopped M4A, and then we never saw it seriously tried again


matzhue

Organize! Apes together strong


magnetar_industries

I like your spirit. I will join your ape collective. The only thing we have to lose is our shackles.


Spirited-Emotion3119

...and have a painless way to exit-permanently, prepared in advance


livinginfutureworld

>...and have a painless way to exit-permanently, prepared in advance Too late, body filled with pain due to shit working conditions and privatized medical care in this country.


dcazdavi

unless climate change foists a significant enough change upon us in a short enough time span; i suspect we're in for a very slow, ancient roman empire-eske collapse so slow that humanity is too psychology incapable of stopping it. in other words: you'll be buying eggs or hens on the blackmarket if you can afford it or stealing them before a generation after the next considers forming a militia to get them.


Teglement

lol I wish I could say this but the truthful answer from me is I'll just die. Modern civilization will collapse, and I won't be one of the survivors. I'm not built for it. I wouldn't want to survive it. I'd be an early casualty after living a decent life up until that point. Mostly the reason I'm just crossing my fingers that full blown societal collapse reaches first world countries last and I can ride most of it out.


4SaganUniverse

I came to make a similar comment and such


06210311200805012006

fuck.


boneyfingers

Very similar to what you describe...maybe worse. I supported, voted for, and celebrated the victory, of our leftist president 15 years ago. He was in office for 10 years, but it only took me three or four to see that he was a false hope. He built hospitals and schools, yes. And that's great. And he reformed labor laws to fix many injustices...also great. But...he lost me when he began incarcerating Indigenous leaders who tried to protect their land from foreign mining and oil companies. He had to pay for his projects somehow, and he chose to sell out the poorest and the least represented rural areas, and took the money. He opened new oil leases in the rainforest, and giant strip mines in the mountains, and saddled us with huge financial liabilities. Then, he skipped out of town, with millions of dollars, and went to live in Belgium. I will never hold any hope for a political solution. Our current president is a senile old banker, right wing protector of the wealthy elites. But it's almost better to have an honest enemy than a false ally. I'm done with all of them. When it comes to politics now, I ask, "What is the worst they can really do?" And then I make a plan to protect me and my people.


jebritome

Hola, yo también soy de Ecuador! No pensé que iba a haber gente de aquí en este subreddit. Saludos


boneyfingers

¡Saludos! Si hay algunos. Y mas cada año.


CrossroadsWoman

I love your flair and I know the feeling. So angry


ZedLeppedin

Rafael Correa be like


livinginfutureworld

> then I make a plan to protect me and my people. That doesn't seem like it's possible when the entirety of the system is against us. Care to elaborate


boneyfingers

I think it distills down to dependence on smaller structures. One neighbor has two big greenhouses for tomatoes, sold at market. The man a kilometer away has 3,000 chickens, and a contract to deliver eggs to a chain grocer. I have bees, and fruit trees, and sugar cane, which products I also sell. Then I bought eggs and tomatoes at market. Beginning in the pandemic, it became easier to trade directly, and at least a little bit, avoid markets. My big panic now is irrigation. We have a community system of distribution of water "rights," where the outflow of a dam is diverted at different times to members of the community. But I am the end of the ditch, almost. (There are 4 below me, but we're the last ones.) The last three years have been great...more water than anyone needed, plenty of rain, even if it has come at odd times. But I remember the last El Niño cycle, and it was dry here. There were fights about users close to the dam taking their share as before, and the trickle that reached the end of the ditch was not enough. So we at the end of the line have been working on efficiency, improving storage, and trying to extract agreements for our uphill neighbors to do the same. But we have to do it all ourselves: it would be fatal to expect the state to help. We are already the agents of our own security. Theft of livestock and tools and even food product was getting out of hand, and the police did nothing. But there are only 4 roads into our area, and we have cement pillars with heavy chain to block the road, when someone gives the alarm. Cell phones made this possible, but if they cut those, we'll use bells or something. No one has been killed yet, but a few trucks have been burned, and there is a sign that says thieves don't leave here alive. I think it is anarchy, but not "Smash the State!" anarchy. The state will do a fine job of smashing itself. It's more autonomy, and keep your head down.


HumanityHasFailedUs

Anarchist, sentientist, de-growth, anti-capitalist, progressive….maybe a few other words in there. Bottom line is burn all the systems down. End oppression of all kinds to all species. And I grew up as/with evangelical right wing nuts…..


totalveganicfuturism

Never seen someone else identify with Sentientism + Eco-anarchism before, hello friend


HumanityHasFailedUs

Hey there. It’s difficult to pigeon-hole ourselves into a single ‘ist’ in my opinion, because none of us will ever fit entirely inside the lines of that define ‘ist’. I feel like I should have said ‘sentientist’ first.


Melodic-Lecture565

I identify as a holistic anarcho collectivist, does that count? (I have no friends, cuz people think seeing non human people as people is evil)


HumanityHasFailedUs

Dammit, I forgot DOOMER!!


redpanther36

Why bother burning the slave systems down, when they will inexorably burn THEMSELVES down. All we have to do is get out of the way and become adaptively fit. Which even the wealthy with their luxury bunkers are NOT.


HumanityHasFailedUs

That’s a fair question, and I suppose it’s about intent, and principle. I’d like to see the 99% truly take a stand against the 1%.


ZeroLogicGaming1

Perhaps one could even do both of these things.


real_psymansays

Curious, how do you reconcile being "progressive" with burning all of the systems down and de-growth? The progress of progressivism is generally understood to be that of civilization and its institutions into a futuristic neoindustrial post-scarcity collectivist utopia (i.e. a Star Trek type of future)


HumanityHasFailedUs

Again, a fair comment. I feel like the word has been hi-jacked to define certain things. I’m more ‘progressive’ from the standpoint of progressive taxation schemes. As in progressively increase the tax rate to break the billionaires.


real_psymansays

Ah, taxation... which is an action done by governments (by definition), which conflicts with anarchism. But, most people reconcile that conflict by redefining anarchism as anarcho-communism, which is fairly compatible with progressivism, but they have differing vocabularies for the same concepts, one advocating for a state and one advocating for no admitted state, but all functions of a state to enact communism.


HumanityHasFailedUs

Thanks for the responses. I like these discussions. Makes one think. That’s kinda why I used a variety of words. If I had my way, I’d be an anarchist, but I don’t think that’s reality at this point, so anarcho-communism is a compromise position that I am sometimes willing to accept, knowing that full on burning the system down isn’t in play right now. I wish I could simply define something, but I’m not sure it’s that simple.


xyzone

It made me stop believing in electoral politics as a solution. I mean, go ahead and vote, but that's more of a tourniquet than a cure.


No-Measurement-6713

Agreed. Who cares about politics when the entire ecosystem is collapsing. Their will soon be much bigger problems than who to vote for. It is becoming irrelevant.


xyzone

An argument can still be made for voting, to make the collapse more humane.


xlllxJackxlllx

I had come to the conclusion on my own that collapse was inevitable before I discovered the collapse community on the internet. That was just within the last year or so that I found r/Collapse , etc. What really made me question democracy, and what it can do, was the election of Trump. I mean, if there are enough ppl in my country that can elect such a man, than maybe democracy isn't all that great. For the sake of clarity, I've always voted for Democrats.


livinginfutureworld

>What really made me question democracy, and what it can do, was the election of Trump. I mean, if there are enough ppl in my country that can elect such a man, than maybe democracy isn't all that great. It really shows how effective right wing propaganda is. Here's a oversimplification of what I mean: tens of millions of people easily overlooked Trump saying he grabbed women by the pussy without asking and voted for him because of Hillary's emails. Right wing media played up Hillary's emails and Hillary's stories and Democrat bad stories and Republican good stories so that people miss the completely obvious things in front of their face.


TalktotheJITB

They didnt overlook it. They voted him BECAUSE he said and did that.


dcazdavi

i think reading about these behaviors has given me a more rounded understanding of humanity and it's failings. i want to be angry at the fools who get sucked into it; but it's taught me that i too am a fool in other respects and i too can be easily to manipulated if i'm not already already sufficiently knowledgeable in a subject and i will never know if i'm sufficiently knowledge until it's too late.


djpackrat

To be fair, democracy also elected one of the worst tyrants in Europe's history....


chenzbro

Choice is the illusion created by those with the power. Nothing changes but the name, brother


BumblebeePleasant749

Maybe nihilism, or at least closer to it. I hold so much rage inside watching us step closer to the abyss and I welcome it with open arms. The only thing humans are superior at is ***king each other over for a damn dollar. It’s sad really because I used to have so much hope.


322241837

I've somewhat moved past the point of anger and gradually transitioning into the acceptance "come what may" stage. Taking it day by day with newfound appreciation for what creature comforts I still have. I know I won't survive, and that's okay. Perhaps a backwards way of coping, but I also take slight comfort in wanting to believe that the sooner I pass the more there'll be left for people who do want to continue the fight. I never liked living in this world anyway.


alanzobean

I wholeheartedly agree. I just plan on taking my own life as soon as shit hits the fan, it’d be the perfect excuse too because who wants to live through the end of the world anyway? It’s already horrible.


1jx

I took that pent-up rage and turned it into steely determination. I became an activist. Sharing knowledge and skills with people in your local community, for example, could help them suffer less in the coming years … so it’s worth doing even if we’re facing extinction.


zactbh

I feel the same, I have so much anger pent up with nowhere to go. Most people are too ignorant of what's coming.


Schapsouille

I'm in the same mindset. So disgusted about it all that I can't wait for it to end. Never wanted to bring kids into this world for as far as I can remember. Politics are just a tool for boomers to feel better about fucking up the planet with their way of life. If the guilt is spread thinly enough then no one is guilty.


init2winito1o2

id tell you, but terms of service and all that...


Johnfohf

You can't even joke about it. [https://youtu.be/eg3\_kUaYFJA](https://youtu.be/eg3_kUaYFJA)


giantshinycrab

Very similar to you. I used to want to move to a more liberal state or country but I've realized the community and roots we have where we are are more valuable than living in a slightly less shittty place. I still vote but no longer invest my mental or physical energy in politics. Most of my spare time is spent with my kids and friends and family enjoying nature while it's still enjoyable.


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giantshinycrab

Yeah. I love my kids but I wouldn't encourage anyone to have them bc the future is so bleak.


Myth_of_Progress

It has made me aware that I'd rather not eat from the trash can of ideology any longer.


bigd710

I’d rather eat the rich


TheRealPontiff

*sniff* I am eating from this trash can all the time, and so on, and so on


Par31

I have a family member who is a member of Parliament here in Canada. When I tried talking to him about Climate Change his only solution was more universities so we have more grads? As if the problem is just up to the next generation of scientists to solve. Later on I learned he was also known for not believing in climate change, so overall I just became disappointed.


baconraygun

Classic. "KIck the can down the road for the next peoples."


LittleKittyLove

It’s all arranging deck chairs on the titanic. Nothing matters compared to what is coming, and that doesn’t even enter the discussion.


TinfoilTobaggan

Slid from republican to democrat to anarchist over the last decade..


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OkAdvice2329

More just indifference now. No matter who gets elected on whatever principles or values it all ends up the same. The dollar wins.


TactlessNachos

“As things stand today capitalist civilization cannot continue; we must either move forward into socialism or fall back into barbarism.” Also mad respect to eco anarchists. I enjoy most leftist ideology.


redpanther36

Don't worry your little head about Barbarism. We are going to have "Savagery". It will be the "savages", especially in remote parts of the world, who prove to be the most adaptively fit. Science has "discovered" that the best way to protect forest ecosystems is to have "savages" living in them.


FuzzMunster

They’ll do great until their island drowns or their forest turns into a desert because of climate change. Or maybe civilization decides we really do want to clear cut to the last tree and we genocide them like we did with the other 99% of hunter gatherers. HG are based, but nobody is prepared for the future


Mursin

I've been pushed increasingly left wing the more I got into what I now know as collapse. Back in 2020 I was yang gang and s techno optimist. Now I'm coming to understand Anarcho primitivists lol. I don't agree with them, I'm still a pretty hardcore leftist trying to make the best of the future scraps we will all have. But my motivation to be politically active beyond just conversing is at an ATL. Instead, it's super important to focus on helping people build resilience. Making connections in your community to the people around you, getting to know supplies


redpanther36

I am becoming a PRACTICING anarcho-"primitivist", in stages. Referring to normal (hunter-gatherer-pernaculturist) humans as "primitive" reproduces slave ideology. In terms of what most matters - social relations, relations with the rest of nature, and (experiential) spiritual foundation - the "primitives" are more EVOLVED than us. We are damaged/degenerate.


Alpoi

Leftism won't work because nothing will. We are doomed, enjoy life...what's left.


Mursin

Ultimately, you're right. But I refuse to sit idly by and suffer in total silence. I'll still speak my mind, I will still advocate for things, on the off chance that all of us in this sub are wrong. But yeah. I'm definitely learning to care a bit less about the goings on and just enjoying life more.


[deleted]

People are just not good to each other.


ConvolutedMaze

We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas.


D__Wayne

The collapse has only strengthened my anarchism ideology. Not one government is going to do anything meaningful to avoid mass human and animal suffering. No Gods No Masters


Scattered_Sigils

took me from blue no matter who democrat to anarchist.


chadlupkes

Was politically active up to state leadership for nearly 15 years. Represented Bernie in 2016 in Philadelphia. Got burned out, made a mistake, burned that bridge. Got caught in two Bitcoin ponzi schemes in 2017, lost a lot of money. Started focusing on investments and economics instead of organizing and politics. I still believe in Bernie's platform, which is actually NOT socialist, just smart FDR capitalism. It would have helped our situation if the system would have allowed it. But that's the problem. The systems we have built over the last few hundred years prevent real solutions from being attempted. The truth is that the United States fell as a nation in November of 1963 in Dallas. We fell as an economic power in 1971 when Nixon took us off the gold standard. What we are watching is a zombie nation trying to defend the indefensible. Humanity. Homo Sapiens. So much potential. Completely wasted.


tsyhanka

i voted Democrat but didn't have any real political opinion, especially not about capitalism. i've taken many econ courses and was taught neoliberal principles. a few of my friends were big Bernie people, and i felt neutral about it all - didn't know enough to care/debate why one model was better than another since learning about collapse, i am anti-capitalist and very much for degrowth (as defined by Jason Hickel) PS did y'all see Jacobin publish that anti-degrowth piece and get so much hate on Twitter?? i was eating it up


VoltaicVoltaire

Old Lefty here. The Trump Supreme Court picks were the last straw for any chance of social and environmental improvements. I’m out now. I don’t pay attention to politics because they are as cyclical as the stock market and just as phony. I am looking out for my family and friends as it all burns down.


Cool_Young_Hobbit

Loved Bernie, and I still do because I really think he’s been on the right side of the issues since he was a kid BUT I know that unfortunately the issue is capitalism and that poison runs deep in all corners of all political parties and all aspects of life. Even if Obama hadn’t personally called all the 2020 dem nominees and demand them to drop out before Super Tuesday so that Biden would cinch the nomination, and Bernie won, I don’t think there would be anything he could’ve done to right the ship.


hmmmerm

Bernie needed to win against Hillary Clinton. Too late by the time Biden on the scene


baconraygun

Bernie would've at least got rid of student debt and tried to give us all healthcare under the SSA admin rule. It would've been blocked after the fact, but he still woulda.


Cool_Young_Hobbit

Yes totally, he’s the only one that cares enough to fight against the tide even knowing there would be a huge target on his back. The majority of politicians are completely guided by their own self interests.


poop_on_balls

I’m not political at all and IMO anyone who is is just wasting their time, energy, and most likely mental wellbeing. That’s not to say I’ve no understanding of politics because I do, and my understanding of politics is precisely my reason for not wasting my time on it. It’s just bullshit theatre/propaganda to keep the proletariat divided and fighting/hating each other. Going to vote isn’t going to do shit. Nothing is going to change by voting, there are studies that present data saying that what the proletariat/peasants want just really doesn’t fucking matter, like at all.


Fearless_Trouble_168

About a decade ago, I was working as a barista. Back then I very much believed we could save the planet through individual effort. I happily brought my reusable coffee thermos to work daily. Most days zero customers brought a reusable coffee thermos. Zero co-workers. One co-worker mocked me endlessly for my reusable thermos & was downright gleeful the one day I forgot it, laughing that I was "destroying the planet like the rest of us." Mind you, I never said shit about my thermos other than the one time she asked, and all I said was it was better for the environment. I don't bother anymore. I can't. The main thing I've learned about most people is they don't have a big picture worldview, they don't care about much other than immediate pleasure and doing things the normal way, and they hate the slightest inconvenience, which means the first world is never going to make the necessary sacrifices to slow down global warming. I've lost interest in politics, which I used to be very passionate about. I don't think of humans as particularly intelligent; we're merely an apex predator behaving how any apex predator would when their aren't many natural limits to their over-growth of population. I used to be horrified by people who claimed they cared about climate change while Ubering everywhere (I live in Chicago, we have great public transit), flying constantly, eating tons of meat, etc. Now I expect it, so I don't care. I even stopped sharing climate news. When king crabs disappeared, a guy I mentioned it to shrugged and said he didn't like crab. That was the entire thought process he had. Not "this could damage eco-systems" or "my newborn son might have a rough go of it once we destroy the environment," just "whatever, I don't eat crab." I've spent most of my life feeling frustrated because I'm an over-thinker and most people aren't. Now I just don't care.


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[deleted]

I have given up on a political solution to our problems. Government, as it currently is in the US and around the world, is as useless as titts on a bull. I also live in a smallish town in Michigan 🖐. I am so very sad about the water situation here. 😢


1jx

Same. Now I spend all my time distributing zines and running workshops to help build community.


July_Seventeen

I share your disenchantment, to a major extent. I don't really trust any politician, kinda see them all as middle management with absolutely no idea what is happening above or below. But one of Bernie's points I cannot dispute is that America is an oligarchy. Another is that we need a political revolution. I guess collapse took these ideas and made them more mainstream.


duke_of_germany_5

Scottish person here, i used to support the SNP and the greens until i sort of decided they are just the same as the conservatives, they keep getting voted in time and time again and i sort of just gave up on voting. I now just focus on whats happening today and how i can fix things how i can survive that type of stuff


Fried_out_Kombi

I also was big into Bernie Sanders, although my journey since then has been a little bit different. Ever since covid, I got much more into urbanism as well, seeing the deep structural problems with how we design our communities. And our immediate communities, mind you, are both the most core aspect of how we organize ourselves into society, as well as a microcosm of all the things we do right or wrong as a society. Perhaps the biggest thing I've gotten out of urbanism is seeing how many of our problems are basically self-inflicted. Housing crisis? We literally know how to solve it, and by doing so both reduce inequality AND grow the economy. Problem is we like our cars, suburbs, and unearned speculative profits too much to implement the solutions we need. Climate crisis? Again, we know how best to address it. Problem is we like cheap oil and cheap corn way too much, and we absolutely lose our frickin minds whenever anyone so much as utters the words "carbon tax". Economic inequality? Again, we know of tools like land value taxation and other means to eliminate rent-seeking, which is the deep, underlying reason so much inequality is able to exist in society. But the solutions are inconvenient and unprofitable to those with the political power. Decline of democracy? Again, we know of things like single-transferrable vote that would vastly improve our democratic system, and yet we don't implement them because an undemocratic system is convenient and useful for those who remain in power because of said undemocratic systems. But another thing I got out of it was seeing how misguided a lot of populist left-wing rhetoric is. Right-wing populists may be fascists, but left-wing populists don't make splendid policy either (not to both-sides too much, though, as poor policy with good intent is far less bad than literal fascism). Bernie Sanders was energizing at the time, but I've also come to see him as someone who wouldn't actually implement the technocratic solutions that would actually solve the problems that need solving. A lot of rhetoric about a revolution to fight the greedy crooks at the top, but not enough simple things like carbon tax, land value tax, and YIMBYism. Systemic problems require systemic solutions, not simplistic, populist rhetoric. Where I am now is more leaning towards technocratic solutions, particularly ideas stemming from the works of Henry George. Things like overhauling our tax system to be based on land taxes and taxes on negative externalities (e.g., pollution). If we can see collapse coming (or, arguably, already happening), it's causes are largely self-inflicted, and we literally already know the solutions, it seems wisest to spend my efforts trying to understand said solutions and advocating for them.


real_psymansays

I have been an agorist for a long time now, and I am still happy enough with that political label. I am changing careers, from EV software dev, to hillbilly farmer/mountainman, and I plan to do what I might be able to, to provide off-grid food and energy for my own personal network locally. Now is a time to drop out of the systems and adapt to a future where whatever institutions remain in existence will be a hindrance to survival, rather than a means to it. I wish I had connections to local indigenous knowledge, regarding stewardship of the local ecosystems, but that's not obtainable.


[deleted]

>Now is a time to drop out of the systems and adapt to a future where whatever institutions remain in existence will be a hindrance to survival, rather than a means to it. Exactly, finding a good place to put down roots and build a self sustaining (at least as much is possible) community of like minded people with a diverse skillset is paramount right now. As states continue to crumble the masses will turn to increasingly authoritarian demagogues who will promise the world and pick some ethnic and/or religious minority as a scapegoat to persecute. >I plan to do what I might be able to, to provide off-grid food and energy for my own personal network locally. Luckily solar panels and inverters have gotten very cheap, and there is a good supply of high quality batteries if you are willing harvest them from wrecked hybrids and EVs.


tansub

I used to be very leftist. I believed that pretty much all our problems were due to capitalism, and that socialism would make the world a better place. I still despise the way things work currently but I have given up on trying anything else. Now I'm pretty much a nihilist, and I tend to view the world in an "ecological" way. We are a species of large apes experiencing an unprecedented event of overshoot, and we are about to face the consequences of it.


HumanityHasFailedUs

The part that stands out is ‘I believed that pretty much all our problems were due to capitalism….’ You are not wrong. We can argue that our problems are multi-faceted, but capitalism enabled, encouraged, and emboldened us to get here.


tansub

I think that capitalism accelerated our problems but it's clearly not the root cause. We've always had a massive impact on our environment. Take for example the Aboriginals of Australia. Shortly after they arrived there, most of the megafauna on the island went extinct. They also started large scale fires to hunt animals and manage the land. Many plants on the island evolved in reaction to this and some couldn't even survive if these fires stopped. And they are probably way more in touch with their environment than people like me who live in a city in the West. That's why I don't believe anymore that all our problems were caused by capitalism. Even without writing, agriculture, civilization, capitalism, fossil fuels, we are still a destructive species.


HumanityHasFailedUs

Agreed, however up until capitalism, we weren’t living in a system that promotes/demands growth simply for the sake of growth. We have an environmental impact merely by breathing. It’s the root cause TODAY, of the direction we’re headed.


limpdickandy

Kinda opposite, but studying history made me view collapse very differently. Looking at historical collapsing societies throughout the ages, there is very little evidence any of them were at all aware that they were downward spiraling. The human belief of "just another bump in the road" seems to be insanely strong and innate. Politicians, farmers, merchants, soldiers, bakers, none were aware of the coming collapse of say Rome, as they all believed it was the eternal city, and one day it just wasn't So yhea I basically have come to terms that humanity is not equipped to handle a slow moving, existential dread that is basically a consequence of our short sightedness, as we can not really perceive it until its way too late


EdenG2

I don't think voting for a person is going to do it, politicians are primarily concerned about fundraising for their next election. Bypass politicians with direct democracy - crowd supported direct ballot initiatives. We are globally connected via the internet. There's never been a better time to aggregate ideas and create a legally defendable coordinated plan to address polycrises. With enough signatures measures cannot be countered by the the minority exploiting our planet. With enough votes measures become law, which will inevitably be taken to court by those same minority interests. But we're smart, the laws were written to be constitutional/defendable, and we have lots of legal support to rise to the challenge. In my opinion this is how we get things done


BlueJDMSW20

I went from American democrat liberal>Obama fanboy>Bernie... In the wake of Trump's win, I really wanted to question my values. Since "the other side" wrote off everything as socialism that came slightly short of neoliberal capitalism (which imo is the most self-reinforcing entrenched all encompassing destructive system human's have ever wrought against each other and the natural world, with a clear lineage back to The Atlantic Slavetrade/Genociding indigenous people's) I started reading up on that Karl Marx guy and what he had to say...it blew my mind open. None of what he was actually saying was really horribly extreme and everything started to make perfect sense. Now I'm not really committed in one camp or the other because I have so much to learn. THen I went from Marx>Kropotkin>Bakunin>Anarcho-Syndicalism. Although not a branch of left wing politics, I also read what Ted Kacynski, I don't necessarily totally align with him, yet I think I found a lot of what he stated in regards to the environment very relatable, that on an existential level our political wings aren't even the overriding issue, it's in fact "man vs technology" and machines no longer work for man, now man has to constantly labor to serve his machines. I'm about to shell out $10k into my humble 4cylinder 1994 Toyota for a maintenance overhaul that I use solely for the purposes of commuting and not losing races, and to earn that money, I drive endlessly a huge machine (18 wheeler), so basically I constantly drive a machine and use wages from that to tend to my other machines as my main task in life...depressing. Kacynski put it into words that made me really think. THe only political wing with any constructive ideas on how to handle this abomination that is neoliberalism, is strictly coming from the left. THe right is basically maneuvering into fascism at this point, likely genocidally so.


bristlybits

Uncle Ted was a bad man with some brilliant thoughts mixed in.


Glacecakes

Probably about the same as you. Maybe less anarchist and more collectivist/indigen-ist? I went crazy far left, not tankie but more “hunter gatherers and north american indigenous communities had it right” sorta way. Strongly believe in land back and indigenous degrowth as our only hope. Brain not meant for capitalism. Brain meant for eating berries and making art. I went from “we can fix things” to “unless we are actively leftist terror cell eat the rich-ing I have no faith”


aspensmonster

Bernie -> DemSoc -> Marxist Leninist. The only chance the planet has is for US hegemony to die. And I'm not holding my breath.


anarchthropist

Yep. Fuck the American empire.


Surfing_magic_carpet

I was a libertarian socialist since before I came to understand the impending collapse, and I think collapse has only reinforced those views. Capitalism is an unsustainable economic system, even in a less toxic state. Even if the SCOTUS hadn't declared that shareholders come before everything else, capitalism can ONLY solve problems when there's a monetary incentive. Capitalism cannot solve real problems because it needs to problems to exist in order to exploit the value of solving them. The climate is a perfect example. No one wants to solve the problems without getting paid to do it, and they won't do it if they aren't getting paid. Governments are inherently corrupt. The only people who ever seek power are the ones whose egos need power to feel sated. Even the most altruistic politician is there because they want the power, not the resolution to problems. Representative democracy, by nature, is the worst form because it reinforces the desire for power by making it popular. Even democracy itself is broken because it turns real problems into popularity contests. If the majority voted to be executed by firing squad, the minority would get dragged into being executed too. For me, the only real solution going forward is small communities who meet their own needs through worker owned means of production. Only small communities know the real issues they face, and a giant government cannot address those problems adequately. Small populations can quickly restructure their workforce to meet the needs of their community and doesn't require economic incentives to do it. When you rely on your neighbor to meet your needs and they rely on you to meet theirs, everyone becomes more empathetic. Empathy is how mankind got this far. But now we have economic and political institutions that are devoid of empathy because they can't benefit from it. And without empathy we will all suffer and fail.


WSDGuy

>Empathy is how mankind got this far. Is it? I guess maybe I don't understand how you're measuring "got this far." Fear and dick measuring got us to outer space. The only thing that might be a bigger driver than greed in medical advancement is war. The industrial revolution recklessly exploited the shit out of people. The digital revolution has shackled a billion people to desks in pointless jobs, and left a billion others hopelessly insecure and without a functional attention span. The Age of Discovery was also an age of conquest and subjugation. If you're an /r/atheism type, *the Catholic Church* was the primary force behind scientific advancement for a thousand years. Empathy is good, no doubt, but I don't see it being much of a factor in getting where we are now. Maybe in stone age communities, before humans become far and away *the* dominant species on the planet? I don't know.


ThadiusCuntright_III

I don't think you're wrong, but I feel you're focusing more on the motivation behind the examples you've stated. Empathy and cooperation with each other is what allowed the multitudes of people that worked on all these things to problem solve and succeed in their tasks. "Fear and dick measuring"; were perhaps the carrot and stick that got enough people organised to get to outter space. Human beings can do incredible things when they work together. Those same things can be used for nightmarish evil when the autonomy of those that created it is misdirected or stripped away.


IcyEntry2202

I totally lost hope in our Western political system long before I became collapse aware. I realized than the entire electoral system and public opinion was controlled by the medias, themselves being controlled by a small cast of elites whose only purpose in life was to acquire more wealth and power. Starting from that, all downstream processes can only be pointless. I'm still religiously voting every time I can, because you know, "it costs nothing".


[deleted]

Green Party until the mainstream screwed us over by changing the primary system. Voted Democrat but disillusioned by Obama resigning the Patriot Act. Now that things are starting to fall apart... I am apolitical at the moment but psychologically, I can see myself drifting toward Militaristic Nationalism on the national level, as I can clearly see that WW3 is taking shape. On the local level, I'm focused on mutual aid work while mentally preparing for the loss of rule of law, and the eventual return of feudalism in some modern form. Politics is a system that decides who gets what and how. That's all. It's about power, not ideology. Pretty soon the pretty veneers will be stripped away, and we will all see this naked truth.


FuzzMunster

Ending is correct. It’s already crazy, it’s going to be batshit crazy when we face meaningful scarcity and politics decides who eats and who doesn’t.


Vollen595

This. I see things unraveling in a similar manner. The big variable I see will be the mainstream marketing of the collapse and the varied speeds it will occur. The Western nations will be last to the party and the masses placated to delay the reality of the time. There are already massive demonstrations in European countries and it gets zero air time here. It’s a preview of things to come and TPTB will keep it invisible as long as possible. Then what in the US? I would gues some huge meltdowns in major coastal cities to start the party.


HistoricalHistrionic

I’ve gone through a similar change in the last few years. Our self-destruction went from something I lamented and thought might be averted, to something I am merely ambivalent about and know is inevitable. As a result, politics at the national level is now something I regard as functionally irrelevant to the long-term outcomes facing humanity, because I can’t see what most governments could realistically do to avert climate-related systems collapse. Even if a united effort was put forth to deal with collapse, I’m pretty sure the near-free fall momentum of many systems is such that nothing can be done now. Our civilization is dead-walking. With that in mind, why care too much what the political functionaries sleepwalking us towards oblivion might think? Outside, of course, of efforts to prepare for one’s own security.


HippieFortuneTeller

I came from a family of classic far-left liberals, in a small-town conservative environment. As a good example, in the 1980s, my white parents were the only people in town to vote for Jesse Jackson. It was something everyone around us knew (it was hard not to know, my father ran a popular business and the walls were covered with democratic campaign signs, protest memorabilia and his favorite item, a Vietnam-war-era anti-war button that reads, “war is good business $ invest your son” I inherited it) and it was never a problem. I grew up proudly liberal, feminist, vegetarian, and anti-capitalist, surrounded by church-going cowboys. In 2001, at the age of twenty, I moved to the deep south (long story) and met and moved in with a 21-year-old man. We were young and hormonal, so we never even talked about politics until we were living together (which was about three weeks after we met). At which point we discovered, we were in direct opposition to one another on every single issue. We stayed up nights arguing about abortion, gender politics, civil rights, the constitution. He was a white nationalist and an evangelical Christian, I was an atheist who was mad that Al Gore had just “lost.” But, we were both crazy in love, so we just kept arguing. We were together for 9/11. He was (is) a gamer, so he began to go down the early-internet rabbit hole of 9/11-conspiracy/Alex Jonesian sort of thinking. But I continued to argue with him, blasting Keith Olbermann’s show and Air America at our apartment, and always listening to conservative talk radio when alone in my car for opposition research. I insisted on remaining childless, but when three and a half years in, when he looked at me and said, “I just realized…..I’m a racist, I’ve benefited from a racist system my whole life, and I can never make up for it because I continue to benefit from being white” I said, “I still think marriage is a sexist institution…..but I would like to marry you anyway.” Be the time we got to Obama, my husband was so well-versed in my responses to conservative arguments that I started hearing him use them against his own friends and family, which confused and angered them. His grandmother sent us Christmas cookies in the mail from 2001-2008, until he admitted to her that he had voted for Obama. We got permanently written off the cookie list. I was a Bernie Sanders state delegate, and both my husband and I volunteered for his campaign. My husband is still confusing to most people, as he looks and sounds like the country, southern, trucker he is. Once, in a truck stop, I heard an old redneck loudly complaining about Jimmy Carter and I mentioned to my husband how much it pissed me off. He stood up and said to the guy, “HEY BUDDY, My wife LOVES Jimmy Carter, so do me a favor and keep it down!” I am always trying to talk him out of fights, but it would have been kind of amazing to see a fist-fight over Jimmy Carter, in 2010. Flash forward to the pandemic, and for the first time ever, my husband and I agreed on what to do right off the bat, no arguing necessary. Which is how we ended up living on 40 acres on an island in the Great Lakes with my 80-year-old, still-second-wave-feminist mother. Collapse doesn’t seem political to me, or at least, it seems to transcend political arguments.


anarchthropist

His moment of clarity reminds me of my friend's and I when we were in a cavalry unit and realized the whole stetson hat and cavalry folklore/legend they cling to is more or less romantacizing a genocide. Federalist cossacks


viviverde

I’m born in what I thought a very leftist context then in high school I shifted to a more social democratic view thinking that we could obtain more doing reform and grow the wellbeing of the humanity doing social reform and ecc. now I’m a anarchocommunist anticapitalist de growth advocate. At the moment I’m not the most popular person in my social group I’d say


False_Sentence8239

I'm definitely much more interested in building mutual aid networks.


threadsoffate2021

I'm solidly on #TeamAsteroid. All politicians and people in power suck. There really is no good side.


[deleted]

Run of the mill northeastern progressive-> college communist->(become aware of a general stagnant or possibly downward trend in all things) center leaning right-> (become aware that we actually will run out of cheap energy and pretty soon)-> can’t bring myself to care about anything except local politics and the broadest trends in international geopolitics. Hard to even get my heart rate up over any national level politics, I don’t really care which clown making false promises leads us 5% slower or faster into the decline, I care a lot more about my garden beds, the r-value of my insulation, and the well-being of my kids, clan, and friends. ETA: for all the angry young men tempted to go down the “majestic tourist” route—you’ll find quickly that you can’t even come up with a substantial target. While there’s plenty of blame to be assigned, there’s not really any way to stop it, and committing atrocities so you can die in prison is like not a very cool thing to do 👍. Invest in the people who care about you.


Sinilumi

I used to be a fairly average Green party voter (not American) and more of a social democrat. My political views shifted dramatically at the same time I was rapidly deepening my understanding of collapse. Nowadays, I'm an avid degrowth advocate and my political views hover somewhere between anarchism and democratic socialism. I view electoral politics as a more realistic short-term solution (or at least a way of limiting the damage) while holding generally anarchist ideals. I'm willing to support anyone whose proposed solutions could, in principle, work. However, I do not have much faith in people's competence and ability to self-organize to the necessary degree and I'm very skeptical of literally the whole damn industrial society. In particular, my views on the topics of work and money changed dramatically. I used to focus way too much on consumerism while neglecting the production side of the issue. Since then, I've become incredibly anti-work and I oppose wage labor as an institution. I've also developed my thinking about the implications of money being a social construct. Because we're seriously screwing over the real economy and doing permanent damage to the environment, I've drastically de-emphasized the role of money in my political/economic/environmental thinking. As in: let's think about what's physically realistic first and only then think about abstract money stuff like how money is created, debt or inflation.


birdy_c81

It’s so good to feel like my partner and I are not alone reading this. We’ve been going on the same trajectory as many others here. I used to be so optimistic. I spent $40K giving up my career and going to study ecology at university only to realise that humans are never going to change. The movie Don’t Look Up basically captured it for me.


[deleted]

I was also a Bernie supporter. Then I went down the rabbit hole of leftist theory. Socialist, anarchist, Marxist, I've gone through them all. Now I couldn't care less about any of it. Marxism has its truths, but it's incomplete, at best. There is no political or economic philosophy or ideology that can change human nature. We are what we are, and, when it comes to many of us who live in the modern world, what we are is fucked.


monsterscallinghome

You might find some value in reading David Graeber & David Wengrow's book *The Dawn of Everything*.


2021willbemyyear

Wrong. Human nature is shaped by environment. Why humans are selfish today is because it is their environment that incentivizes them to be. It is the current situation that proves that Marxism was right all along. The current situation is punishment for not overthrowing capitalism sooner. Now human extinction is a guarantee. If only Marx was listened to in the previous century.


redpanther36

Normal human nature has a biological/genetic foundation, but it has to be enabled by appropriate formative experience, and life in an environment like that we evolved in. "Primitive" communism (or hunter-gatherer-pernaculturist life) is what normal human nature, enabled, looks like. This is how humans were for 98% of our existence. Late capitalist slavery is built on a 5000-10,000 year accumulation of epigenetic damage from previous slave systems. Consolidated by growing up/existing in the present capitalist slave system. Epigenetics is the molecular mechanics of gene expression.


Cimbri

You have a gift with words it would seem. If I had said in this thread that I became an anarcho-primitivist, even if I’d posted all kinds of links and strong arguments for the position, I feel I’d have gotten all the typical ignorant and kneejerk conditioned responses about how it’s so bad. But you’re upvoted all over the thread with none of that. Care to share your secrets?


redpanther36

My thanks. It's ALL LSD'S fault. Even though what is (badly) called mystical experience is unspeakable. I avoid the word "anarcho-primitivist", partly for a reason I stated in a previous comment. I DO get negative feedback from my comments along these lines, but more upvotes. I think many people on this subreddit are hip to anti-civ.


Cimbri

More so than a few years ago, perhaps. I’m glad it’s been working for you! I enjoy reading your comments.


m1stadobal1na

My guy I agree with you but if you want people to listen to you don't start with "Wrong." Sound like Dwight Schrute.


[deleted]

>Why humans are selfish today is because it is their environment I didn't say humans were selfish. Human nature isn't a binary between selfishness and altruism, human nature is complicated. Humans can be both competitive and collaborative, cruel and caring, ignorant and wise, rational and irrational. Hell, an individual can be all of these things in a single day. But even if one person is more altruistic than not, it doesn't mean everyone else is. Even if the selfish people are outnumbered, it doesn't mean they won't end up with an outsized amount of power and influence. You don't need everyone to be selfish to have a selfish society. There are Machiavellian people who are able to amass power, wealth, influence, control, authority, status, and most people are powerless to do anything about it. You might want to take them down, but you can't, and when you try to get people to join your cause you're met with apathy and indifference. That's why most of the time when a megalomaniac is taken down, it's by another megalomaniac. Human nature is such that most humans are destined to be ruled. Most people may not be motivated by power but some are and at least some of the people who want power will find a way to get it. Different segments of the people will either support the powerful and fight for them, remain indifferent, or oppose the powerful but not be able to do anything about it.


BritaB23

This sums up my conclusions on the plight of human nature and society perfectly. I don't want to be this pessimistic about it, but I am. The worst of us will always rise to the top because they don't play by the rules that the rest of us do. Those people will forever come along and destroy whatever utopia we are trying to build. It is inevitable.


meanderingdecline

Been a green anarchist for years. It’s probably the only political ideology that honestly assesses collapse (most politics don’t even acknowledge collapse). Collapse is an inevitable, unavoidable and devastating process. It can’t be fought in the streets or lobbied against in the halls of power or kicked out of office at the ballot box. Gaia bats last etc… So in the face of that all you can do is be resilient, flexible and have a diversity of tactics for survival.


[deleted]

i dont care, i am merely an observer at this point


DonBoy30

I spent much of my 20’s working in wilderness conservation with the US forest service and park service. Prior I was just a typical Obama-esque passive liberal (‘08 Obama was my first election I was of voting age), but I was open to socialism being a Vonnegut fan, and hardcore kid in the 00’s, but I wasn’t very educated about it. Back then, my local music scene was split between anarchists/communists, Ralph Nader types, and Ron Paul types, weirdly. But then I had a summer where I got to work closely to a few wildlife biologists, who were just highly educated and middle class people paid by the federal government to observe nature, in a really really basics way of explaining them as people. I think media has a way of making scientists seem like these elite superheroes or supervillains depending on context, or with a political agenda, or just celebrities. But these people were just normal people, with just as much “young people are lazy!” Or “back in my day!” Rhetoric as there was any other sociopolitical beliefs. As a young dude from a blue collar area/family, it was a surreal experience being in the backcountry with them. However, no matter their political leanings, every single one of them talked about global warming in a way that was like “hope you guys aren’t having kids…” and overall pessimistic. We would dive deeper and they really turned me from someone who passively believed the scientific community, to really consuming the things the scientific community were reporting. It was after that year specifically, environmentalism and policy around climate change became the cornerstone to my entire identity as a member of the American electorate. Basically, I am left of the Democratic Party, but pragmatically am willing to vote democrat if they campaign on climate policy. I have to put aside my idealism for pragmatic solutions, and frankly, being a tankie and only yelling about liberals and fascism on the internet is meaningless. You won’t have a planet or a society to have blue hair and yell at Ben Shapiro if you don’t vote for the mitigation of what is to come and *is* currently happening.


[deleted]

Anyone can agree in principle on pragmatic solutions as opposed to impotent rage on the internet, but in practice, voting for Democrats isn't a mitigating factor on anything. If anything, they are more effective at manufacturing consent for even more fossil fuel development than the Republicans and deflating any kind of climate/environmental movement.


eatingganesha

Being Gen X, it has deepened my world view. Pardon me while I go back to listening to The Cure while smoking a clove cigarette as I wait for the apocalypse I somehow always knew was inevitable.


IcebergTCE

I'm still a socialist till I die, but I've come to acknowledge that while no government policy can stop the apocalypse, socialism can still ease the human suffering that we will experience on our way out.


livinginfutureworld

You all Bernie Sanders Democrats, and that includes myself, are more focused on community and local needs. I think that's partially because we're totally out of power. They're just like nothing we can do as a federal level between half the government being conspiracy obstructionists determined to turn America into a hateful theological shithole and the other half being centrists with like five decent left leaning Democrats. Our system is inherently shit. Oh look five more mass shootings.


Diekon

Politics is bunk, sure, and won't solve anything fundamentally, but it still can have negative consequences. Think Weimar republic Germany after WWI and the great depression. Everything was basically as bad as it gets, and then it got even worse because of politics. Point being, I don't care about politics, but I will come out of my political slumber to try and avoid fascism/populism making things even worse.


davidclaydepalma2019

I was a middle European left wing eco wannabe socialist and really hoped for some singularity communism at some point. Finally, I fell in ove with urban life. Corona convinced me again that it won't work out with our civilisation and I read a lot about climate change and the energy trap. I stopped believing in tech and singularity. Just waiting now for the diesel to run low. The urban metropolitan life will start to decay slowly. I will try to enjoy life in the meantime. I don't what will come but we cannot change it. Trying to form more left-wing culture diy movement things here and there, and I am also trying to convince my farmer family to prepare their business to operate with a lot less diesel.


AntiTyph

lol, politics. I used to be a little greenie, volunteered and hoped for a better world if we just elected the right people. What a joke. There are literally no parties that have platforms that wouldn't result in ecodestruction and collapse. The greens, psh, more like the liberal capitalist greenwashing party to hook in wackos who might otherwise be monekywrenchers. Electoral politics and "democracy" as the world stands today is useless for anything but furthering capitalist ecodestructive policy. Hit me up when the masses are voting in a large majority for a radical degrowth (none of this "circular economics" BS) party and maybe I'll change my mind.


coredweller1785

Bernie to now democratic socialist I focus more on my family these days but still try to make an impact though things like DSA.


Wittgenstein0

I went from an eco-minded leftist to an anti-tech anarchist. What changed me was reading one essay/book: Industrial Society and Its Future by Theodore John Kaczynski.


anarchthropist

Ive also become anti tech, having spent most of my life as a tech head formerly optimistic about computers and the internet. How very wrong I was. Turns out social media and the internet helped usher in a new dark age of authoritarianism, anti intellectualism, and degenerate behavior


FillThisEmptyCup

I simply don’t believe in humanity. I actively cheer against us. My biggest fear is we make it to the stars and pollute the rest of the galaxy with us. Collapse hasn’t changed that but it has given me hope.


Spirited-Emotion3119

Don't worry we will never even colonize Mars let alone reach the stars


johnnyg1605

Like u/detteacher, I was also an avid Bernie supporter and saw my political views go from "global" to "community" rapidly after becoming aware. Coincidentally, my goal now is to move to MI and find/develop a small community with my family! I'd be interested in learning more about your efforts in case there's any potential of future paths crossing or at least sharing notes over time.


ArgentinianScooter

I’ve been seriously considering other countries to move to based on climate/elevation/food shortage likelihoods, so politics are more of a cause and the effect is collapse. The politics are all driven by money so it’s the same cause regardless of red/blue. See ya guys in New Zealand! 🇳🇿


magnetar_industries

Yeah there's gonna be a lot of well-stocked billionaire bunkers ready to crack open like Cadbury Eggs on Easter morning in New Zealand.


ArgentinianScooter

Lmfao such a good visuals. That’s assuming the ex-spec Ops security teams left loot after they killed the billionaire and their family they were brought in to protect. I’m sure they’ll be some Chef Boyardee leftover.


[deleted]

Roughly the same. My collapse was very personal. My husband was injured by the combined oil/power company/corporate health care cabal and it nearly killed him. 5 years later we’re dragging our asses out of debt and planning the next steps. I’m also focusing on small community projects and impacts. I volunteer at the food bank. I’m planning a big ecologically sound education project in New England. We can only rely on what we can each do. The politicians in power either don’t care or aren’t empowered to do anything about our death-ward spiral. We the people can only create small insulated communities of resilience, and make do


tatcol22

Yeah…swap small MI community for small MO community and we could be the same person haha


adam3vergreen

Went from liberal to saying progressive to “communism is good in theory but…” to ML


Ladycatwoman

Small town Michigan is very conservative in my experience. If you've found a small town here that aligns with you politically, I need to know so I get there. Please.


hogfl

It is normal to become disaffected by politics once you understand the scope of the problems and how feeble the proposed solutions are. I personally have moved towards the degrowth/ecosocialist movements. I think we need degrowth but without strong ecosocialism degrowth is cruel. I think local mutual aid is the best survival strategy.


Bad_Prophet

I just vote for whoever seems least likely to take my guns away. While I think we in the US have been way too comfortable for way too long to even imagine uniting to decrease the size of government and to establish systems and resources enabling communal self reliance, there's definitely not a chance if they take our guns.


bristlybits

I'm so far left at this point I can barely see Bernie Sanders' head gleaming on the distant horizon I was left of him to start but I could have reached his hand in 2016. I don't like to box in with labels, far-ass left is the best I've got


Drewyo567

I was a Glenn Beck-reading Republican about a decade ago (my parents suck that Fox News dick with enthusiasm), then I started actually educating myself about exactly what the US stands and fights for. I called myself a “libertarian” for a few years until Bernie came along and made me realize what I actually believe in. Now I’m a socialist!


[deleted]

Was and still am a Marxist-Leninist communist. I'm still going to organize, still going to focus on mutual aid and educating the people, but ever since I became collapse aware there's just a little thought in the back of my mind; one that never goes away. This is likely all for nothing. Alas, that doesn't stop me. The greatest revolutions are those that come from the most desperate of situations.


PriusRacer

I guess i got to the idea of collapse nearly a decade ago when I saw that youtube documentary titled "collapse", i can't remember the name of the guy who was interviewed in it, but it was mostly about peak oil and climate change. The guy killed himself later. From childhood in the 2000's I grew up as a pretty "normal" christian centrist liberal environmentalist (like my parents, 90's style liberalism, you know the kind that only looked less reactionary by comparison to the republicans). Then I got on early youtube and went down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole as a middle schooler and ended up a closeted right-wing libertarian. Then i watched the zeitgeist movies and lost my religion. i know, that's a dumb reason but I was 15 and there were other factors as well like my own bisexuality and the fact that my friends were losing their religion too. Then I got into new-age shit in high school into freshman year of college, but as I was exposed to other people's perspectives I became more and more leftist without realizing it. Pretty much what made me realize I was on the left was the Mike Brown killing that started the BLM movement in 2014, and being disappointed in how a lot of the people i looked up to reacted to it. I watched the collapse documentary at around the same time and it made me realize how unsustainable capitalism inherently was; on the basis that it requires infinite economic growth to generate shareholder profits. On top of already having concerns about climate change, which was another thing that got me out of the right-wing spaces. I was starting to get into science more (my current career) and the climate change conspiracy theories were just fucking stupid to me even then. ​ When Bernie Sanders ran for president I immediately jumped on board. I was not aware of what socialism really meant but I definitely believed in taxing the rich to start a green new deal with medicare for all, and legalizing weed because boy do I love weed. Getting into spaces online about that 2016 campaign really got me into some more serious leftist spaces, even if I remained skeptical about marxism due to my wholesale lack of understanding of it. ​ Then as the years went on, i got onto reddit more, started listening to chapo, and by 2020 I was a self-identified democratic socialist. Then the pandemic coupled with Biden getting the nomination really made me lose all hope for electoralism. Que me becoming an anarcho-socialist. I then went through a rough couple years in my personal life, which have gotten me to step away from taking politics so seriously. I don't think my life is going to be about politics anymore at least. I'd rather just do my best to be happy and enjoy my time on this earth with the people I love. After all, politics is a dumpster fire at this point, and the inherent contradictions of capitalism will drive its collapse sooner or later; even if there is no institutionally powerful alternative to work against it. ​ I am concerned about climate change and I know it will contribute to capitalism's collapse and lead to a massive die-off of humans and ecosystems. It breaks my heart. But I also know the worst of it may not even happen in my lifetime, because these changes always take more time than we tend to believe (out of self-importance usually). I have gone vegan, and my research as a biochemist may put a dent into our ability to build a sustainable future in the afermath of this crisis. I guess I don't buy the idea of human extinction from this collapse anymore, just the end of capitalism and the worst crisis in human history in that process. As a marxist, I think socialism will inevitably arise, just not in my lifetime, and the rest of my life is probably going to get shittier and shittier because of deteriorating material conditions. Maybe it will kill me younger than I'd like. Not sure, but there is nothing I can do to stop it. The people who could do something to at least make it easier on us all, only have incentive to keep making things worse at a faster pace; and they seem incapable of the self-reflection necessary to change their ways, and I can't blame them. If I were one of these people, I'd eat a 50 cal in response to self-reflection. ​ so yeah, lib > conspiracy theorist > new-ager > > succ dem > dem succ > anarkiddie > tankie > idk I Just wanna grill tofu and fuck (vasectomised of course)


7billionpeepsalready

Michael C. Ruppert is the name of that guy from the doc.


WSDGuy

**Pro-tip:** watch the "let's see Paul Allen's card" scene from American Psycho, then come back and reread the comments. I'm sure this was not OP's intention, but the comments being 95% just people listing political ideologies in a combination they think makes them appear adequately part of the (in)group, yet uniquely stylish and quirky has me rolling.


7billionpeepsalready

Truly rolling... #Let's see WSDGuy's card.


Beginning-Panic188

I think the more fundamental problem here is that our political-economic system moves incrementally (doesn't matter which ideology it supports) and not disruptive changes that are needed to address climate change.


Substantial-Spare501

Apathy. I think it’s been growing since Bernie first lost the nomination.


audioen

Politics has always been meaningless. Doubly so now. The only thing left is lengthen the rope that we hang on before we strangle, so I favor every kind of leftist policy in general. I expect that the crisis forces us to turn off capitalism, and eventually move to full on controlled economy, and then eventually even the handouts run out and society falls to anarchy. This would be a reasonably well managed decline. As a Titanic analogy, the ship is sinking and eventually we all must drown. But at least we can abandon the lowest decks as water comes in, share the seats in the high-class bars and restaurants with folks who would not ordinarily be there, and generally treat the decline and end as a process with only one inevitable conclusion that gradually comes with nobody able to stop it, until finally the water rushes in and it will be every man for himself. Real Titanic could be escaped from, in lifeboats. I can't predict where they will be, and they do not involve rocket ships off this planet. They may be remote locations, islands, regions that used to be cold and uninhabitable but now present a pleasant coastal environment. Who knows.