The post you shared last year is how I found your Substack. I’ve followed a number of collapse aware bloggers for years, including John Michael Greer reference by another comment above, and have been both saddened and amazed to see how the world truly has been following such a trajectory. The reality has impacted my plans, and how we’ve raised our daughter. “Collapse now to avoid the rush” is the way I’ve heard such an idea presented often over the past two decades.
Thank you for being a beautiful voice on a difficult topic. Your original post is one I’ve shared with many folks, and I’ll be doing so with this one as well. Your work provides a more gentle entry into collapse—a gift badly needed as more people become newly aware of the challenges we collectively face.
Wow. Thanks for the lead to Greer. I live in 'Lakeland Territory', and the days in my garage shop are satisfyingly spent re-furbing and maintaining vintage English 3-speeds for regular human transportation. To give away to folks who don't fit in the F150 crew cab 'culture'. (a suggestion: NOBODY fits in that anti-culture)
A follow on to your "...what kind of world do you want to live in?" question for the broligachy is one I picked up from writer Andy Crouch in re 'advancing' computer power: "...so, just what is it that people are for, anyway?"
Me? I've two cords of deadfall oak and ash to split and stack in my woodshed. Winter is here, and there's reading and correspondence to be had by the little woodstove tucked into my bungalow's fireplace.
Your follow-on piece here, ma'am, is in Roy Kent-ish terms, just ****ing brilliant.
Hi Rosie. I’m sat on a train and your email landed in my inbox- sometimes things happen for a reason (or at least that’s a notion I like to believe sometimes!) Either way, thank you for introducing this concept. I’m an academic child psychiatrist and much of my work, fundamentally, is about hope. Hope is the crux of humanity. Without it we simply can’t be. On some level everybody harbours it but how that translates into action and choices is complex. You’ve given me much to mull over. Thank you!
Ah, Rosie, thank you for the shout out. I loved reading this, to be reminded there are more and more of us in this lonely space. Replying to your email now...
I’ve read enough dystopian fiction and watched enough Doctor Who to know the collapse is coming. This is a great follow up, Rosie. I mean, it’s difficult to swallow, that bitter pill when you watch a bunch of billionaires who could save the planet fritter away their chance by building giant c*ck extensions to launch themselves off our beautiful planet. But every day we make choices of who to support and how. Thanks for this piece.
And as I still think what I commented on that piece is important, I'm going to say it again: The apocalypse-as-war-zone is a fable told by these systems to make sure we keep upholding them, a fable that teaches us life without the systems would be worse than life with them. Because otherwise, we would never tolerate them.
The pushback to Klein’s “We all have to live here together” is that Kirk and his ilk don’t believe it themselves. They see a world in which they don’t have to live here together with us, one which minorities, LGBTQ+, etc. will essentially be removed from their society. I would reevaluate backing that claim by Klein. Make no mistake, they are not planning to live together with us,
My moment of awakening to the inevitability of collapse was in 1986. So, I've had a fair time to observe, and deepen my understanding. In that time I also got married and raised a son with my wife. So there is a way to accommodate the idea of a world that is gone. in fact, it is no different from living with the idea of one's mortality. For that question we have invented an endless array of beliefs, rituals, and strategies.
Humans always find a way to become confused by the deeper currents of nature. Let it go.
I read your piece a year ago when we were all in shock, and like what you wrote today. As one who raised children to accept that life is sometimes hard and uncomfortable, I can tell you that you WILL have an empathetic adult son one day - mine is now 54 and spends time talking online and in person with people he disagrees with. I agree with your description of the world I want to live in, do live in, value and love, and applaud all of us who insist on its reality. Rumi wrote "Where there is ruin, you will find treasure." Thanks for this, Rosie. PS I envy your allotment.
People are calling it collapse because it sounds like an ending, it has a nice, finite ring to it, with sunshine afterwards, when in reality it will be decades or even hundreds of years of dystopia with evil men at the helm of an evil empire. You are first and foremost a unit on a profit farm. Your autonomy will be curtailed, ai, surveillance, robots, police and cbdcs will keep your boundaries in check, you'll be offered a range of activities, and several brands to choose from.
A lovey and strangely comforting read, helping me feel much less alone in this line of thinking! Hello from Coast Salish Homelands on Canada's west coast.
I wonder if you are familiar with: 1. The book "The Mushroom at the End of the World" by Anna Tsing, and 2. The amazing question, "Why is it easier for us to imagine the end of the world instead of the end of [extractive, all-consuming, destructive] capitalism?"
A lovey and strangely comforting read, helping me feel much less alone in this line of thinking! Hello from Coast Salish Homelands on Canada's west coast.
I wonder if you are familiar with: 1. The book "The Mushroom at the End of the World" by Anna Tsing, and 2. The amazing question, "Why is it easier for us to imagine the end of the world instead of the end of [extractive, all-consuming, destructive] capitalism?"
The post you shared last year is how I found your Substack. I’ve followed a number of collapse aware bloggers for years, including John Michael Greer reference by another comment above, and have been both saddened and amazed to see how the world truly has been following such a trajectory. The reality has impacted my plans, and how we’ve raised our daughter. “Collapse now to avoid the rush” is the way I’ve heard such an idea presented often over the past two decades.
Thank you for being a beautiful voice on a difficult topic. Your original post is one I’ve shared with many folks, and I’ll be doing so with this one as well. Your work provides a more gentle entry into collapse—a gift badly needed as more people become newly aware of the challenges we collectively face.
Thank you, that's such a lovely comment. "Collapse now to avoid the rush" >> !!! I had not heard that before, it's perfect.
Want a vision of a viable prosperous collapse conscious future? Read Retrotopia by John Michael Greer https://goodreads.com/book/show/33258426-retrotopia
Wow. Thanks for the lead to Greer. I live in 'Lakeland Territory', and the days in my garage shop are satisfyingly spent re-furbing and maintaining vintage English 3-speeds for regular human transportation. To give away to folks who don't fit in the F150 crew cab 'culture'. (a suggestion: NOBODY fits in that anti-culture)
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
A follow on to your "...what kind of world do you want to live in?" question for the broligachy is one I picked up from writer Andy Crouch in re 'advancing' computer power: "...so, just what is it that people are for, anyway?"
Me? I've two cords of deadfall oak and ash to split and stack in my woodshed. Winter is here, and there's reading and correspondence to be had by the little woodstove tucked into my bungalow's fireplace.
Your follow-on piece here, ma'am, is in Roy Kent-ish terms, just ****ing brilliant.
Thanks.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15.
Hi Rosie. I’m sat on a train and your email landed in my inbox- sometimes things happen for a reason (or at least that’s a notion I like to believe sometimes!) Either way, thank you for introducing this concept. I’m an academic child psychiatrist and much of my work, fundamentally, is about hope. Hope is the crux of humanity. Without it we simply can’t be. On some level everybody harbours it but how that translates into action and choices is complex. You’ve given me much to mull over. Thank you!
Ah, Rosie, thank you for the shout out. I loved reading this, to be reminded there are more and more of us in this lonely space. Replying to your email now...
I’ve read enough dystopian fiction and watched enough Doctor Who to know the collapse is coming. This is a great follow up, Rosie. I mean, it’s difficult to swallow, that bitter pill when you watch a bunch of billionaires who could save the planet fritter away their chance by building giant c*ck extensions to launch themselves off our beautiful planet. But every day we make choices of who to support and how. Thanks for this piece.
I've found this piece extremely hopeful and useful in this discussion: https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/moving-from-who-is-going-to-save
And as I still think what I commented on that piece is important, I'm going to say it again: The apocalypse-as-war-zone is a fable told by these systems to make sure we keep upholding them, a fable that teaches us life without the systems would be worse than life with them. Because otherwise, we would never tolerate them.
The pushback to Klein’s “We all have to live here together” is that Kirk and his ilk don’t believe it themselves. They see a world in which they don’t have to live here together with us, one which minorities, LGBTQ+, etc. will essentially be removed from their society. I would reevaluate backing that claim by Klein. Make no mistake, they are not planning to live together with us,
My moment of awakening to the inevitability of collapse was in 1986. So, I've had a fair time to observe, and deepen my understanding. In that time I also got married and raised a son with my wife. So there is a way to accommodate the idea of a world that is gone. in fact, it is no different from living with the idea of one's mortality. For that question we have invented an endless array of beliefs, rituals, and strategies.
Humans always find a way to become confused by the deeper currents of nature. Let it go.
I read your piece a year ago when we were all in shock, and like what you wrote today. As one who raised children to accept that life is sometimes hard and uncomfortable, I can tell you that you WILL have an empathetic adult son one day - mine is now 54 and spends time talking online and in person with people he disagrees with. I agree with your description of the world I want to live in, do live in, value and love, and applaud all of us who insist on its reality. Rumi wrote "Where there is ruin, you will find treasure." Thanks for this, Rosie. PS I envy your allotment.
People are calling it collapse because it sounds like an ending, it has a nice, finite ring to it, with sunshine afterwards, when in reality it will be decades or even hundreds of years of dystopia with evil men at the helm of an evil empire. You are first and foremost a unit on a profit farm. Your autonomy will be curtailed, ai, surveillance, robots, police and cbdcs will keep your boundaries in check, you'll be offered a range of activities, and several brands to choose from.
A lovey and strangely comforting read, helping me feel much less alone in this line of thinking! Hello from Coast Salish Homelands on Canada's west coast.
I wonder if you are familiar with: 1. The book "The Mushroom at the End of the World" by Anna Tsing, and 2. The amazing question, "Why is it easier for us to imagine the end of the world instead of the end of [extractive, all-consuming, destructive] capitalism?"
A lovey and strangely comforting read, helping me feel much less alone in this line of thinking! Hello from Coast Salish Homelands on Canada's west coast.
I wonder if you are familiar with: 1. The book "The Mushroom at the End of the World" by Anna Tsing, and 2. The amazing question, "Why is it easier for us to imagine the end of the world instead of the end of [extractive, all-consuming, destructive] capitalism?"
A world that normalizes Genocide.. and let's those same people still in charge of things.. is a sick world.
Perfectly timed with Tomas Pueyo's equally dystopian article on our post-AI economy
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/when-ai-takes-our-jobs?r=1kw6bb
Deep breath, deep breaths...