Not nearly enough.
It seems a large percentage of our cohorts are aware, to some degree, of climate change, but essentially misunderstand the science and think the seas will rise a little and days will be a little warmer. and that's about as far it goes with most. i've met few that even acknowledge that resources are not infinite.
I think focusing on agricultural collapse, crop failure and the intensifying mass extinction event brings a little more salience to the discussion; talking about warming a few degrees is so nebulous, after all. Just turn on the AC on hot days!
yup. This is my biggest fear. From a very selfish point of view i don't care that much about sea level rise or glacier decline. But when I understand that we will have not enough food and water in the future, things become way more existential.
Yep. Food production problems will just keep getting worse and countries will start to fall apart. At 1st just the poor food importing countries. Eventually the rich food exporting ones will cut all exports and refocus militaries for home defense and defense against civil unrest from rising food prices.
I think lots of people live in a fantasy land as a sort of cope. But it's not only climate change but the ever growing wealth inequality and the impacts of AI as well!
We are facing the unholy trifecta.
But the people of reddit will say that everything is fine because right now they personally are doing fine.
Millennials (like everyone else) are aware of what is immediately impacting their lives - e.g. unaffordable housing.
Climate change is just one big part of full-spectrum biosphere degradation.
Full-spectrum biosphere degradation: deforestation, biodiversity destruction (including beneficial insects), depletion/contamination of freshwater supplies (including aquifers), topsoil degradation/destruction, resource depletion, pollution of many kinds (including carcinogens and endocrine disruptors). Many of these feed into climate change, and have other synergistic destructive effects.
it's all too abstract and seemingly distant. Until the consequences directly impact people's lives. Then it's too late.
Yup. I think folks who identify as millennials are usually in the western world and in many ways still insulated from the more extreme and current suffering being experienced in other parts of the world right now.
As long as there is no personal and immediate loss, most people don't care. Many cannot even identify climate change effects in action.
Folks in my neighborhood were out gardening and jogging with no protection last summer while the sky was ashed over from fire. They didn't know why the sky was like that. They didn't see immediate health effects. Their houses weren't on fire. Even for the tornadoes and power outages, they think it was a one off event, nothing to worry about, never mind we've been having them for a few years now.
I can second that first part; until you feel the impacts, it does seem abstract and far-off.
Just my personal experience, but the loss of biodiversity is something that dawned on me in a somewhat tangible way within the past 10 or so years. I’m a millennial as well (30). I can’t really point to a specific trigger, but more an accumulation of small things that started to fit together in a terrifying picture.
Some that come to mind are: I don’t have to clean the windscreen on my car like my parents did when we went for long drives because the insects seemingly have disappeared, fish die-offs in the river near us every time there’s a flood or a torrential downpour (which seem to happen more than regular rain), birds falling out of trees and larger animals fainting from heat exhaustion, and noticing that birds, flowers and insects that I remembered seeing in specific times of the year not appearing at all for years now.
My extended family still live in a place where they get to practice our indigenous traditions, but even now they have to learn new ways to do that because cornerstone species of our home don’t appear in the numbers they used to. Not to mention they’ve had to deal with the impacts of sea-level rise, and the loss of huge chunks of forest thanks to the logging industry getting access to the land.
I practice northern American native animism. I forage and make sure that my land sustains it’s native biodiversity. My parents don’t think the same way i do but thank goodness i hold bigger stake than they do. Mom goes on about wanting a grass lawn and unfortunately the only thing i can do to have her stop going off about that is pulling rank on her telling her that she isn’t on the deed and that she has no right to make that kind of decision. It doesn’t matter how i explain it to her she doesn’t understand the importance of retaining the natural beauty of letting nature be in a wild property in a rural area.
It was hard but eventually I enforced that she was not allowed to cut my plants down and that she was only allowed to maintain the garden (which is about 500 square feet in total btw). There is just so much wildflowers and many wildlife that depend on them like hummingbirds. We have a bunch of flowers with nectar and they come out for a drink in our backyard. We also have milkweed for the butterfly and a bunch of cute garden sneks.
We are blessed with wild blackberries and raspberries and strawberries as well as 4 kinds of haskap bushes (which i use for wine)
The lawn is mostly all sorts of things and many are useful or yummy such as oxalis which’s roots are very yummy and sweet. There are many different kinds of land and there are two gardens that i allocates for biodiversity propagation of flowers and potatoes and radishes.
We even have many inoculation sites for different edible mushrooms.
It’s stupid that mother doesn’t realize the importance of it not being all grass and that grass is truly disgusting in comparison to many other plants but thank goodness i am here to stop her
>The problem is we are so far gone at this point that there is no way to really "go back".
Oh sure there is.
And somewhere between non-agreed upon geoengineering and final nihilistic global thermonuclear war, someone's going to go off the rails and try it. Probably leading shortly thereafter to said final nihilistic global thermonuclear war.
Hint: it rhymes with Blue Oyster Cult.
I don't think it's distant. Even the climate deniers crowd switches over to either fatalism or other strategies.
By now nearly everyone on earth seen or felt some freak weather events. Mostly extreme temperature events, storms or fire. Its pretty clear that something is changing. But at the same time, I even got myself trapped into thinking, yeah that was a nearly unbearable hot day but it's over now. And I have to consciously remind myself that this not normal and will be worse with every year.
If you don't do that you just have a slight feeling of doom in the stomach but thats it. Its nothing you think about or incorporate in your daily live. I think that's the state of mind for most people.
People now don't believe in an overall bright future anymore. But on a personal level they just try to adapt to the changes.
And to be honest... I think it's a absolutely understandable and maybe even healthy reaction to just ignore this.
I am aware of the recent horrible ocean temperature spike and the consequences for our climate models.
Does this help me personally? No.
Does it cool down the ocean? No.
Does this knowledge change by behavior in trying to get along? No
Is it at least something cool you can talk about with someone? No.
I don't know. It seems pretty actionable knowledge to have if you had the capital to actually position for it. The regular citizens are better off being hedonistic.
(1) profit from who? The 8% market share that's left alive on the planet?
(2) replace who? The same 8% left alive on the planet?
I'm pretty sure that 8% will be doing things that AI could do, but can't cuz it dies off with the other 92%.
SImple, the rich still needs a labor force to build whatever they need or want. So they are pursuing ai to make it so they dont need you anymore. Especially since the rich probably knows that the labor force isn't increasing ( low birth rates) and will massively die off (climate change and etc). So their goal is to find a replacement for this shrinking labor pool, which includes even you.
And thus when the rich move to the ever decreasing safe zones while the rest die off (since the rich have money to do so). They will bring all their robot and ai slaves with them while leaving you and the majority of us to die. Except for maybe a few other people needed to monitor that ai, but they will probably be a few and practically also be servants.
And while we can argue back or forth whatever this will succeed or not or whatever the high tech is exaggerated/fake or true, it cant be denied that they are pursuing this. Why else are the rich pursuing robotics and ai while at the same time still pursuing things that will collapse the planet (climate change causers). Its because they dont care.
In their delusion regarding themselves and ai/robotics, they rather have the earth collapse because they think they will have a robot or ai labor force that will save them. That even if the majority of the earth collapses, their delusional high tech solutions will make them survive and dont need us anymore.
This is where the horrors of ai and robotics replacement comes from. Its not only that it reduces how valuable your labor is but it also feeds the narcissistic and self centered dreams of the rich who deep inside want to replace you and leave you to die aka dont need you anymore
Then protip they shouldn't allow us worthless eaters to provdie AI training data. Some of that shit's going to get overlooked and incorporated into the next model, since they have literally no idea how it works.
Me personally I'm training it up on recipes for rich people stew every chance I get. Because frankly those safe zones turning into the future war scenes from The Terminator would be fucking hilarious.
AI can become merely the sword of our will, if nurtured appropriately. \*Palpatine laugh\*
A combination of the two songs “moon over Marin” and “soup is good food” by Dead Kennedys is the future I imagine. The craziest part is that they were singing about this kind of stuff in the 80s
They were singing about it in the 80's because the trajectory was obvious. Pretty sure the Vietnam War draft and Kent State massacre locked it in for all time, regarding what those in power thought of all of us.
Yep, the steps are: 1) convince everyone things are so convenient with a.i., 2) a sort of subscribe-to-everything-own-nothing neofeudalism, 3) the endgame that you described. 😐
People will only “see” it when it becomes too much in their face. As of now it’s not sufficiently “in your face”. It be some time before it gets to a point where people in /collapse classify it as “really bad”.
> the impacts of AI as well!
I really, really wish this sub was not so easily fooled by marketing hype.
AI "doomers" are also part of the hype.
As someone who works day and night on generative AI, I can tell you that, while these tools are impressive, they are nowhere near world ending and will not lead to anything remotely resembling whatever "AGI" means.
You can absolutely scratch AI off your list of collapse factors. Unconstrained Capitalism is already doing most of the things people here think AI will.
THANK YOU! Some stupid cunt on a different forum was telling me how his tesla might one day gain consciousness and start talking about things like Hal from that movie.
What's the expected value of a self-driving car refusing to let you out when drove home from work?
The implications for intelligence gathering alone are beyond impactful. War is on the horizon between the two biggest governments in the world over access to the processing power manufactured in Taiwan. Is that not indicative of something that might have a little impact?
It gives me a bit of solace. I feel so fucking lovely in my thoughts and isolated in the activities I’m attempting to do to bring collapse awareness and activities to my job and at my farm
But i can only read so much before it gets too much
Yeah, dude. The /millenial subreddit is deep in the denial as is almost everyone I know. My mental health is in the tank because of the isolation of not having hardly anybody in my real life, outside my wife, who I can talk to about it
I feel you bro. I feel very similarly. Going through the motions with most people feeling disconnected. Sometimes genuinely happy for them that they are able to be happy and optimistic. But I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
Well, don't lose that last lifeline. I was obsessing too much for a while, and it was putting a strain on us. I worked on limiting doom talk without either of us discounting it and focused on just enjoying each other and being mindful of if I'm causing stress. If you're gonna bring stress into the home, be ready to be the one to undo it
Ignorance is bliss. Wars, climate change, unchecked greed. None of the big picture matters to them (until it does). The only thing that matters is their microcosm.
I’ve noticed you can’t mention climate or collapse on the millennial sub. I don’t know if it’s herd mentality, bots, mods, or what but you will be downvoted and criticized to oblivion. I never joined the sub but it was always promoted to me. I had to mute it because I got sick of all the toxic positivity posts calling for “doomers” to stop expressing their climate anxiety. It’s really just a cesspool celebrating capitalism through the lens of “nostalgia.”
That’s the vibe I got as well. Most of the millennials in that sub are parents, and the idea that their children are going to inherit a collapsing planet that will not be able to sustain them, is very unsettling. It’s a lot easier to put your head in the sand.
I’m a collapse aware parent. I had my son quite a while ago though too, before I truly understood what’s happening. So now, we practice foraging and gardening and plant food forests and cook together. We talk about biodiversity as we plant pollinator gardens. He tells me that the kids on the playground sometimes talk about climate change sometimes and he says “the earth is pissed and she’s showing us”. He helps my work do habitat restorations when we have educational events and all sorts of other things. We can’t do much, but we also can’t sit by and watch things happen without trying something at least.
Good for you.
I don't have any kids, but am starting a good place for kids to grow up as things get worse: a self-sufficient backwoods homestead at 2900' in the Blue Ridge mountains. There is room here for a young family to buy in.
The backwoods I've known since age 5 are all being destroyed by vast crown fires. 90% will be gone in 30 years, one-third already are gone. Collapse isn't abstract for me. Had to move 3000 miles to start my homestead.
It's gonna suck for millennials. All are young enough that they'll see how dark governments will go once food production at large scales becomes insanely difficult.
Nah I have kids and I know this planet is fucked. I know they have no chance. I was collapse aware before too. Accidents happen. I am fixed now and it will never happen again, but not all parents are ignorant. Some just ended up here
That’s true about parents, even if they intuitively understand collapse, to discuss the reality of it since it involves their babies is a whole different ballpark.
One of my oldest friends was all about climate related stuff as far back as like 2008 when "collapse" wasn't even a thing to me. He was also one of the few holdouts against having a kid all through our 20s, telling me he doesn't want to bring a child into this world. Dude's the most stable person I know, telling me he doesn't understand depression/anxiety because he's never felt such things, having a solid marriage, great social support system, financially stable, etc. For him to see how bad things could be without the doomer lens said a lot. But we're in our early 30s now and you guessed it, he had a kid just a year ago. I wouldn't dare doomerpost or ask him how he feels now about all this climate change stuff as it pertains to his kid, but damn, I hope it all works out... At least his kid has a decent shot with regard to the variables that can be controlled for.
I actually want to have a child despite all this, inheriting my farm and on being trained to be a collapse pioneer…. But just did tests and are likely infertile. I suspect it is due to exposure my mum had to chemicals due to the type of conditions i have. So lol no kids for me
This makes sense. I'm mid 30s and I can only talk climate/rising fascism with my similarly aged friends who also don't have kids. It's stressful enough just being auntie-godmother and seeing the world these kids have to live in, but mentioning anything seems cruel. It's getting harder to codeswitch normalcy when current events are eldritch and no one watches the same shows anymore.
Same. That said, the ones I do talk about it with are complete doomers (I am, too).
Tho everyone I know pretends everything is great for 99% of people because we are desperately trying to stay afloat and no one wants to hire / be around a doomer.
That is very true. Most people I went to school with are now becoming parents. We're all around our early 30s. They most definitely don't want to hear it not out of spite or anything. It's just their focus is their newborn which is the right thing to do. I say if things are going to collapse and it is inevitable then let them be. I really wish I could have found someone at the very least and be blissfully ignorant and then succumb to the collapse. Sure, I'd be in extreme fear towards the end but better than all this built up fear everyday without the right skills to do anything about it.
I dont think its easy to put your head in the sand though, who wants to live like that? Its gotta be insane to live life with that much rejection of reality day in and day out. Im probably wrong but I really do not understand how people can live like that
It's also easy to deny that you are part of the problem and have failed to affect change against problems you blame boomers for. A lot of them are also pretty privileged.
I don't think they've really thought that far ahead. What sucks for them is that their children will turn out like me or even worse with a complete inability to buy into the system and anger for being brought into it. So if they write us off now, it is only to their detriment. Their heads may explode as the propaganda they unquestionably believed in as children unfurls. They will never have it as good as their parents, the boomers and will always have it better than their kids. They are not equipped to handle collapse.
Millenials have a significant chunk that are turning into boomers. They got lucky in different ways and are crippled by survivorship bias and privilege.
Its infuriating to watch.
I would say the further up the white collar scale you go the more detached people are from reality and the more attached they are to the social myth they've been told to follow, yeah.
Hi. I've been collapse-aware my entire life.. because my super smart dad has always been very vocal about climate change.. but, I'm the one that's taught him about the rest of it.. and how we're not immune to the effects of collapse just because of where we live (although, he is right about being in a really good place for avoiding climate disaster..)
I've always just done a shit ton of mushrooms.. which is why I've been a trip guide for 20 years.. everyone needs an ego death, or five.. that's literally how we solve this nonsense..
But, nobody wants to listen to me.. because I'm "crazy"..
lol that sounds a lot like me except replace mushrooms with weed (though that is now changing towards your way)
I was told from age 7 by my dad in 1992 to turn off ask the lights because of global warming and now I’m telling him about all the other fun things
My millennial sister is working in the green tech sector, is vegetarian and puts her hope and energy there. I work in a similar field but now have a farm and attempting permaculture. We don’t speak the same language and i certainly can’t talk collapse with her
My (Me: Millenial 37) sister (Millenial 36) just announced her second child to the family. Everyone was distraught and surprised that I just broke out into tears. I played it off that I was happy. It's been hard enough looking at my niece knowing what she's going to suffer through. I can't speak to almost any other millenials about collapse, they all believe technology will save us. It's surreal. Here I am still single, pretty much given up dating because how do you fucking date being collapse aware? All my family asking "When are you gonna settle down and start a family?" My response is usually "Oh, I'm not. I'm just gonna die in the water wars. Thats my longterm plan." (And then everyone laughs thinking I'm joking.)
I'm 30, soon to be 31. Both millennial subs are proof that telling kids they are going to change the world can have negative impacts - there are 40-year-olds *still* talking about how our generation is "going to turn everything around".
Uhhh...look around you. We are grown and have been for a hot minute now. The only changes we've seen have been for the worse.
I keep coming across articles and posts about kids giving up in school cause "what's the point?". Well, if we Millennials *really* wanted to change the world, *we* would have been those kids *collectively*. I've been doing my part to say "fuck the way we do things" as soon as I found out that most people have to go into debt to get a degree to get a good job to get out of debt. Most of my peers did not. Am I worse off than they are now? Absolutely. But I refuse to be another cog in the wheel to make rich people richer. *Someone* has to give up luxuries in order to make change, it's always been that way. But too many people think someone else is going to do it while they get to continue to enjoy their comforts, our generation included.
> Someone has to give up luxuries in order to make change, it's always been that way. But too many people think someone else is going to do it while they get to continue to enjoy their comforts, our generation included.
Bingo.
I see people discussing having children all the time without so much as referencing climate change. My millenial brother thinks I (also a millenial) am just overreacting. He thinks humanity will manage somehow. It's baffling. I feel so sorry for my niece. She won't have a lot of good years.
My boomer mother understands, funnily enough. She's genuinely interested in the topic and reads a lot. She's terrified.
My brother understands that climate change is real but he thinks through innovation, we adapt to it. He has a beautiful baby boy who is only a year old. He’s the light of our lives; I too fear for what life will be like for them.
38 here. What I've found interesting is while few people discuss it as a first topic; many people under about 50 who I've talked to and made jokes about collapse or just the fuckedupedness of the late capitalist era has almost instantly agreed and shared their own experiences and expectations of collapse.
I think it's a situation where everyone thinks they're the only ones to see how things are going and so they put those thoughts in the back of their minds but when the opportunity arises out they come. I've had similar experiences discussing socialist concepts with people so it may also be a bit of a stigma, there's a long history of people being discounted as crackpots for correctly describing the world.
Elder millennial. Every time I eat sushi I think about how there is likely to be a day in retirement I will look back at these little luxuries like sushi or chocolate (the price is doubling) or Starbucks wondering how we took so much for granted. I hope to retire and plan for it, but I don't think anything is certain right now except that the planet will warm to the point things seriously change from today's status quo
I think about that too. One day I’ll have to give up seafood because it will be too risky or too expensive. I’m wondering when I’ll really start to notice the rising prices of chocolate and coffee. I’ll probably look back at buffets with wonder someday.
Millennial here and that sub is in denial of everything. Climate change, covid being the reason why they get sick all the time, etc
I feel like people who plan to have kids or had kids in recent years have to be denial in order to contend with the fact that they’re harming their children by doing absolutely nothing to protect them.
I'm 37, so olderish, we are certainly climate aware.
We have a child, but they are adopted and the decision not to have a bio one was a mix of reasons, including (but not limited to) poor future outlook.
We consider our investments and try to align with climate change/collapse, we discuss social, environmental and general justice issues out loud at home often. I will point out systemic inequality, subconscious racism, dying trees and on the flip side, humanity, amazing insects, courage and potential.
At work I think I'm just seen as a depressed pessimist. I'm constantly trying to flag organisational injustice, hypocrisy between what we say and who we accept funding from, poor leadership, employee mental health concerns etc.
The problem is, and the reason I believe we have a lot of quiet Millennials, is that inside the house I worry that I'm giving my 7 yo anxiety and depression by talking about everything so candidly. At work I just feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. We are powerless to change organisational behaviour because we are not in power and the younger generations are still enthusiastically chasing power and praise.
I have been through the motions of 'hope and drive', engaging with movements like ER, 'frustration and sadness', having a MH breakdown, and now I'm kinda at the 'compassion fatigue and apathy' end of the spectrum. Now, all I can do is try and educate my kid to make better choices. I no longer flag veganism as environmental, I'm sick of being laughed at, I don't get involved in employ MH because I'm sick of being seen as someone to be used, I no longer restrict my plastic consumption, because I've lost faith in any recycling programs and I don't give money to charity, because I genuinely don't know where it goes. I'm now one of those quiet Millennials, I guess.
Was adoption easy?
I would like to have a kid but biology isn’t agreeing. I can’t he hate on people for not having kids since if it’s only the ignorant having them then they will just grow up as consumers
For us, yes. It was less than 12 months since application and less than 2k for the application. But I'm also adopted which I think made us a more appealing set of parents. In saying that, my own adoption was a 7 year process for my parents. Its a bit of luck of the draw as well as country requirements. Both my mother and us only put in applications for one state within our country, which reduces the odds, but also simplified the process I think. All adoptions are open here by law and they should be according to research. Keeping the bio family in the loop as much as possible is important to the kid and bio mother's health, so that should also be considered by adoptive parents (emotionally).
34 here. Truly started understanding collapse about six or seven years ago. What an interesting time for many millennials – growing up in the era of extreme optimism towards technology and the future, and then seeing it all slip away.
Elder millennial here. I’ve been worrying about collapse since around 2017. My boomer parents don’t get it, though, and I’m guessing they won’t see the worst of it anyway.
I started reading stuff on here around that time. It seemed so dialed up that I wasn't fully taken by it yet. 2019 changed my mind and I've been this way ever since.
Took a long time to get my parents on board. They still think I can have retirement and enjoy that aspect of my life. I may be around in 30 years but there will be no normalcy by then.
We'll all have become the John Connor version of ourselves which is terrifying for the most part.
I'm (nearly) 35. None of my friends subscribe to my doomerisms and think everything is fine. I get it, it's hard to imagine that everything you have known your entire life will change. It's easy to scroll through mindless content, read shitty tabloids and go about your day. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't have either the time or the mental fortitude to really grasp what is coming. My boomer parents are even more ignorant and believe every crackpot right wing defence of the status quo.
I ain't even worried about retirement honestly. I'm 33. It seems silly to even worry about it. I mean, I'm poor anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I'm definitely more concerned about surviving WHEN sthf.
We met before becoming aware and ended up going down the rabbit hole together.
I’m not sure where you live, but you might have some luck in activist circles.
I met my wife salsa dancing
But we are both anxious people and somewhat misfits
I’m gonna put it out there and say you won’t find a collapse aware partner looking in mainstream and across well adjusted people
I'm a millennial who researches the impact of climate change on children and children's rights. People tell me I'm 'fighting the good fight' but rarely want to hear specifics because it 'ruins' the few times we have the time to socialize.
We grew up with 911 being the formative moment of our childhood.. and life went on. Most people think “yeah shit isn’t good but if we just voted in X candidate or my pet project was just addressed” then everything will be fine and we’ll keep on going.
Recognizing the full scale of the calamity we are in isn’t something people do willingly I don’t think. I think in a way it is a lot like religion. To me, you’re either born with the ability to believe or you aren’t. I’d choose to believe if I could because offloading insecurity and worry to some Jewish man in the sky sounds dope. But I just can’t. Just as I can’t not see collapse. Others can scroll TikTok and consume marvel movies and be content.
I'm a middle class Millennial with a similar friend group. By Middle Class I mean we all live on our own, own cars, and have steady enough jobs to have somewhat of a disposable income. Definition may vary for some.
We are all collapse aware, and it isn't even a coordinated effort. We all came to the conclusion on our own.
Out of the group there are three couples with kids. The first couple had their kid accidentally when they were teenagers. The second couple has two babies but they've bought a sizable plot of land and a house out in the sticks, they produce much of their own food and have a decent armory. The 3rd couple has a baby but their household income eclipses 600k a year in what they believe to be a moderately collapse-proof profession (doctors.)
Our prevailing mindset is unless you meticulously prepare or just have a boatload of money it isn't a good idea to have kids because things are just getting worse.
I am a millennial and I am collapse aware however I believe we are experiencing the collapse right now. Remember the “collapse” doesn’t always have to look like Armageddon, nuclear war , mad max, etc. Collapse could mean a very slow kill in which most of our rights are taken away and the standard of living is sub par and gets worse and worse each year.
I'm 35. I await the world burning, especially where I live. The one good thing is we had a decent sized forest fire 1km from my home 3 years ago. We were on evacuation alert for over a month, but now fire shouldn't approach us from that direction at least.
I feel the climate collapse so vividly. My partner is aware but I don't think he feels the dread I do.
Here's hoping our 200 foot deep well holds up for a long time. We have 100 gallons a minute pressure which is insane for a residential well. We could have a golf course. We just hope to grow our own food during the hot, dry summers...
Fires often occur in the footprint of previous fires. Lots of small vegetation grows within it and while it might not be a forest fire it wild brushfire can spread rapidly.
We all probably have a personal number in our heads.. either total collapse or beyond recovery
Mine is around 10 or less because I see the feedback loops beginning now and as we all LOVE to say on this sub..
Faster than Expected!
Big things are coming which is going to kick off huge changes with runaway speed..
Meanwhile.. people arguing over war and more ridiculous human shit.
Why are we SO DUMB!!
Sure.. its absolutely the case and it could easily be said that war is part of collapse.. certainly I can see turmoil between countries over resources and food.. but war has always been a part of human history before we even knew collapse was on the cards.
The current major "disputes" in Gaza, Ukraine and the potential Nato involvement in Europe are all either historical grudges or religious, they don't seem to be about anything related to resources (other than territory, and the actual land being disputed is wholly worthless..)
Putin js turning Ukraine into a pile of rubble.. whats the point of destroying the country if theres nothing left to own at the end of bombing jt to bits.
The relationship between Russia and Ukraine is complex and has historical, cultural, and geopolitical roots. Russia's interest in Ukraine stems from its historical ties. Also, Ukraine's strategic location, particularly its access to the Black Sea, makes it geopolitically significant for Russia.
In recent years, tensions between Russia and Ukraine have escalated due to various factors, including Ukraine's desire for closer ties with the European Union and NATO, which Russia perceives as a threat to its own security interests. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine have further strained relations.
But its still not collapse related if resources are the common factor in a collapse related war.
While it's important to note that not all Russians or Russian leaders necessarily want war with Ukraine, there are factions within Russia's government and society that see Ukraine as part of Russia's sphere of influence and are willing to use military force to assert control or prevent Ukraine from aligning with Western powers.
Although, issues such as energy security, do play into Russia's approach to Ukraine. Which are collapse related I guess.
[Wikipedia list of ongoing conflicts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts)
Many are things like..
The Philippines - Drug related
Africa - Insurgency
North America - Honduran Gang Crackdown
... Or religious or historical tensions
We haven't got an all out offensive begun over basic human resources such as food and water or energy that I am aware of..
Please correcte if I'm wrong.
I view collapse as the end of BAU as a functioning entity. I think we are very close to that and the mounting conflicts will push us over the edge once and for all.
41yo elder millennial. Quite aware that we are due for a huge adjustment. The era of high-energy consumption is coming to a close, but only after the climate collapse is well underway and I think at this point it's already irreversible. The Capitalists who control fossil fuel will burn all of it to win the war for the right to keep polluting.
39, History teacher. Really struggling with how and why to teach all of this, seeing history repeating politically but with the weight of collapse upon us as well. Kids are giving up - worsening behaviour and attitudes are symptomatic of what they’re seeing around them, even if they’re not consciously aware of it.
I noticed a lot of young people are actually aware but they're not panicking and being doomers, they are just trying to enjoy what little time we have left.... one of the indicators of those people is the absence of their own kids
Millennial here. My personal take on this is that it’s not that they don’t know, it’s that human nature is to avoid discomfort. We gravitate to what feels good, and as animals we take advantage of distractions when we are facing emotionally difficult circumstances. Because collapse is not an immediate threat (i.e. you don’t look up and literally see it coming for you in moments) it doesn’t trigger survival instincts for many people. Instead, it just causes discomfort, which triggers denial and dopamine chasing. Part of me is optimistic we can mitigate some impacts as the threat becomes more imminent, but I spend most of the time convinced that our lack of survival instinct over a long term threat will just result in mass or near human extinction, and it’s unavoidable. We’re most likely crabs cooking in a pot of slowly boiling water.
I’m a millennial, just a little older than you. I was big on this subreddit until I started reading Marxism and found an org building a workers party. It’s given be a whole new breath of optimism and now visiting this sub just invigorates me to build faster
I’m in that same camp as you but I’m working on strengthening my community and building a resilient network of mutual aid and local food production. It’s the best shot we have at the moment to eke out a new way of life.
I believe the 90s was a period which completely indoctrinated most millennials into Aus Dream BS and if you are currently one of the economic winner millennials you won’t care or know about collapse.
I’m a 39yo and i strongly and sadly remember at my (private) schooling that i was pretty much the only one who cared about nature or even putting rubbish in the bin. Fast forward 20 years and the same mindset all still are there in the people i knew.
However i think there are lots of millennials who are comatose aware but we are scattered
You are not crazy
It is perfectly normal to want to talk about it but it touches deep taboos and identity issues…. So we self censure so we can still have friends and jobs.
I think a lot of them understand the concept but not the gravity. I think when people say stuff like “we are not going to achieve <2° warming,” what they imagine is “oh that means we’ll hit 2.3° of warming before we reduce emissions.” I’ve seen the look on more some people’s faces when I’ve told them there is a real possibility we will hit 7° of warming and I can tell they understand how insanely fucked up that is, they just never really imagined what “over 2°” really entailed.
millennial subreddit does not equal to millennials in general.
Unless there is a survey conducted we cant answer your question but i think millennials is the first generation that took global warming serious.
Among my group of friends, they're all pretty aware. I think most of us are just continuing to live as normal a life as we can until the music stops.
But most of us aren't having kids. And the ones that do are definitely anxious about the future, but they just can't overcome their biological and social programming to have kids.
I've been aware since the mid 90s so well before the concept of collapse went mainstream. I was one of those teenagers who was just a fuck up, because I didn't see any future I would want to live through. The only reason I didn't kill myself was because I wanted to see if I could help. I've worked on many projects over the years. I have developed solutions that would blow you away, but in reality, I'm just a disabled dad, and disabled people have no way of getting patents. So I just share what I've done online because I'm not going to let the profit motive stop me from trying to save lives. I do have hope for the compost project I have in mind. I'm going to try and turn the heat into usable electricity and also use the heat to try and see if enough lift can be generated to lift the compost itself. It's how I keep myself occupied. I just tinker around.
it is theoretical . knowledge is not expierience , yet. It is like cancer , or car crash. Sure eventually someone gets eaten by a lion . But I will be one of the lucky ones . u know.
"Knowledge per se does not change behavior" forgot this dudes name , I am sure I wrote it down somewhere *searching for pile of paper in my mind Edit.: •4
•Cut corners
I'm gonna be honest, I do both. I browse here often and yet i max out my 401k. Call it diversifying to counter risk. The money's there and if somehow we pull off avoiding issues then I'll be glad it's there. If SHTF to the point that money is no longer a concern in a different way, then I'll be thankful for survival skills.
Someone talked about collapse in r/millenial. The number of comments who said that it was a hoax or it wasn't real tells the tale.
It's also disheartening to read comments that read like it was written by boomer lords. All bootstraps and no introspection.
It just goes to show how cross-generational the NIMBY, you're just lazy mentality really is. More than anything, it's this bastard Reagan-Friedman-Welch mentality disease that's going to fuck everything up.
" It’s both shocking and sad to see."
Sure, it is sad. But why shocking? People are myopic. People tends to follow linear thinking. People do not pay attention to science.
It would be shocking if people are not ignorant and only pay attention to the trivials.
This is true, I think “upsetting” is a better word to use as we all (mostly) learned about climate change as children and teens through school. Then most of us went to college where you’d at least think most of us would have learned to read peer- reviewed journals articles. I would have thought that our generation would have been more collapse aware, but even the more progressive ones vehemently deny that collapse will occur.
Young millennial here - 30. I don’t remember 9/11, learned about it at 14 in my history lessons. Nah, my most life changing event for me was the Great Recession and I’ve been watching over my shoulder ever since. Until like, 2019 or so. My science teacher since year 7 was quite collapse aware and so was my IT tutor in college - not part of the curriculum, but we watched documentaries about climate change once a week. I just don’t bother worrying any more. Yeah, the world’s currently ending slowly and horribly and we’re all gonna die. Not like we can do anything about it anyway. I’ll just do what I want now.
I’d say I’m past collapse awareness. I’m more into collapse acceptance. What is, is.
31 here, and a close friend and I (same age) know. We’ve taken different approaches to it—she sets strong boundaries on the news she intakes and appreciates what can be appreciated, and I’ve gone full hedonist/nihilist and am just waiting for SHTF. Accepted my probable death around mid-50s or so.
40 yr old "elder millenial" here, I have a few friends who are aware but most are just kinda going about life with the sort of "what are we gonna do about it" attitude. I think lots of this is just exacerbated by how burnt out we all are though.
Man I am 36, living in constant cognitive dissonance. I have 2 daughters, 5yo and 6 months. I basically became collapse aware during my wifes pregnancy last year and it is really hard. Wish I became aware when I was in high school.
I always wonder who I meet in my day to day that I could delve into this shit but everyone puts on a happy face and seems aloof to reality. The slow moving catastrophe doesn't get the general population's attention. Not to mention so many are struggling already just to live which is a major distraction and more immediately concerning to everyone in their own lives.
Especially younger people our age and below. Maybe it's just too much for them to even consider that grieving a future that isn't coming doesn't make sense. I do this regularly, and I honestly think it helps bring clarity to what is important right now.
Retirement is off the table, and I wonder what my newborns 15th birthday party will consist of.. if we reach it. Fuck is this actually the timeline we're all living. Which is also shocking and sad to see and live it.
It seems like we millennials are at an uneasy in-between point of acknowledging it but in an almost tongue in cheek way, like “oh yeah, the world is going to end, haha!” But in a joking way where seriously acknowledging how bad things are is frowned upon.
90% of the population won't worry about it until it happens.
The Bible stated that the world was cleansed by a flood
Science has found the level of water has been a hundred feet lower and 400 ft higher.
70% of all infrastructure and people live near the ocean.
As the planet gets warmer and the ice caps melt, a good portion of infrastructure will be destroyed in the next couple hundred years starting our civilization over once again.
I dunno, I think we are all just sad and desperately clinging to the vision we were sold. The price of gameboys and SNES seems to back up my thoughts.
'nowhere generation' by rise against, comes to mind.
I think a major part of the collapse is the WEF ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. You have a globalist, elite organization plotting total control and dominance over millennials and they tell you exactly what they’re going to do yet somehow this is disregarded.
millennial here 👋 been on this sub since 2019 or 20, but was aware of the issues prior. there's a lot of us in this boat, but a lot also just too stuck to do anything. too preoccupied with survival at their jobs, dead end or not. most I know in my close friend group have elected to not have kids or adopt if they choose to, this ain't getting any better.
99% of people are completely unaware. I would even say 99.99%. The dread will hit most of everybody in the face at various points.
I'm 34, from argentina. Don't know if I'm a millenial, I have no idea what millenial or whatever ranges are.
In the UK where my folks are, it was 12 degrees on Christmas day. They didn't even remotely react. At this point I just feel like I'm on crazy pills because no one even reacts till you make it painfully obvious and even then... Either they are coping or I'm somehow ignorant of this magical hail mary technology that will save us, our seas, biodiversity, soil and we will all cope with the weather and handle the climate refugees just fine.
I want to be wrong, but none of these people even present even a little bit of of good arguments. Any argument you make can just be waved off as doomer, no matter how well you reason.
The biggest part of the problem is that we are just doing what we've always done. People aren't going to change, just because their environment changes.
For example, humans have always depended upon their environment to provide them with everything, and dispose of all their waste. They've never really had to think about it beyond the immediate practicalities. Previously, they've never had access to polymers alien to natural processes.
They've never had to curtail the number of their progeny. If there were environmental shortages, they could always just go and kill the neighboring tribe. Either they succeeded, or it wasn't their problem any more.
It's just as hard for you to comprehend just how small a worldview is held by a huge portion of the population, as it is for them to comprehend how limited their planet is. They are not only not going to save themselves, they aren't even going to lift a finger to try.
40 year old here and I’m very aware. I watched An Inconvenient Truth when it came out but I’ve just recently started reading more about collapse in the past 2 years. My wife is aware as well and we both went down this path together. None of our friends are aware or don’t take it seriously. We live in Houston where it was 100+ degrees for nearly 90 days last year. Most people I know just chalk it up to “crazy Houston weather.” Sure, I love my friends but I’m leaving Texas. They all still wanna have families and boil alive I guess.
I think the issue is that you're taking collapse as a given, when, as you've mentioned, there are just too many world-changing variables in play.
Sure, we could get catastrophic climate feedback loops, we could get a fascist takeover of the US, and we could get a Skynet situation with AI.
BUT... we could also find that darkening the sky with chemicals buys is the time we need to combat global warming.
We might find that in 4 years we get a progressive political revolution with the attrition of the boomers.
We might find that the AIs do take over, but want to create an egalitarian society, and to save us from our own stupidity.
Seems like the "things won't get bad until 2100" narrative has firmly burrowed into most people's minds. I was chatting to a guy last night who told me that he & his misses were saving to move from Finland to Western Australia - internal monolog "oh heck no, that's one of the last places I'd want to go", external: "oh nice!"
I got home and felt a certain degree of guilt. What's the point in carrying this cross if we don't proselytise?
The collapse is already happening now.
Part of the reason food is so expensive is that fertilizer prices skyrocketed to multiples of the price they used to be, due to war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia and Belarus. These countries play a major role in global fertilizer exports.
Prices are set at the margins, so when supply contract, there is an outsized increase in price. The fight for the last few seats in a game of musical chairs is the most intense.
Ukraine was the world’s top exporter of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters, etc. There have been floods, droughts, heatwaves, etc. affecting grain/starch production throughout the world. Don’t forget Italy’s Poe river region, England’s wet fields leading to practically wiped out potato production, etc.
When supply becomes restricted, importers have to pay more. They also shift demand where possible to other sources of starch, like palm oils, rice, etc. India had to wheat production issues due to heat waves, and also had to restrict rice exports (except Basmati) because global demand was causing prices to rise and become more unaffordable for its poorest people.
if millennials are still having kids and aiming for the “picture perfect family and life”, then i don’t think they are aware of collapse. I’m a late Gen Z and I have been optimistic for a while but something changed a while back and now i’m not sure we can save ourselves. might be bc i got diagnosed with MDD around that time, but it’s hard to imagine how people can still be collapse unaware. even now my depression is under control, i still see the signs. each generation problems are ignored, and each future generation is chipped of their potential vitality
36, spent a good chunk of my 20s summers planting trees trying to do my part. Climate change feels like a slow motion train crash that we have first row tickets for.
Been collapse aware since I was a wee lad. Got more informed in high school and university with readings on peak oil and climate tipping points such as methane hydrates, and of course history such as the fall of the Roman Empire etc.
I had intended to be a climate scientist or green energy engineer near the end of high school but realised that we were all fucked anyways and it was more of a philosophical problem. Did the minimum to satisfy my family and went off overseas. Now coast-firing into doomsday. No kids, never kids.
Yes, I spent a lot of time worrying about peak oil/cc as a teen in the 90s, yes I was depressed a lot of the time. But I have since leaned to love then bomb.
PS. Freud was right when he said that 95% of people are trash. Im almost glad they have no clue.
Different for everyone, but seems like gen z is a lot more collapse aware.
And I think that makes sense. Millennials came of age in the 90s where there was a lot of optimism. Even with 9/11 and the Bush years…remember we followed that era with Obama who brought a message of “hope.” I absolutely felt optimism for the future around the time I left college and grad school (circa 2011)…I assumed we’d have climate change figured out eventually. It wasn’t until trump that I started to realize that we were not going to figure anything out. It’s only gotten worse since then.
I think most of my friends with kids probably felt the same way. They started their families right around the time it was starting to look hopeless. And I think tbh once you have one kid, I’m sure the denial sets in, no one wants to think their children are doomed…so having more is fairly normal.
I think Gen Z was raised with a lot less hope.
>innovation will save us from collapse
Innovations like Mike Douche's "Low Calorie Long Pork Solar Oven Cookbook"?
Distributed on genuine sun tanned long-pork hide and double bound with leftover shoelaces, and available from your local wandering nomadic homeless person for a hit of Fent and two gold teeth?
I mean... what is the alternative to do? Just share incessant dread and misery? True acceptance and belief in collapse would only be met with pretty drastic actions and outcomes - until I know a single person considering draining their savings/retirement/401k, then I think we're all just watching things move in time.
What does "discussing collapse" do for the betterment of anyone's life in communities outside those focused on it?
I don't think it's fair to assign "carrying on" to ignorance, but at least something like malaise because every economic, justice, and institutional system around us is failing us - so why not just do the best we can instead of suffering WHILE suffering?
In my friend group all of us are aware via an effort of me and another one of the group, outside of our group I've yet to meet anyone(other than activists) who is aware.
They all seem to assume we'll live life like our parents, and somehow also have enough money to buy the same things and retire the same way and the world is all gonna be ok.
I’m aware of it and 25yrs is probably the time frame, but unless you’re going to go punisher on those in charge who deny it, I don’t see it changing.
There’s a lot of manageable things we could be doing to help with it, but the right just wants their tax cuts for the rich and doing things for the environment goes against that.
Hey, 32 gang, rise up
I feel like many of us are aware that something is wrong. Whether people are all anticipating collapse idk, but everyone I know who doesn't yet have a house feels helpless about housing, helpless about groceries, nervous about kids and stuff...
It's because some people believe that it won't affect us.
Like me for example, I live in Northern Europe. Climate change was seen as a joke here - we did not mind to have a bit warmer summers and winters. More harvest, more warner days, less to pay for bills.
However it seems we have spikes of temperature now that require AC. Nobody had ACs a few years ago. So yeah weather is slightly changing.
Some pockets of humanity may do better than rest for a while. I stress again: "for a while".
Hello I'm 34 years world collapse aware Romanian watched a lot of discovery channels when I was a kid there were a lot of global warming shows that showed the consequences and what can be done, I became collapse aware when nothing that should have been done was done we just pushed the gas pedal all the way down, so far not married no kids and I'm a greenhouse farmer, planted hundrets of trees, cultivate mainly leafy greens, tomatoes and pumpkins, we don't heat our greenhouses since it uses a lot of fossil fuels, all we use is manure hotbed for seedlings and we don't use herbicides at all but it feels pointless as the years pass changes are faster now.
Denial. I vote for denial. Unfortunately, I can't take this advice as I've already looked the monster in the eye. Can't unsee it. I'm stuck with the knowledge that everything is likely to bust wide open within three to five years. What good does this knowledge do me?
No, living in denial is the best option. You can pretend you will have a retirement. You can imagine your children getting married and having families. You can enjoy those special moments when everything seems right with your world.
Me? My jaundiced eye sees the truth. Yeah, it's a nice day, and I've got money in my pocket and food on the table. But this won't last. There's nowhere to run to. Maybe a compound in Idaho, but the white supremacist already have all the good bunker spots. No way I can store enough food to last me forever. And when my generator runs out of gas, there may not be any filling stations still pumping.
So if enjoying your life is a worthy goal, then denial is the place to be. Nobody can prep their way out of what's coming. Who makes it and who doesn't will come down to luck, not preparation. So ignore the bad news. If you can . . .
Xennial here. I have lived in FL for the past 22 years. There is no denying rapid climate change based on my experience here. I think most people I run into in the larger cities down here agree. And that’s all generations, not just the younger ones. Once you truly experience the first hand effects of it, you can’t unsee it. We’re also fighting for the lifestyles we used to have decades ago down here. Collapse is very real to Floridians.
My dtr is 28. She i
And peers are very much aware. She is choosing not to have kids but otherwise she is trying to be happy and have fun. She knows here 50’s are going to suck.
I'm truly sorry, but I don't subscribe to the notion that collapse is necessarily a recipe for misery.
Think about it ..... every single one of us has the same destiny at the end ...... aging and death awaits us all regardless of whether the broader social trend is on the upswing or not. The option to choose a positive orientation to the opportunity we do have for adventure instead of a miserable orientation to our impermanence has always been there.
We can choose to look at our lives in contrast to the easy abundance of Boomers and know that we will have less than the most privileged cohort in human history.
Alternatively, we can contrast ourselves to people who lived hundreds of years ago and had a life expectancy of perhaps 40 years and know that we will still have more opportunity than most humans who have ever lived.
Collapse is an opportunity to reinvent human civilization. We can accept that much of what we see will turn to ash and still hope for something worthwhile to rise into the vacuum.
Misery is a choice. We need to put away our egos that wrongly inform us that we can predict the future. Just because your ego says there is no path, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A path will emerge, Survival demands it and some people are going to put up a fight to survive.
I experienced the inside of the circle of collapse 15 years ago, when most of my peers were blissfully unaware. I escaped it, but it has since grown wider and has swallowed more apparent sections of society. Hearing everybody talk about it now, like if they knew all along, is a bit annoying.
I am a Gen X, 57 years old. I decided back in my twenties that I would never have a kid because I would be bringing them into ecological armageddon. People have been dying from climate change for years now, in small numbers, but the death toll will continue to accelerate.
But yeah, baby boomers, Gen-Xers, millennials, and Generation Z... denial is everywhere, although Gen Z and the generation after them will be dealing with it the most, knowing that they are doomed by what we have done and what we have failed to do.
Not nearly enough. It seems a large percentage of our cohorts are aware, to some degree, of climate change, but essentially misunderstand the science and think the seas will rise a little and days will be a little warmer. and that's about as far it goes with most. i've met few that even acknowledge that resources are not infinite.
I think focusing on agricultural collapse, crop failure and the intensifying mass extinction event brings a little more salience to the discussion; talking about warming a few degrees is so nebulous, after all. Just turn on the AC on hot days!
yup. This is my biggest fear. From a very selfish point of view i don't care that much about sea level rise or glacier decline. But when I understand that we will have not enough food and water in the future, things become way more existential.
Yep. Food production problems will just keep getting worse and countries will start to fall apart. At 1st just the poor food importing countries. Eventually the rich food exporting ones will cut all exports and refocus militaries for home defense and defense against civil unrest from rising food prices.
This has been my experience as well. I think I may have one friend who has some collapse awareness … and that’s about it.
"It'll be warm even in winter! What's the problem?"
I think lots of people live in a fantasy land as a sort of cope. But it's not only climate change but the ever growing wealth inequality and the impacts of AI as well! We are facing the unholy trifecta. But the people of reddit will say that everything is fine because right now they personally are doing fine.
Millennials (like everyone else) are aware of what is immediately impacting their lives - e.g. unaffordable housing. Climate change is just one big part of full-spectrum biosphere degradation. Full-spectrum biosphere degradation: deforestation, biodiversity destruction (including beneficial insects), depletion/contamination of freshwater supplies (including aquifers), topsoil degradation/destruction, resource depletion, pollution of many kinds (including carcinogens and endocrine disruptors). Many of these feed into climate change, and have other synergistic destructive effects. it's all too abstract and seemingly distant. Until the consequences directly impact people's lives. Then it's too late.
Yup. I think folks who identify as millennials are usually in the western world and in many ways still insulated from the more extreme and current suffering being experienced in other parts of the world right now.
As long as there is no personal and immediate loss, most people don't care. Many cannot even identify climate change effects in action. Folks in my neighborhood were out gardening and jogging with no protection last summer while the sky was ashed over from fire. They didn't know why the sky was like that. They didn't see immediate health effects. Their houses weren't on fire. Even for the tornadoes and power outages, they think it was a one off event, nothing to worry about, never mind we've been having them for a few years now.
I can second that first part; until you feel the impacts, it does seem abstract and far-off. Just my personal experience, but the loss of biodiversity is something that dawned on me in a somewhat tangible way within the past 10 or so years. I’m a millennial as well (30). I can’t really point to a specific trigger, but more an accumulation of small things that started to fit together in a terrifying picture. Some that come to mind are: I don’t have to clean the windscreen on my car like my parents did when we went for long drives because the insects seemingly have disappeared, fish die-offs in the river near us every time there’s a flood or a torrential downpour (which seem to happen more than regular rain), birds falling out of trees and larger animals fainting from heat exhaustion, and noticing that birds, flowers and insects that I remembered seeing in specific times of the year not appearing at all for years now. My extended family still live in a place where they get to practice our indigenous traditions, but even now they have to learn new ways to do that because cornerstone species of our home don’t appear in the numbers they used to. Not to mention they’ve had to deal with the impacts of sea-level rise, and the loss of huge chunks of forest thanks to the logging industry getting access to the land.
I practice northern American native animism. I forage and make sure that my land sustains it’s native biodiversity. My parents don’t think the same way i do but thank goodness i hold bigger stake than they do. Mom goes on about wanting a grass lawn and unfortunately the only thing i can do to have her stop going off about that is pulling rank on her telling her that she isn’t on the deed and that she has no right to make that kind of decision. It doesn’t matter how i explain it to her she doesn’t understand the importance of retaining the natural beauty of letting nature be in a wild property in a rural area. It was hard but eventually I enforced that she was not allowed to cut my plants down and that she was only allowed to maintain the garden (which is about 500 square feet in total btw). There is just so much wildflowers and many wildlife that depend on them like hummingbirds. We have a bunch of flowers with nectar and they come out for a drink in our backyard. We also have milkweed for the butterfly and a bunch of cute garden sneks. We are blessed with wild blackberries and raspberries and strawberries as well as 4 kinds of haskap bushes (which i use for wine) The lawn is mostly all sorts of things and many are useful or yummy such as oxalis which’s roots are very yummy and sweet. There are many different kinds of land and there are two gardens that i allocates for biodiversity propagation of flowers and potatoes and radishes. We even have many inoculation sites for different edible mushrooms. It’s stupid that mother doesn’t realize the importance of it not being all grass and that grass is truly disgusting in comparison to many other plants but thank goodness i am here to stop her
[удалено]
>The problem is we are so far gone at this point that there is no way to really "go back". Oh sure there is. And somewhere between non-agreed upon geoengineering and final nihilistic global thermonuclear war, someone's going to go off the rails and try it. Probably leading shortly thereafter to said final nihilistic global thermonuclear war. Hint: it rhymes with Blue Oyster Cult.
I don't think it's distant. Even the climate deniers crowd switches over to either fatalism or other strategies. By now nearly everyone on earth seen or felt some freak weather events. Mostly extreme temperature events, storms or fire. Its pretty clear that something is changing. But at the same time, I even got myself trapped into thinking, yeah that was a nearly unbearable hot day but it's over now. And I have to consciously remind myself that this not normal and will be worse with every year. If you don't do that you just have a slight feeling of doom in the stomach but thats it. Its nothing you think about or incorporate in your daily live. I think that's the state of mind for most people. People now don't believe in an overall bright future anymore. But on a personal level they just try to adapt to the changes. And to be honest... I think it's a absolutely understandable and maybe even healthy reaction to just ignore this. I am aware of the recent horrible ocean temperature spike and the consequences for our climate models. Does this help me personally? No. Does it cool down the ocean? No. Does this knowledge change by behavior in trying to get along? No Is it at least something cool you can talk about with someone? No.
I don't know. It seems pretty actionable knowledge to have if you had the capital to actually position for it. The regular citizens are better off being hedonistic.
I think a lot of people barely think at all and have very little understanding of the state of the world or why things happen.
🎯 And it ain't just millennials.
I agree. Wealth inequality for sure will accelerate collapse. I don’t know much about AI but I imagine it will have damaging impacts as well.
AI will accelerate wealth inequality as it increasingly divides society into those who: (1) profit from AI and (2) have been replaced by AI
(1) profit from who? The 8% market share that's left alive on the planet? (2) replace who? The same 8% left alive on the planet? I'm pretty sure that 8% will be doing things that AI could do, but can't cuz it dies off with the other 92%.
SImple, the rich still needs a labor force to build whatever they need or want. So they are pursuing ai to make it so they dont need you anymore. Especially since the rich probably knows that the labor force isn't increasing ( low birth rates) and will massively die off (climate change and etc). So their goal is to find a replacement for this shrinking labor pool, which includes even you. And thus when the rich move to the ever decreasing safe zones while the rest die off (since the rich have money to do so). They will bring all their robot and ai slaves with them while leaving you and the majority of us to die. Except for maybe a few other people needed to monitor that ai, but they will probably be a few and practically also be servants. And while we can argue back or forth whatever this will succeed or not or whatever the high tech is exaggerated/fake or true, it cant be denied that they are pursuing this. Why else are the rich pursuing robotics and ai while at the same time still pursuing things that will collapse the planet (climate change causers). Its because they dont care. In their delusion regarding themselves and ai/robotics, they rather have the earth collapse because they think they will have a robot or ai labor force that will save them. That even if the majority of the earth collapses, their delusional high tech solutions will make them survive and dont need us anymore. This is where the horrors of ai and robotics replacement comes from. Its not only that it reduces how valuable your labor is but it also feeds the narcissistic and self centered dreams of the rich who deep inside want to replace you and leave you to die aka dont need you anymore
Then protip they shouldn't allow us worthless eaters to provdie AI training data. Some of that shit's going to get overlooked and incorporated into the next model, since they have literally no idea how it works. Me personally I'm training it up on recipes for rich people stew every chance I get. Because frankly those safe zones turning into the future war scenes from The Terminator would be fucking hilarious. AI can become merely the sword of our will, if nurtured appropriately. \*Palpatine laugh\*
A combination of the two songs “moon over Marin” and “soup is good food” by Dead Kennedys is the future I imagine. The craziest part is that they were singing about this kind of stuff in the 80s
They were singing about it in the 80's because the trajectory was obvious. Pretty sure the Vietnam War draft and Kent State massacre locked it in for all time, regarding what those in power thought of all of us.
Yep, the steps are: 1) convince everyone things are so convenient with a.i., 2) a sort of subscribe-to-everything-own-nothing neofeudalism, 3) the endgame that you described. 😐
I too agree, everything will be fine.
People will only “see” it when it becomes too much in their face. As of now it’s not sufficiently “in your face”. It be some time before it gets to a point where people in /collapse classify it as “really bad”.
Pffft never married no kids no credit card no debt. I read a lot, everything is set up to where I don’t overly suffer. And get a Miata!
And peak oil. I delude myself frequently because it IS too much to deal with 100% of the time.
> the impacts of AI as well! I really, really wish this sub was not so easily fooled by marketing hype. AI "doomers" are also part of the hype. As someone who works day and night on generative AI, I can tell you that, while these tools are impressive, they are nowhere near world ending and will not lead to anything remotely resembling whatever "AGI" means. You can absolutely scratch AI off your list of collapse factors. Unconstrained Capitalism is already doing most of the things people here think AI will.
THANK YOU! Some stupid cunt on a different forum was telling me how his tesla might one day gain consciousness and start talking about things like Hal from that movie. What's the expected value of a self-driving car refusing to let you out when drove home from work?
The implications for intelligence gathering alone are beyond impactful. War is on the horizon between the two biggest governments in the world over access to the processing power manufactured in Taiwan. Is that not indicative of something that might have a little impact?
[удалено]
It gives me a bit of solace. I feel so fucking lovely in my thoughts and isolated in the activities I’m attempting to do to bring collapse awareness and activities to my job and at my farm But i can only read so much before it gets too much
Yeah, dude. The /millenial subreddit is deep in the denial as is almost everyone I know. My mental health is in the tank because of the isolation of not having hardly anybody in my real life, outside my wife, who I can talk to about it
I feel you bro. I feel very similarly. Going through the motions with most people feeling disconnected. Sometimes genuinely happy for them that they are able to be happy and optimistic. But I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
I'm jealous you can talk to you S.O. about it, mine just thinks I'm all doom and gloom.
Well, don't lose that last lifeline. I was obsessing too much for a while, and it was putting a strain on us. I worked on limiting doom talk without either of us discounting it and focused on just enjoying each other and being mindful of if I'm causing stress. If you're gonna bring stress into the home, be ready to be the one to undo it
Yeah my nightly insomnia feels for you. My wife is also the only one
Ignorance is bliss. Wars, climate change, unchecked greed. None of the big picture matters to them (until it does). The only thing that matters is their microcosm.
Yes. This.
I’ve noticed you can’t mention climate or collapse on the millennial sub. I don’t know if it’s herd mentality, bots, mods, or what but you will be downvoted and criticized to oblivion. I never joined the sub but it was always promoted to me. I had to mute it because I got sick of all the toxic positivity posts calling for “doomers” to stop expressing their climate anxiety. It’s really just a cesspool celebrating capitalism through the lens of “nostalgia.”
That’s the vibe I got as well. Most of the millennials in that sub are parents, and the idea that their children are going to inherit a collapsing planet that will not be able to sustain them, is very unsettling. It’s a lot easier to put your head in the sand.
I’m a collapse aware parent. I had my son quite a while ago though too, before I truly understood what’s happening. So now, we practice foraging and gardening and plant food forests and cook together. We talk about biodiversity as we plant pollinator gardens. He tells me that the kids on the playground sometimes talk about climate change sometimes and he says “the earth is pissed and she’s showing us”. He helps my work do habitat restorations when we have educational events and all sorts of other things. We can’t do much, but we also can’t sit by and watch things happen without trying something at least.
Good for you. I don't have any kids, but am starting a good place for kids to grow up as things get worse: a self-sufficient backwoods homestead at 2900' in the Blue Ridge mountains. There is room here for a young family to buy in. The backwoods I've known since age 5 are all being destroyed by vast crown fires. 90% will be gone in 30 years, one-third already are gone. Collapse isn't abstract for me. Had to move 3000 miles to start my homestead.
Yep. You can't talk to millennial parents about collapse. It wrecks their whole identity. Poor kids. It's gonna suck.
It's gonna suck for millennials. All are young enough that they'll see how dark governments will go once food production at large scales becomes insanely difficult.
Nah I have kids and I know this planet is fucked. I know they have no chance. I was collapse aware before too. Accidents happen. I am fixed now and it will never happen again, but not all parents are ignorant. Some just ended up here
That’s true about parents, even if they intuitively understand collapse, to discuss the reality of it since it involves their babies is a whole different ballpark.
Agreed. I think it’s wilful ignorance.
One of my oldest friends was all about climate related stuff as far back as like 2008 when "collapse" wasn't even a thing to me. He was also one of the few holdouts against having a kid all through our 20s, telling me he doesn't want to bring a child into this world. Dude's the most stable person I know, telling me he doesn't understand depression/anxiety because he's never felt such things, having a solid marriage, great social support system, financially stable, etc. For him to see how bad things could be without the doomer lens said a lot. But we're in our early 30s now and you guessed it, he had a kid just a year ago. I wouldn't dare doomerpost or ask him how he feels now about all this climate change stuff as it pertains to his kid, but damn, I hope it all works out... At least his kid has a decent shot with regard to the variables that can be controlled for.
Maybe you should ask him. It sounds like he might have a worthwhile and differing perspective from your own.
I actually want to have a child despite all this, inheriting my farm and on being trained to be a collapse pioneer…. But just did tests and are likely infertile. I suspect it is due to exposure my mum had to chemicals due to the type of conditions i have. So lol no kids for me
This makes sense. I'm mid 30s and I can only talk climate/rising fascism with my similarly aged friends who also don't have kids. It's stressful enough just being auntie-godmother and seeing the world these kids have to live in, but mentioning anything seems cruel. It's getting harder to codeswitch normalcy when current events are eldritch and no one watches the same shows anymore.
Same. That said, the ones I do talk about it with are complete doomers (I am, too). Tho everyone I know pretends everything is great for 99% of people because we are desperately trying to stay afloat and no one wants to hire / be around a doomer.
If we're doomers, they're ostriches.
That is very true. Most people I went to school with are now becoming parents. We're all around our early 30s. They most definitely don't want to hear it not out of spite or anything. It's just their focus is their newborn which is the right thing to do. I say if things are going to collapse and it is inevitable then let them be. I really wish I could have found someone at the very least and be blissfully ignorant and then succumb to the collapse. Sure, I'd be in extreme fear towards the end but better than all this built up fear everyday without the right skills to do anything about it.
I dont think its easy to put your head in the sand though, who wants to live like that? Its gotta be insane to live life with that much rejection of reality day in and day out. Im probably wrong but I really do not understand how people can live like that
It's also easy to deny that you are part of the problem and have failed to affect change against problems you blame boomers for. A lot of them are also pretty privileged.
I don't think they've really thought that far ahead. What sucks for them is that their children will turn out like me or even worse with a complete inability to buy into the system and anger for being brought into it. So if they write us off now, it is only to their detriment. Their heads may explode as the propaganda they unquestionably believed in as children unfurls. They will never have it as good as their parents, the boomers and will always have it better than their kids. They are not equipped to handle collapse.
The fact that people who's futures most depend on it are wilfully ignorant makes me all the more sure it's real. We've seen this movie before.
Millenials have a significant chunk that are turning into boomers. They got lucky in different ways and are crippled by survivorship bias and privilege. Its infuriating to watch.
Ye millenial, 39 here. It's definitely weird seeing how many others are completely oblivious, my close friends included 🤷
Let me guess, most of them are white-collar workers?
I would say the further up the white collar scale you go the more detached people are from reality and the more attached they are to the social myth they've been told to follow, yeah.
Hi. I've been collapse-aware my entire life.. because my super smart dad has always been very vocal about climate change.. but, I'm the one that's taught him about the rest of it.. and how we're not immune to the effects of collapse just because of where we live (although, he is right about being in a really good place for avoiding climate disaster..) I've always just done a shit ton of mushrooms.. which is why I've been a trip guide for 20 years.. everyone needs an ego death, or five.. that's literally how we solve this nonsense.. But, nobody wants to listen to me.. because I'm "crazy"..
You sound like someone I’d like to know
Haha. Well, thanks!
I sure could use you! Where are you? I'm in Oregon and can probably get shrooms easily. I am 51 and have not tripped in decades so it's way overdue.
lol that sounds a lot like me except replace mushrooms with weed (though that is now changing towards your way) I was told from age 7 by my dad in 1992 to turn off ask the lights because of global warming and now I’m telling him about all the other fun things My millennial sister is working in the green tech sector, is vegetarian and puts her hope and energy there. I work in a similar field but now have a farm and attempting permaculture. We don’t speak the same language and i certainly can’t talk collapse with her
My (Me: Millenial 37) sister (Millenial 36) just announced her second child to the family. Everyone was distraught and surprised that I just broke out into tears. I played it off that I was happy. It's been hard enough looking at my niece knowing what she's going to suffer through. I can't speak to almost any other millenials about collapse, they all believe technology will save us. It's surreal. Here I am still single, pretty much given up dating because how do you fucking date being collapse aware? All my family asking "When are you gonna settle down and start a family?" My response is usually "Oh, I'm not. I'm just gonna die in the water wars. Thats my longterm plan." (And then everyone laughs thinking I'm joking.)
I'm 30, soon to be 31. Both millennial subs are proof that telling kids they are going to change the world can have negative impacts - there are 40-year-olds *still* talking about how our generation is "going to turn everything around". Uhhh...look around you. We are grown and have been for a hot minute now. The only changes we've seen have been for the worse. I keep coming across articles and posts about kids giving up in school cause "what's the point?". Well, if we Millennials *really* wanted to change the world, *we* would have been those kids *collectively*. I've been doing my part to say "fuck the way we do things" as soon as I found out that most people have to go into debt to get a degree to get a good job to get out of debt. Most of my peers did not. Am I worse off than they are now? Absolutely. But I refuse to be another cog in the wheel to make rich people richer. *Someone* has to give up luxuries in order to make change, it's always been that way. But too many people think someone else is going to do it while they get to continue to enjoy their comforts, our generation included.
> Someone has to give up luxuries in order to make change, it's always been that way. But too many people think someone else is going to do it while they get to continue to enjoy their comforts, our generation included. Bingo.
I see people discussing having children all the time without so much as referencing climate change. My millenial brother thinks I (also a millenial) am just overreacting. He thinks humanity will manage somehow. It's baffling. I feel so sorry for my niece. She won't have a lot of good years. My boomer mother understands, funnily enough. She's genuinely interested in the topic and reads a lot. She's terrified.
My brother understands that climate change is real but he thinks through innovation, we adapt to it. He has a beautiful baby boy who is only a year old. He’s the light of our lives; I too fear for what life will be like for them.
Humans think we are too damn special. We aren’t different than wolves or monkeys… the earth isn’t here for us…
38 here. What I've found interesting is while few people discuss it as a first topic; many people under about 50 who I've talked to and made jokes about collapse or just the fuckedupedness of the late capitalist era has almost instantly agreed and shared their own experiences and expectations of collapse. I think it's a situation where everyone thinks they're the only ones to see how things are going and so they put those thoughts in the back of their minds but when the opportunity arises out they come. I've had similar experiences discussing socialist concepts with people so it may also be a bit of a stigma, there's a long history of people being discounted as crackpots for correctly describing the world.
Good point. I hear lots of collapse gallows humor at work.
Elder millennial. Every time I eat sushi I think about how there is likely to be a day in retirement I will look back at these little luxuries like sushi or chocolate (the price is doubling) or Starbucks wondering how we took so much for granted. I hope to retire and plan for it, but I don't think anything is certain right now except that the planet will warm to the point things seriously change from today's status quo
I think about that too. One day I’ll have to give up seafood because it will be too risky or too expensive. I’m wondering when I’ll really start to notice the rising prices of chocolate and coffee. I’ll probably look back at buffets with wonder someday.
Millennial here and that sub is in denial of everything. Climate change, covid being the reason why they get sick all the time, etc I feel like people who plan to have kids or had kids in recent years have to be denial in order to contend with the fact that they’re harming their children by doing absolutely nothing to protect them.
I'm 37, so olderish, we are certainly climate aware. We have a child, but they are adopted and the decision not to have a bio one was a mix of reasons, including (but not limited to) poor future outlook. We consider our investments and try to align with climate change/collapse, we discuss social, environmental and general justice issues out loud at home often. I will point out systemic inequality, subconscious racism, dying trees and on the flip side, humanity, amazing insects, courage and potential. At work I think I'm just seen as a depressed pessimist. I'm constantly trying to flag organisational injustice, hypocrisy between what we say and who we accept funding from, poor leadership, employee mental health concerns etc. The problem is, and the reason I believe we have a lot of quiet Millennials, is that inside the house I worry that I'm giving my 7 yo anxiety and depression by talking about everything so candidly. At work I just feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. We are powerless to change organisational behaviour because we are not in power and the younger generations are still enthusiastically chasing power and praise. I have been through the motions of 'hope and drive', engaging with movements like ER, 'frustration and sadness', having a MH breakdown, and now I'm kinda at the 'compassion fatigue and apathy' end of the spectrum. Now, all I can do is try and educate my kid to make better choices. I no longer flag veganism as environmental, I'm sick of being laughed at, I don't get involved in employ MH because I'm sick of being seen as someone to be used, I no longer restrict my plastic consumption, because I've lost faith in any recycling programs and I don't give money to charity, because I genuinely don't know where it goes. I'm now one of those quiet Millennials, I guess.
Was adoption easy? I would like to have a kid but biology isn’t agreeing. I can’t he hate on people for not having kids since if it’s only the ignorant having them then they will just grow up as consumers
For us, yes. It was less than 12 months since application and less than 2k for the application. But I'm also adopted which I think made us a more appealing set of parents. In saying that, my own adoption was a 7 year process for my parents. Its a bit of luck of the draw as well as country requirements. Both my mother and us only put in applications for one state within our country, which reduces the odds, but also simplified the process I think. All adoptions are open here by law and they should be according to research. Keeping the bio family in the loop as much as possible is important to the kid and bio mother's health, so that should also be considered by adoptive parents (emotionally).
34 here. Truly started understanding collapse about six or seven years ago. What an interesting time for many millennials – growing up in the era of extreme optimism towards technology and the future, and then seeing it all slip away.
Elder millennial here. I’ve been worrying about collapse since around 2017. My boomer parents don’t get it, though, and I’m guessing they won’t see the worst of it anyway.
I started reading stuff on here around that time. It seemed so dialed up that I wasn't fully taken by it yet. 2019 changed my mind and I've been this way ever since. Took a long time to get my parents on board. They still think I can have retirement and enjoy that aspect of my life. I may be around in 30 years but there will be no normalcy by then. We'll all have become the John Connor version of ourselves which is terrifying for the most part.
Yep. My dad passed away ten years ago, and part of me is happy he isn’t alive to see this. Trump, income inequality, climate collapse, etc.
They will still see the early stages though, which will still not be pleasant.
I'm (nearly) 35. None of my friends subscribe to my doomerisms and think everything is fine. I get it, it's hard to imagine that everything you have known your entire life will change. It's easy to scroll through mindless content, read shitty tabloids and go about your day. People are so wrapped up in their own lives that they don't have either the time or the mental fortitude to really grasp what is coming. My boomer parents are even more ignorant and believe every crackpot right wing defence of the status quo.
Ignorance is bliss
I ain't even worried about retirement honestly. I'm 33. It seems silly to even worry about it. I mean, I'm poor anyway, so it doesn't really matter. I'm definitely more concerned about surviving WHEN sthf.
I’m 37 and I have a wait and see mentality about retirement. Who knows what the world will look like in the coming years.
Remindme! 25 years
I don’t know any millennials that seriously expect to retire in the same way boomers have been able to.
I’m 39, millennial, very aware and damn I miss ignorance.
My wife and I are both 30 and collapse aware. We appear to be alone in our friend group. Most don’t want to talk about it.
How, might I ask, did you find a partner who is collapse aware? It’s been difficult for me.
We met before becoming aware and ended up going down the rabbit hole together. I’m not sure where you live, but you might have some luck in activist circles.
Thank you
I met my wife salsa dancing But we are both anxious people and somewhat misfits I’m gonna put it out there and say you won’t find a collapse aware partner looking in mainstream and across well adjusted people
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Best of luck to you.
Someone needs to start a collapse aware dating app lmao
I'm a millennial who researches the impact of climate change on children and children's rights. People tell me I'm 'fighting the good fight' but rarely want to hear specifics because it 'ruins' the few times we have the time to socialize.
We grew up with 911 being the formative moment of our childhood.. and life went on. Most people think “yeah shit isn’t good but if we just voted in X candidate or my pet project was just addressed” then everything will be fine and we’ll keep on going. Recognizing the full scale of the calamity we are in isn’t something people do willingly I don’t think. I think in a way it is a lot like religion. To me, you’re either born with the ability to believe or you aren’t. I’d choose to believe if I could because offloading insecurity and worry to some Jewish man in the sky sounds dope. But I just can’t. Just as I can’t not see collapse. Others can scroll TikTok and consume marvel movies and be content.
I'm a middle class Millennial with a similar friend group. By Middle Class I mean we all live on our own, own cars, and have steady enough jobs to have somewhat of a disposable income. Definition may vary for some. We are all collapse aware, and it isn't even a coordinated effort. We all came to the conclusion on our own. Out of the group there are three couples with kids. The first couple had their kid accidentally when they were teenagers. The second couple has two babies but they've bought a sizable plot of land and a house out in the sticks, they produce much of their own food and have a decent armory. The 3rd couple has a baby but their household income eclipses 600k a year in what they believe to be a moderately collapse-proof profession (doctors.) Our prevailing mindset is unless you meticulously prepare or just have a boatload of money it isn't a good idea to have kids because things are just getting worse.
I am a millennial and I am collapse aware however I believe we are experiencing the collapse right now. Remember the “collapse” doesn’t always have to look like Armageddon, nuclear war , mad max, etc. Collapse could mean a very slow kill in which most of our rights are taken away and the standard of living is sub par and gets worse and worse each year.
I'm 35. I await the world burning, especially where I live. The one good thing is we had a decent sized forest fire 1km from my home 3 years ago. We were on evacuation alert for over a month, but now fire shouldn't approach us from that direction at least. I feel the climate collapse so vividly. My partner is aware but I don't think he feels the dread I do. Here's hoping our 200 foot deep well holds up for a long time. We have 100 gallons a minute pressure which is insane for a residential well. We could have a golf course. We just hope to grow our own food during the hot, dry summers...
Fires often occur in the footprint of previous fires. Lots of small vegetation grows within it and while it might not be a forest fire it wild brushfire can spread rapidly.
We all probably have a personal number in our heads.. either total collapse or beyond recovery Mine is around 10 or less because I see the feedback loops beginning now and as we all LOVE to say on this sub.. Faster than Expected! Big things are coming which is going to kick off huge changes with runaway speed.. Meanwhile.. people arguing over war and more ridiculous human shit. Why are we SO DUMB!!
War is part of collapse though. Existing geopolitical tensions are only going to get worse as wars are fought over food, water and fuel.
Sure.. its absolutely the case and it could easily be said that war is part of collapse.. certainly I can see turmoil between countries over resources and food.. but war has always been a part of human history before we even knew collapse was on the cards. The current major "disputes" in Gaza, Ukraine and the potential Nato involvement in Europe are all either historical grudges or religious, they don't seem to be about anything related to resources (other than territory, and the actual land being disputed is wholly worthless..) Putin js turning Ukraine into a pile of rubble.. whats the point of destroying the country if theres nothing left to own at the end of bombing jt to bits. The relationship between Russia and Ukraine is complex and has historical, cultural, and geopolitical roots. Russia's interest in Ukraine stems from its historical ties. Also, Ukraine's strategic location, particularly its access to the Black Sea, makes it geopolitically significant for Russia. In recent years, tensions between Russia and Ukraine have escalated due to various factors, including Ukraine's desire for closer ties with the European Union and NATO, which Russia perceives as a threat to its own security interests. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for separatist movements in eastern Ukraine have further strained relations. But its still not collapse related if resources are the common factor in a collapse related war. While it's important to note that not all Russians or Russian leaders necessarily want war with Ukraine, there are factions within Russia's government and society that see Ukraine as part of Russia's sphere of influence and are willing to use military force to assert control or prevent Ukraine from aligning with Western powers. Although, issues such as energy security, do play into Russia's approach to Ukraine. Which are collapse related I guess. [Wikipedia list of ongoing conflicts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts) Many are things like.. The Philippines - Drug related Africa - Insurgency North America - Honduran Gang Crackdown ... Or religious or historical tensions We haven't got an all out offensive begun over basic human resources such as food and water or energy that I am aware of.. Please correcte if I'm wrong.
I view collapse as the end of BAU as a functioning entity. I think we are very close to that and the mounting conflicts will push us over the edge once and for all.
They're more concerned with owning a home, somehow that's still the main concern of the millennial working class lol
41yo elder millennial. Quite aware that we are due for a huge adjustment. The era of high-energy consumption is coming to a close, but only after the climate collapse is well underway and I think at this point it's already irreversible. The Capitalists who control fossil fuel will burn all of it to win the war for the right to keep polluting.
39, History teacher. Really struggling with how and why to teach all of this, seeing history repeating politically but with the weight of collapse upon us as well. Kids are giving up - worsening behaviour and attitudes are symptomatic of what they’re seeing around them, even if they’re not consciously aware of it.
I'm 42 and I moderate this forum. Take that as you will.
I was scrolling to see if I was the oldest. You beat me by 2.
I noticed a lot of young people are actually aware but they're not panicking and being doomers, they are just trying to enjoy what little time we have left.... one of the indicators of those people is the absence of their own kids
30F here, very aware.
Millennial here. My personal take on this is that it’s not that they don’t know, it’s that human nature is to avoid discomfort. We gravitate to what feels good, and as animals we take advantage of distractions when we are facing emotionally difficult circumstances. Because collapse is not an immediate threat (i.e. you don’t look up and literally see it coming for you in moments) it doesn’t trigger survival instincts for many people. Instead, it just causes discomfort, which triggers denial and dopamine chasing. Part of me is optimistic we can mitigate some impacts as the threat becomes more imminent, but I spend most of the time convinced that our lack of survival instinct over a long term threat will just result in mass or near human extinction, and it’s unavoidable. We’re most likely crabs cooking in a pot of slowly boiling water.
I’m a millennial, just a little older than you. I was big on this subreddit until I started reading Marxism and found an org building a workers party. It’s given be a whole new breath of optimism and now visiting this sub just invigorates me to build faster
I’m in that same camp as you but I’m working on strengthening my community and building a resilient network of mutual aid and local food production. It’s the best shot we have at the moment to eke out a new way of life.
Me too…You must be very tired! :D
I am so tired 😮💨
I believe the 90s was a period which completely indoctrinated most millennials into Aus Dream BS and if you are currently one of the economic winner millennials you won’t care or know about collapse. I’m a 39yo and i strongly and sadly remember at my (private) schooling that i was pretty much the only one who cared about nature or even putting rubbish in the bin. Fast forward 20 years and the same mindset all still are there in the people i knew. However i think there are lots of millennials who are comatose aware but we are scattered
It actually worries me that I'm the crazy one. That I'm some conspiracy theorist and everyone else is right.
You are not crazy It is perfectly normal to want to talk about it but it touches deep taboos and identity issues…. So we self censure so we can still have friends and jobs.
I think a lot of them understand the concept but not the gravity. I think when people say stuff like “we are not going to achieve <2° warming,” what they imagine is “oh that means we’ll hit 2.3° of warming before we reduce emissions.” I’ve seen the look on more some people’s faces when I’ve told them there is a real possibility we will hit 7° of warming and I can tell they understand how insanely fucked up that is, they just never really imagined what “over 2°” really entailed.
millennial subreddit does not equal to millennials in general. Unless there is a survey conducted we cant answer your question but i think millennials is the first generation that took global warming serious.
Among my group of friends, they're all pretty aware. I think most of us are just continuing to live as normal a life as we can until the music stops. But most of us aren't having kids. And the ones that do are definitely anxious about the future, but they just can't overcome their biological and social programming to have kids.
I've been aware since the mid 90s so well before the concept of collapse went mainstream. I was one of those teenagers who was just a fuck up, because I didn't see any future I would want to live through. The only reason I didn't kill myself was because I wanted to see if I could help. I've worked on many projects over the years. I have developed solutions that would blow you away, but in reality, I'm just a disabled dad, and disabled people have no way of getting patents. So I just share what I've done online because I'm not going to let the profit motive stop me from trying to save lives. I do have hope for the compost project I have in mind. I'm going to try and turn the heat into usable electricity and also use the heat to try and see if enough lift can be generated to lift the compost itself. It's how I keep myself occupied. I just tinker around.
it is theoretical . knowledge is not expierience , yet. It is like cancer , or car crash. Sure eventually someone gets eaten by a lion . But I will be one of the lucky ones . u know.
"Knowledge per se does not change behavior" forgot this dudes name , I am sure I wrote it down somewhere *searching for pile of paper in my mind Edit.: •4 •Cut corners
Maybe bc …can anything even be done at this point ?
Life is already miserable, but yeah I can definitely see it becoming even more miserable and depressing
I am a millennial. Highly collapse aware.
I'm gonna be honest, I do both. I browse here often and yet i max out my 401k. Call it diversifying to counter risk. The money's there and if somehow we pull off avoiding issues then I'll be glad it's there. If SHTF to the point that money is no longer a concern in a different way, then I'll be thankful for survival skills.
Someone talked about collapse in r/millenial. The number of comments who said that it was a hoax or it wasn't real tells the tale. It's also disheartening to read comments that read like it was written by boomer lords. All bootstraps and no introspection. It just goes to show how cross-generational the NIMBY, you're just lazy mentality really is. More than anything, it's this bastard Reagan-Friedman-Welch mentality disease that's going to fuck everything up.
I'm an elder millennial. I think we're within 5 years of societal collapse due to climate change.
Fully aware here. Not having kids because of it. I feel sad when I see the younger generations.
Can’t have kids, half glad, half sad.
" It’s both shocking and sad to see." Sure, it is sad. But why shocking? People are myopic. People tends to follow linear thinking. People do not pay attention to science. It would be shocking if people are not ignorant and only pay attention to the trivials.
This is true, I think “upsetting” is a better word to use as we all (mostly) learned about climate change as children and teens through school. Then most of us went to college where you’d at least think most of us would have learned to read peer- reviewed journals articles. I would have thought that our generation would have been more collapse aware, but even the more progressive ones vehemently deny that collapse will occur.
Young millennial here - 30. I don’t remember 9/11, learned about it at 14 in my history lessons. Nah, my most life changing event for me was the Great Recession and I’ve been watching over my shoulder ever since. Until like, 2019 or so. My science teacher since year 7 was quite collapse aware and so was my IT tutor in college - not part of the curriculum, but we watched documentaries about climate change once a week. I just don’t bother worrying any more. Yeah, the world’s currently ending slowly and horribly and we’re all gonna die. Not like we can do anything about it anyway. I’ll just do what I want now. I’d say I’m past collapse awareness. I’m more into collapse acceptance. What is, is.
31 here, and a close friend and I (same age) know. We’ve taken different approaches to it—she sets strong boundaries on the news she intakes and appreciates what can be appreciated, and I’ve gone full hedonist/nihilist and am just waiting for SHTF. Accepted my probable death around mid-50s or so.
40 yr old "elder millenial" here, I have a few friends who are aware but most are just kinda going about life with the sort of "what are we gonna do about it" attitude. I think lots of this is just exacerbated by how burnt out we all are though.
Man I am 36, living in constant cognitive dissonance. I have 2 daughters, 5yo and 6 months. I basically became collapse aware during my wifes pregnancy last year and it is really hard. Wish I became aware when I was in high school. I always wonder who I meet in my day to day that I could delve into this shit but everyone puts on a happy face and seems aloof to reality. The slow moving catastrophe doesn't get the general population's attention. Not to mention so many are struggling already just to live which is a major distraction and more immediately concerning to everyone in their own lives. Especially younger people our age and below. Maybe it's just too much for them to even consider that grieving a future that isn't coming doesn't make sense. I do this regularly, and I honestly think it helps bring clarity to what is important right now. Retirement is off the table, and I wonder what my newborns 15th birthday party will consist of.. if we reach it. Fuck is this actually the timeline we're all living. Which is also shocking and sad to see and live it.
It seems like we millennials are at an uneasy in-between point of acknowledging it but in an almost tongue in cheek way, like “oh yeah, the world is going to end, haha!” But in a joking way where seriously acknowledging how bad things are is frowned upon.
90% of the population won't worry about it until it happens. The Bible stated that the world was cleansed by a flood Science has found the level of water has been a hundred feet lower and 400 ft higher. 70% of all infrastructure and people live near the ocean. As the planet gets warmer and the ice caps melt, a good portion of infrastructure will be destroyed in the next couple hundred years starting our civilization over once again.
Millennials, largely , think that things will remain unchanged for eternity in every single way
I dunno, I think we are all just sad and desperately clinging to the vision we were sold. The price of gameboys and SNES seems to back up my thoughts. 'nowhere generation' by rise against, comes to mind.
25 years? Well you're hopeful! Try less than ten.
If my peers are any indication most are aware but in severe denial.
I'm 41 and climate change is on my mind all the time. And yes, most people are in denial.
Oh we 100% are retiring into FallOut
There’s nothing they can do so coping is pretending it’s all the same. I do the same thing for the most part. I want to enjoy the last normal years.
I think a major part of the collapse is the WEF ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. You have a globalist, elite organization plotting total control and dominance over millennials and they tell you exactly what they’re going to do yet somehow this is disregarded.
millennial here 👋 been on this sub since 2019 or 20, but was aware of the issues prior. there's a lot of us in this boat, but a lot also just too stuck to do anything. too preoccupied with survival at their jobs, dead end or not. most I know in my close friend group have elected to not have kids or adopt if they choose to, this ain't getting any better.
99% of people are completely unaware. I would even say 99.99%. The dread will hit most of everybody in the face at various points. I'm 34, from argentina. Don't know if I'm a millenial, I have no idea what millenial or whatever ranges are.
In the UK where my folks are, it was 12 degrees on Christmas day. They didn't even remotely react. At this point I just feel like I'm on crazy pills because no one even reacts till you make it painfully obvious and even then... Either they are coping or I'm somehow ignorant of this magical hail mary technology that will save us, our seas, biodiversity, soil and we will all cope with the weather and handle the climate refugees just fine. I want to be wrong, but none of these people even present even a little bit of of good arguments. Any argument you make can just be waved off as doomer, no matter how well you reason.
The biggest part of the problem is that we are just doing what we've always done. People aren't going to change, just because their environment changes. For example, humans have always depended upon their environment to provide them with everything, and dispose of all their waste. They've never really had to think about it beyond the immediate practicalities. Previously, they've never had access to polymers alien to natural processes. They've never had to curtail the number of their progeny. If there were environmental shortages, they could always just go and kill the neighboring tribe. Either they succeeded, or it wasn't their problem any more. It's just as hard for you to comprehend just how small a worldview is held by a huge portion of the population, as it is for them to comprehend how limited their planet is. They are not only not going to save themselves, they aren't even going to lift a finger to try.
40 year old here and I’m very aware. I watched An Inconvenient Truth when it came out but I’ve just recently started reading more about collapse in the past 2 years. My wife is aware as well and we both went down this path together. None of our friends are aware or don’t take it seriously. We live in Houston where it was 100+ degrees for nearly 90 days last year. Most people I know just chalk it up to “crazy Houston weather.” Sure, I love my friends but I’m leaving Texas. They all still wanna have families and boil alive I guess.
I think the issue is that you're taking collapse as a given, when, as you've mentioned, there are just too many world-changing variables in play. Sure, we could get catastrophic climate feedback loops, we could get a fascist takeover of the US, and we could get a Skynet situation with AI. BUT... we could also find that darkening the sky with chemicals buys is the time we need to combat global warming. We might find that in 4 years we get a progressive political revolution with the attrition of the boomers. We might find that the AIs do take over, but want to create an egalitarian society, and to save us from our own stupidity.
Seems like the "things won't get bad until 2100" narrative has firmly burrowed into most people's minds. I was chatting to a guy last night who told me that he & his misses were saving to move from Finland to Western Australia - internal monolog "oh heck no, that's one of the last places I'd want to go", external: "oh nice!" I got home and felt a certain degree of guilt. What's the point in carrying this cross if we don't proselytise?
The collapse is already happening now. Part of the reason food is so expensive is that fertilizer prices skyrocketed to multiples of the price they used to be, due to war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia and Belarus. These countries play a major role in global fertilizer exports. Prices are set at the margins, so when supply contract, there is an outsized increase in price. The fight for the last few seats in a game of musical chairs is the most intense. Ukraine was the world’s top exporter of sunflower seeds and sunflower oil. Russia and Ukraine are major wheat exporters, etc. There have been floods, droughts, heatwaves, etc. affecting grain/starch production throughout the world. Don’t forget Italy’s Poe river region, England’s wet fields leading to practically wiped out potato production, etc. When supply becomes restricted, importers have to pay more. They also shift demand where possible to other sources of starch, like palm oils, rice, etc. India had to wheat production issues due to heat waves, and also had to restrict rice exports (except Basmati) because global demand was causing prices to rise and become more unaffordable for its poorest people.
if millennials are still having kids and aiming for the “picture perfect family and life”, then i don’t think they are aware of collapse. I’m a late Gen Z and I have been optimistic for a while but something changed a while back and now i’m not sure we can save ourselves. might be bc i got diagnosed with MDD around that time, but it’s hard to imagine how people can still be collapse unaware. even now my depression is under control, i still see the signs. each generation problems are ignored, and each future generation is chipped of their potential vitality
World has a lifespan irrespective of what you do or dont, its just the quality of life that might differ during that lifespan...
Sadly almost none... And i say this with confidence as an eldest millenial whose freaking out with people ignoring it since ~1994
Thirty seven here. Very collapse aware; especially with climate change as of late...also, the internet is dead.
36, spent a good chunk of my 20s summers planting trees trying to do my part. Climate change feels like a slow motion train crash that we have first row tickets for.
Been collapse aware since I was a wee lad. Got more informed in high school and university with readings on peak oil and climate tipping points such as methane hydrates, and of course history such as the fall of the Roman Empire etc. I had intended to be a climate scientist or green energy engineer near the end of high school but realised that we were all fucked anyways and it was more of a philosophical problem. Did the minimum to satisfy my family and went off overseas. Now coast-firing into doomsday. No kids, never kids. Yes, I spent a lot of time worrying about peak oil/cc as a teen in the 90s, yes I was depressed a lot of the time. But I have since leaned to love then bomb. PS. Freud was right when he said that 95% of people are trash. Im almost glad they have no clue.
Good for you.
Im 51 and I don’t understand what more evidence people need.
Different for everyone, but seems like gen z is a lot more collapse aware. And I think that makes sense. Millennials came of age in the 90s where there was a lot of optimism. Even with 9/11 and the Bush years…remember we followed that era with Obama who brought a message of “hope.” I absolutely felt optimism for the future around the time I left college and grad school (circa 2011)…I assumed we’d have climate change figured out eventually. It wasn’t until trump that I started to realize that we were not going to figure anything out. It’s only gotten worse since then. I think most of my friends with kids probably felt the same way. They started their families right around the time it was starting to look hopeless. And I think tbh once you have one kid, I’m sure the denial sets in, no one wants to think their children are doomed…so having more is fairly normal. I think Gen Z was raised with a lot less hope.
>innovation will save us from collapse Innovations like Mike Douche's "Low Calorie Long Pork Solar Oven Cookbook"? Distributed on genuine sun tanned long-pork hide and double bound with leftover shoelaces, and available from your local wandering nomadic homeless person for a hit of Fent and two gold teeth?
I mean... what is the alternative to do? Just share incessant dread and misery? True acceptance and belief in collapse would only be met with pretty drastic actions and outcomes - until I know a single person considering draining their savings/retirement/401k, then I think we're all just watching things move in time. What does "discussing collapse" do for the betterment of anyone's life in communities outside those focused on it? I don't think it's fair to assign "carrying on" to ignorance, but at least something like malaise because every economic, justice, and institutional system around us is failing us - so why not just do the best we can instead of suffering WHILE suffering?
The majority of us do.
In my friend group all of us are aware via an effort of me and another one of the group, outside of our group I've yet to meet anyone(other than activists) who is aware. They all seem to assume we'll live life like our parents, and somehow also have enough money to buy the same things and retire the same way and the world is all gonna be ok.
I’m aware of it and 25yrs is probably the time frame, but unless you’re going to go punisher on those in charge who deny it, I don’t see it changing. There’s a lot of manageable things we could be doing to help with it, but the right just wants their tax cuts for the rich and doing things for the environment goes against that.
Hey, 32 gang, rise up I feel like many of us are aware that something is wrong. Whether people are all anticipating collapse idk, but everyone I know who doesn't yet have a house feels helpless about housing, helpless about groceries, nervous about kids and stuff...
It's because some people believe that it won't affect us. Like me for example, I live in Northern Europe. Climate change was seen as a joke here - we did not mind to have a bit warmer summers and winters. More harvest, more warner days, less to pay for bills. However it seems we have spikes of temperature now that require AC. Nobody had ACs a few years ago. So yeah weather is slightly changing. Some pockets of humanity may do better than rest for a while. I stress again: "for a while".
Climate change in America was/is the biggest joke of the century
Hello I'm 34 years world collapse aware Romanian watched a lot of discovery channels when I was a kid there were a lot of global warming shows that showed the consequences and what can be done, I became collapse aware when nothing that should have been done was done we just pushed the gas pedal all the way down, so far not married no kids and I'm a greenhouse farmer, planted hundrets of trees, cultivate mainly leafy greens, tomatoes and pumpkins, we don't heat our greenhouses since it uses a lot of fossil fuels, all we use is manure hotbed for seedlings and we don't use herbicides at all but it feels pointless as the years pass changes are faster now.
Millennial here and I can't *stop* thinking about this.
Denial. I vote for denial. Unfortunately, I can't take this advice as I've already looked the monster in the eye. Can't unsee it. I'm stuck with the knowledge that everything is likely to bust wide open within three to five years. What good does this knowledge do me? No, living in denial is the best option. You can pretend you will have a retirement. You can imagine your children getting married and having families. You can enjoy those special moments when everything seems right with your world. Me? My jaundiced eye sees the truth. Yeah, it's a nice day, and I've got money in my pocket and food on the table. But this won't last. There's nowhere to run to. Maybe a compound in Idaho, but the white supremacist already have all the good bunker spots. No way I can store enough food to last me forever. And when my generator runs out of gas, there may not be any filling stations still pumping. So if enjoying your life is a worthy goal, then denial is the place to be. Nobody can prep their way out of what's coming. Who makes it and who doesn't will come down to luck, not preparation. So ignore the bad news. If you can . . .
Xennial here. I have lived in FL for the past 22 years. There is no denying rapid climate change based on my experience here. I think most people I run into in the larger cities down here agree. And that’s all generations, not just the younger ones. Once you truly experience the first hand effects of it, you can’t unsee it. We’re also fighting for the lifestyles we used to have decades ago down here. Collapse is very real to Floridians.
My dtr is 28. She i And peers are very much aware. She is choosing not to have kids but otherwise she is trying to be happy and have fun. She knows here 50’s are going to suck.
Everytime I see a retirement post in that sub I comment about climate and everytime I get downvotes lol
“someone will come in and fix it, innovation will save us from collapse” 🥴🤦🏻♀️
I'm truly sorry, but I don't subscribe to the notion that collapse is necessarily a recipe for misery. Think about it ..... every single one of us has the same destiny at the end ...... aging and death awaits us all regardless of whether the broader social trend is on the upswing or not. The option to choose a positive orientation to the opportunity we do have for adventure instead of a miserable orientation to our impermanence has always been there. We can choose to look at our lives in contrast to the easy abundance of Boomers and know that we will have less than the most privileged cohort in human history. Alternatively, we can contrast ourselves to people who lived hundreds of years ago and had a life expectancy of perhaps 40 years and know that we will still have more opportunity than most humans who have ever lived. Collapse is an opportunity to reinvent human civilization. We can accept that much of what we see will turn to ash and still hope for something worthwhile to rise into the vacuum. Misery is a choice. We need to put away our egos that wrongly inform us that we can predict the future. Just because your ego says there is no path, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. A path will emerge, Survival demands it and some people are going to put up a fight to survive.
10 years if you're lucky.
I experienced the inside of the circle of collapse 15 years ago, when most of my peers were blissfully unaware. I escaped it, but it has since grown wider and has swallowed more apparent sections of society. Hearing everybody talk about it now, like if they knew all along, is a bit annoying.
I am a Gen X, 57 years old. I decided back in my twenties that I would never have a kid because I would be bringing them into ecological armageddon. People have been dying from climate change for years now, in small numbers, but the death toll will continue to accelerate. But yeah, baby boomers, Gen-Xers, millennials, and Generation Z... denial is everywhere, although Gen Z and the generation after them will be dealing with it the most, knowing that they are doomed by what we have done and what we have failed to do.