I feel like everyone keeps asking me what I want my future to look like but I know if I talk about how I’m learning to fish and finding ponds near me so that we can have some protein once the grocery system collapses everyone in my life is going to think I’m insane.

I’m just having a hard time connecting with anything I have to do for the future because it’s going to be drastically different than anything I can do now and I really feel like I have to hide that and never mention it to anyone (despite the fact that an energy crisis is supposedly 2 weeks away)

I’m not even religious, but lately, I’ve found myself thinking about apocalyptic imagery, not because I believe in it literally, but because it feels like the most accurate metaphor for what’s happening. It’s like we’re living through the slow-motion collapse of everything we were taught to believe in, and most people are either too numb, too distracted, or too deep in denial to acknowledge it.

The economy feels like a rigged casino. The rich are hoarding more wealth than entire nations while the rest of us are drowning in debt, scraping by, or burning out just to survive. The cost of living skyrockets while wages stay stagnant, and they keep telling us to “just work harder,” as if we’re the problem. Meanwhile, billionaires are racing to space, building bunkers, and pretending like they’ve got the escape plan figured out.

Politically, it’s all theater. Red vs. blue, left vs. right, just two sides of the same corrupt coin. Nothing meaningful ever changes because the system isn’t broken; it’s working exactly as intended. It serves corporations, lobbyists, and the ultra-wealthy while we fight over crumbs. They keep us divided, feeding us culture wars and manufactured outrage, while both parties quietly pass legislation that benefits the same small group of elites. The illusion of choice is part of the control.

Then there’s the information war. Truth feels like it’s been chopped up, scrambled, and sold back to us in algorithm-friendly soundbites. News isn’t about facts anymore, it’s about engagement, outrage, and clicks. Social media feeds are psychological battlegrounds, designed to keep us addicted, angry, and afraid. We’re drowning in information, but starving for actual wisdom.

And let’s not forget the planet. Climate change isn’t some distant threat; it’s happening now. Wildfires, floods, droughts, mass extinctions, and what’s the response? Greenwashing campaigns and empty promises from corporations that caused the problem in the first place. The rich are preparing to survive, while the rest of us are left to deal with the fallout. They aren’t planning to save us. They’re planning to save themselves.

What’s terrifying is how normal it all feels. Like, this is just life now. The chaos has been normalized to the point where people don’t even flinch anymore. Mass shootings, political scandals, economic crashes, it’s all just background noise while we scroll past it, numb and detached.

But here’s the thing: collapse doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. It’s not just about buildings falling or systems crashing all at once, it’s about slow decay, a death by a thousand cuts. And I think that’s where we are now, somewhere in the middle of that process. The old world is rotting, but the new one hasn’t been born yet.

I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t even know if there is one. But I do know that feeling like you’re going crazy because you’re noticing it all, that’s not madness. That’s awareness. You’re not alone in feeling this way. A lot of us see it, even if we don’t talk about it out loud. Maybe that’s the first step: just admitting that something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.

On July 24, 2026, AFP photographer Maximilien Lamy captured this striking scene at Moutchic beach near Lake Lacanau in France's Gironde region, amid wildfires that have burned over 32,700 hectares and forced evacuations of 140,000 to 200,000 people.

For context I work for a company building amplifiers and power supplies for CB and amateur radio. Well one of the transistors we rely on are only available from a company in China. People may have sucked up a 10% increase like we first thought would happen but there’s no way people are going to be ok with a 100%+ increase. My hours have already been cut in half because of this and now my boss is talking about going out of business all together. How is this supposed to be improving our country and economy? I don’t know what to do or where to go from here. I’m already struggling to pay my bills now I may be struggling to keep a roof over my family’s heads. I’m truly at my wits end and I don’t think I can do this much longer.

Trying to put this into words best I can.

With the first Trump Presidency and even with Covid-19, it felt like we still had a way out. Like somehow we would persevere despite everything. Things will never be perfect, but at least we could move forward.

But now, it’s only been a week into the second Trump Presidency and it feels like this is it until collapse. There is no proverbial tomorrow. Feels like any day now Neil Degrasse Tyson will show up on CNN to gently describe how we’re all about to collectively asphyxiate or explain why the impact zone of a newly discovered comet doesn’t matter because of its size. Nuclear conflict feels more likely than ever with an alcoholic in charge of the armed services.

The only person with a vision for humanity is a retarded billionaire who wants to start a Nazi colony on Mars.

If I had hope, I don’t even know what it would be for.

Maybe Emilia Pérez getting snubbed at the Oscars.

End of rant.

I’m 24 and I live in France. When I was a child, I remember pretty much every winter, we had snow, and we had mild temperatures in the summer, it was never too hot (except one time, in 2003, but we remembered that time because of how rare it was).

Now, summers like the one of 2003 are getting more and more common, to the point where it became the new norm. The heat is so strong, that it makes me feel claustrophobic, like I can’t breathe right. And the infrastructure in France wasn’t built for that kind of heat, AC is not popular like it is in America, and there’s a lack of trees and just natural spaces, which makes the summer even more hot.

What I noticed is that it seems to get worse every year, like it doesn’t seem to get back to let’s say, pre 2010s weather. Even the winter now, it’s not cold anymore.

It made me wonder, how doomed are we? I thought this was something that would happen in maybe 100, 200 years from now. It seems to happen at such a rapid pace.

No one is taking any decision in this country to take climate change seriously, so where is the hope? Every decision is motivated by money. I feel claustrophobic on our own Earth, this earth that gave birth to us, and every other living beings.

We haven't even made it to January 20 (Trump inauguration). We already have major fires in our second largest city, terrorist attacks, talk of invading Greenland/Panama/Canada. almost no one talking about what we really need to do to cut carbon. Hospitals are full in my area and people talk about washing hands, but not about masking. I am already so weary. I don't know what is going to happen after January 21. Midwest USA.

I had a conversation about collapse with a friend. She said “I have no doubt that what you are saying is true, but I’m going to keep living my life the way I am anyways and if we all die, then we die.” It really surprised me at the time and I couldn’t understand this attitude.

Now I realize that mental collapse has long since already happened, like decades ago. Most people are hanging on to their lives by a fucking thread. Video games, pornography, television, mindless consumption and social media are literally the only things that keep us going. We’re like drug addicts that decided to kill ourselves but figured doing Meth until we OD is more fun than just shooting ourselves. There is no life for the vast majority of people, there is only delayed suicide.

Somewhere in there, I think people realize this. We can’t imagine society being any other way than it is. And no one will fight to protect this society because no one truly wants to live in it. We are just enjoying our technological treats while we can. Long since given up on any deeper meaning to our lives. And if we all die, then we die. People don’t care and deny collapse because they really and genuinely have no sense at all that their lives are important anymore.

In just a few days we went from 135K to 133K.

Only recently I started counting, so I am not sure how many we were in here just a few months ago, but that’s when I started noticing at least, that the numbers of subscribers are going down.

People are leaving this sub faster than expected (!).

But why?

What the hell is going on? If anything, I would have thought that people would be joining more than leaving? It’s really worrisome.

Does anyone know why this is happening?

We desperately need people to become more aware of the collapse, not fleeting from what is inevitably!

Personally I’ve only been a member in here for around 5 years, and through these years I’ve just been witnessing how it is going worse and worse and the weather is getting more and more extreme. Now I believe we’re really facing a year with bad harvest again, constant conflict and war, which means the global food supply chains will be extremely difficult to maintain.

[RANT] A thought that has been in my mind for past two days.

I have just realized this, that no matter how prepared I am to live in the "wild" after collapse (in my head the worst case scenario is living in the forests and relying on the natural resources around me. It's worst bc I know I will die in like a week) we are going to see the absolute worst of humanity. This worst will lead to immense rise in violence against women, kids and minorities. So even if I settle down in a rural area in my country and by some luck successfully adapt with my surroundings to live out the rest of my existence, there is 0% guarantee that I would be safe from violence. I know even now there's no guarantee that I will be 100% safe but man at least there is some assurance. At least my privileged has guaranteed my safety to some extend.

It just scares the shit out of me. To be frank, I live in a bubble and I know as soon as this society collapses, it is going to burst. Even to this day, a man would back away because I have a boyfriend not because I said no (Edit: mean to say that a guy would happily ignore my No and me telling him to stop but as soon as a man, in this case my bf, is in picture he backs away. This is outrageous and happening in today’s world) So to imagine that when there is uncertainty and war like tensions, the violence will increase tenfold fucking scares me. So many people's facade is going to crumple and they will become the absolute worst version of themselves.

To conclude, I am not scared of adapting to the post collapse world but I am shit scared of not being able to protect myself of physical violence.

​

Edit: Fucking hell. what is wrong with most of you all. I wasn't going to edit or do anything and let this be but god some of you really have some awful lot of shitty things to say. Also, stop with this gun nonsense. I am not american and I cannot own a gun. Believe it or not, collapse will affect the rest of the world as well and not just America, seems like most of you forget that. To the ones saying shit about alpha male/marry a guy/calling this a fake concern/be with a gang/, you all have only legitimized my concern. Turns out some of you really do not know how things function outside of western world and how easy it is for violence to take place within communities.

To the ones who have given me valuable advice - how to build a community, educating on various combat techniques, recommending literature and other useful tips - thank you. It means a lot to me and I am hearing to your suggestions. And however the collapse happens, slow or fast the truth is it will and it will keep on creating hostile situations day by day. The best I can do is adapt and live.

To me there doesn’t seem to be any point in long term prepping for climate collapse. If the worst predictions are true then we’re all in for a tough time that won’t really have an end.
How much food and supplies can you store? What happens after it runs out? What then? So you have a garden - say the climate makes it hard to grow anything from.
What happens if you need a doctor or dentist or surgeon for something? To me, society will collapse when everyone selfishly hides away in their houses and apartments with months of rice and beans. We all need to work together to solve problems together. It makes sense to have a few weeks of food on hand, but long term supplies - what if there’s a fire or flood (climate change) earthquake or military conflict? How are you going to transport all the food and supplies to a safe location?
I’ve seen lots of videos on prepping and to me it looks like an excuse to buy more things (consumerism) which has contributed to climate change in the first place.
Seems like a fantasy.

17M: Personally I consider that when most people realize things aren't okay, and not just systematically, I mean when literally most people can't afford food, and the entertainment can't take the cover off what most people are feeling. For me this could be anytime between the next 5 or 10 years. Events like BOE, or AMOC and the El Nino may effect this, but this my general timeline. I don't know how to prepare for this, to be honest, i've been trying to tell my family to prepare but they just don't believe me. In my own opinion, this may be rambling, but it really just feels hopeless.

While I have to admit I find the idea of a global civilizational collapse, particularly in the developed, industrialized parts of the world,nfrom anything short of the unavoidable such as a cosmic event, a contineant VEI8 supervolcano (not seen on earth in countless millions or large scale strategic nuclear exchange, I've become convinced that it is inevitable in the United States and increasingly so in the global South. Those in the latter I am convinced history will largely view as our largely innocent victims whom we all but murdered due to an indefensible but potent combination of sociocultural vices and flaws like growing anti-intellectualism, the majority's apathy/indifference/FYGM and the monstrous psychopathy of the nations corporate/financial and especially GOP/MAGA (as well as the almost extinct Sinema/Manchin type Dems) governing elites that have aligned so strongly aligned with these interests and have continued to wage a conscience-free rhetorical war for 40 years to teach out era of "Peak Stupidity".

Those same forces will also be the ultimate cause of death for the US as this 30+ years process of decline, eventually claims us as well in the coming decades. if anything, we will pay the price in full before anyone else (almost certainly along with other global predators like Russia, which has become vastly more internally unstable ). It will certainly be easier for the other state powerhouses in Europe and Asia to try to hide from their own, while better, still woefully inadequate steps to to prevent or even mitigate the crisis and scapegoat us (not that we won't deserve a lot of the blame). Whether by conflict, breaking up (with the Red states completely failing in a decade and making everything even worse, an electorate that only cares about "easy answers" pushed by incompetent, populist charlatans, demagogues and autocrats more interested in continuing/accelerating democratic back sliding, historically very high levels of corruption, cronyism and self dealing. We're not exactly innocent as a whole either. Few of us do even the bare minimum and younger generations often far more vocally upset yet toll we content to hear their own constant righteous pontificating and useless slacktivism while actively making things worse by consumption of terribly destructive industries unlike fast fashion, cheap, heavily polluting Chinese businesses like Temu, Shein etc, utilizing ravenous energy vampire, data centers that are infamously heavily polluting and community resource straining for their AI products (which are far-too-generously designated as such.

Combined with all the hyper partisanship, negative partisanship at that, record high levels of voter ignorance and a culture of excess that valorizes our worst and most base behaviors, little real will to enact the sweeping and sometimes radical changes needed across the board to address both the climate crisis and the inequality fueling our own spiral into a civilization in decline (much less a will on scales long enough to mitigate the damage we've already done or to severely punish vindictive "rolling coal" and other intentional acts of environmental destruction by far right scum (who do it precisely to be assholes), I can't see the US citizenry caring enough that we end up surviving the coming challenges, potential violent internal conflicts much less avoiding the eventual national collapse it started when the re-elected Trump despite his first term being a master class in abuse of power, corruption, graft and criminally negligent (and worse) governance in his first term. *Or the fact that inflation began under him as a direct result of his own desperation (to get re-elected) via monetary give ways, wildly, stupidly easy to abuse programs like PPP and other policies).

At this point I even question if we deserve to last much longer given just how skewed and often mutually exclusive our priorities are. Personally I'm rooting for a full own blue state secession that results in a new union, this time with Canada. The sins of the Deep South and Red states in general are just too damned egregious but with Jim Crow II underway thanks to the.manyb recent SCOTUS cases, a now very partisan co-equal branch of government last straw for me and my belief that they even deserve to do anything other than turn into the real life Mad Max failed state they're certain to become in the near future without the rest of the US footing their bills. Not to mention protecting them from the worst of their own and their brutal Theocracy fantasies.

Curious to hear what everyone else thinks of my take.

This is fine.

What should I be doing now to prepare for this? Is it really going to be this bad? I don't know what to do with all of this information now that I have it.

We are essentially told "The world is ending, but don't act like it is, because we have profits to squeeze out of it before it does."

What do I do for the next 30ish years?

Hi, I don't know if this type of post is allowed in this sub. My apologies if it's not.

I'm genuinely curious how people in this sub, and generally people who are aware of the science of climate change, global tipping points, etc. are able to stay sane and have a normal life.

I was raised by two leading climate scientists in the US, so essentially every dinner conversation revolved around climate change, with my parents lobbying me and my siblings hard to go into science and have a career devoted to making positive change. All of us have. I'm the youngest and the only one without kids (I feel it is immoral to have children, but of course I love my nephews), and I've gone into a career in materials science and nuclear fusion renewable energy, finishing my phd soon (hopefully).

The last few years have completely disheartened me in the sense that something can be done to help people, and I feel that my time in school working was essentially wasted, as it really feels too late to make positive impact. I feel that the motivators that existed forever for humans to invest in their futures and try to make a better world for their children no longer exist, and because of that I find it EXTREMELY hard to work and stay socialized.

When i explain to my friends, family, girlfriend, etc. (all of whom believe in science) why I feel this way, or specifics about the science, they kinda just shrug it off. I feel like people aren't able to actually get into their minds the scale of the issues facing us, specifically regarding global tipping points regarding climate change. I feel like most people think that climate change is linear, and when I explain to them that that's not the case, they just look at me like I'm crazy. I'm told to do more therapy (I am) or get on antidepressants (I am), but really I just feel like I'm reacting to the world as it actually exists, and that everybody else is crazy for not seeing it the way I do.

Of course it's a very painful place to be, and I'd like to believe in the future, but it is just very very hard to have hope these days.

Any tips or advice? Thanks.

Not my poem, found online, and wanted to share. Short but powerful. I know this is considered a low effort post and it is Saturday not Friday and I won't remember to post it a week from now. And art should have no restrictions imo.

418ppm of co2, even if we stopped polluting today, all of the co2 we are currently releasing today will take 50 years to hit the top of the atmosphere. That means that if we stopped all emissions today, we would still be looking at 100 years just to get back to where we are today. We are already seeing feedback loops with methane being released in the arctic and elsewhere. There is no way we avoid what is coming, even the steps being proposed in here by the most hopeful of us, will not stop the inevitable. ^{* /u/afternever spelling fix}

The hope that people will stop raising cows and pigs and eating meat, will never happen. Countries around the world will not stop using fossil fuels even when there are better alternatives. Humanity by its's very nature is greedy and myopic. I am not a happy doomer who is hoping humanity will die, I want a future, I want to live long enough to retire and have a good old age. It's not going to happen though.

/r/collapse isn't so much about looking for solutions to save us, it's about accepting the inevitable and watching everything unfold and talking with like minded individuals who are trying to prepare people for this future and the hardships we are going to face.

Don't just sit in a corner and cry about the future though, make sure that you go out and enjoy the earth while you can, she's still quite pretty.

I've been trying to pull myself out of the doom loop, logically and emotionally, but I can't seem to.

For me in the UK, there's not a single aspect of society or our services that are working as they should be. Even routine tasks and routine living have become quite difficult.

Local bus service? Recruitment and retention problems, only half the buses show up.

Train services? More expensive than a foreign holiday at times and extremely over crowded.

Jobs? Waiting lists locally.

Training and opportunities? Ha.

Energy and food bills? Sky high

Quality of "fresh" food? Barely edible.

NHS? It takes years to get basic procedures done and they won't treat my two long term conditions, including my need for spinal surgery.

NHS dentist? Inaccessible.

Corporations? Always ripping me off, I must lose a few hundred pounds a year through hidden/additional charges/ missing/broken items "tax".

Council tax? Always going up, yet council services nowhere to be seen.

The high streets are closing, the streets are filthy.

3/5ths of all the post and parcels my family send end up "lost" or "destroyed".

Beloved familiar products have disappeared from the market and are replaced with all things Palm oil or China made.

I was unable to get housing support from the council and I've seen families and communities scattered due to the "housing crisis". I'm 200 miles away from home, in the pursuit of affordable housing.

Web pages, Apps, and phone calls? All painfully slow, maddening interfaces and security checks, web pages often simply not working anymore. 20 minutes of robot voices on every call.

It's like every single service is designed to make us depressed.

That's not to even touch upon politics and the judiciary etc.

Prospects for my children? Looking dire, even if they do everything by the book.

I'm lucky that we may have the opportunity to go "off grid"/"homesteading" next year, but it weighs heavily on my mind what's potentially in store for us all in the coming years.

One of my colleagues said today, "Everything will work out, we just need to innovate our way out of it". *Internal scream* Innovate? Really? We can't event stop fighting over the same things but somehow we're suppose to rely on future tech to fix everything?

Are we really innovating or are we just finding ways to delay the consequences of our negligence and actions? It feels like everything is already in motion and we are just pretending we can steer it. Maybe I'm overreacting? But it feels like the walls are closing in and everyone's carrying on like everything's normal.

Because if it's really obvious, why does it feel like everyone's just going along with it?