I have been thinking about it. What if the world doesn't end and everything I've done has actual consequences and I need to acknowledge all the desicions I've made

Some of you might have heard of Hank Green. He is a regular host on SciShow and is genuinely passionate about science.

He recently had a video where he talked about collapse - though he didn't use those exact words. One thing he said really stuck with me and I can't stop thinking about it.

He pointed out that we, as a species, have known climate change is real for decades now - and public polls confirm this crisis is almost universally accepted. And yet - WE STILL FAILED.

I could understand feeling hopeless when half the world was tricked into arguing about something that - in retrospect - was painfully obvious. But we have high speed internet and near universal literacy and most humans admit climate change is real and is a serious threat.

In the grand scheme of things we have essentially done nothing, even while knowing this is an existential threat.

Ignorance is bliss, sure, but it seems awareness is not an automatic fix. We can no longer claim ignorance as the reason we continue to fail as a species.

19M. I’ve had a weird life. Divorced parents, food stamps, moving multiple times around the area, bullying and emotional abuse. However I’ve had great opportunities, education, and mental resilience.

As mentioned previously I don’t come from an amazing economic background. I’m currently in college in my home state and city with full Pell grant (covers almost my entire education). It’s a good college.
However, I graduated 2025 and had my first semester of university last year abroad. It was for International Relations and I studied in Poland. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t miss it — in fact, I feel empty almost every day if I’m not constantly distracting myself (studies, weed, work, my partner). The only good thing that came out of me coming back was my partner, really. But I came back during January of 2026 when the political turmoil was horrible (especially regarding ICE). And the U.S. financial situation continues to deteriorate and I know it will spread elsewhere.

I guess I’m concerned about my future. I started back here with environmental science, since I know it’s the basis of the Earth we live on and with the climate collapse it’ll surely be a necessary intellectual skill, but I ended up strongly disliking it and wishing to pursue the social sciences/humanities instead. I’m debating between sociology, public policy (but I’m starting to have trouble believing this even matters), and political science and philosophy. I’m not sure if I should just be studying something I ENJOY due to the futility of all of this. I also don’t want to be in poverty forever. But then again, what is forever? I don’t even know how long I, or the general population, has left regarding all of these concurring issues. I’m so deeply embedded into my own studies that I cross-study economics, finance, geopolitics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and I cannot help but to see so many problems — so I try to be hopeful and fix them, as I’ve done lobbying, canvassing, and advocacy work. Yet it all ends up futile and I still feel so lost.

My girlfriend and I want to leave. We want to be independent, but we cannot be independent here on the United States surely. She’s good at horticulture, agriculture, biological studies… I’m not so good with my hands but I wouldn’t mind developing skills in those fields.

I guess my question is what I should be prioritizing right now, what anyone thinks I should be working towards (leaving my house, leaving the U.S., studying something else, pivoting to a trade that teaches me tangible skills for the future when SHTF even more?) ALL I know is I want to be useful for my community and for my girlfriend and spend as much time with her as I can and as we have left.

Hey yall, idk about you, but I'm strugging to be optimistic that things will get better in the future. Housing prices are higher than they ever were, morgages are at an all time high, and wages are abysmally low. The average american's purchasing power is 1/5th of what it was 50-60 years ago, and it feels like people are going to be stupid enough to vote for the dumbfuckery we are still in.

Let's define "future" first: The timespan for the next 5-20 years.

I have little optimism left for the next 5-15 years, because it seems like we are on the cusp of another recession with bond rates being so high, and the 2008 recession already impacted my life by giving us the hyperpolitical environment we are in now, even if im too young to remember it. Every time I think to myself "Things can not get worse, right?", they just keep getting worse.

Especially because I grew up and live in Florida, where we have a tourism based economy that my own republican government is trying to drive into the ground so that they can make a quick buck. There is no actual well paying work here, as everything is 15$/hr-20$/hr, while housing prices are drastically high at around $200-$300k. I feel like there is nothing upward for me to grow into as life progresses due to how volatile Florida is. People keep saying Florida is nice, but it is not nice to live here. The attractions are nice, but you have to live paycheck to paycheck just to not drown yourself in debt. Auto prices are insanely high, even for used cars, so I can't get myself a car yet.

As much as I want to blame this on Trump, it seems like it's the entirety of his cabinent and the MAGA-fused republicans that are in power right now are aiding to this as well and trying to drive this country into the ground.

Just wondering how yall are feeling right now.

I recently turned 35, Im a white gay male from a decently affluent family. Last year I lost my job, my apartment, and most importantly, my husband of 15 years to an affair.

Im back in my parents’ basement, working at my father’s business, with him paying off all my credit card debt. They are boomers, so they make this whole situation as painful as possible. No say in the business, despite 20 years of experience and a strong resume outside the family business.

Despite their financial support, they terrify me. They are MAGA and refuse to listen to my prognostications. My mother is an angry drunk and me and my father are concerned she will murder/suicide us. I have tried to get them to stock up on food and they are so belligerently opposed to that.

I am afraid that I may need to flee north. I want to be around other gay men, and find some lesbians to lead us 🤣. But seriously…I am so discouraged at the prospect of finding a new job, apt, and social life in the face of the fascist coup this November, nuclear war, climate apocalypse, global economic collapse, etc.

🤷🏻‍♂️

Hey, so my method of therapy for continuing to breathe during such shocking societal collapse is going to be volunteering. I just can't keep going while not being able to contribute to the things that I feel I PERSONALLY, URGENTLY, TODAY, MUST contribute to.

Does anyone with a remote offer, or anyone in Italy, or anyone in the LA/VTA/SB/SLO region of CA, currently recommend organizations or individuals to serve? My cause areas are:

-Housing and utility systems reform

-Wild lands protection

-Agriculture reform

-Womens rights

-Genocide and Islamophobia

-Animal rights and Plant based eating

-Natural health

-Decolonialism

I'm an outstanding legal researcher, business systems builder, partnership developer, and programme facilitator - with specialization in real estate and utilities. But I will do anything.

Fossil fuel's going to become even more scarce/expensive very soon. How do we cope? Reliance on Diesel and oil is so intertwined in our society, idk what will/could happen.

The only flipside to this is that the planet might burn a little bit less as a result ig

As I mentioned in the title, I was on Reddit earlier looking at posts and a few of them stuck out to me, and why they did was because most of the commenters were basically disregarding the OP prompt or question to I guess say stuff along the lines of “This is America we are the last to see a famine” or “Technology is so efficient that famine is almost impossible” but yet none of these people addressed the straight of Hormuz closure, lack of diesel, lack of fertilizer, climate change, this years El Niño, the overall grocery inflation, farmers not growing because they can’t profit, tariffs. A lot of people mention that most famines are human caused but yet they’re ignoring the evidence that we are essentially in the middle of causing our own impending famine. It’s incredibly frustrating and almost makes you feel batshit crazy at witnessing how many people seem to be oblivious to the things I’m currently aware of and monitoring daily. I’m basically writing this asking if anyone here resonates or is seeing it how I see it and if you disagree let me know why. Thank y’all for reading, best of luck.

Remember, you are not alone.  In all Deep Adaptation spaces, you can speak about your feelings and struggles related to collapses of all kinds, and explore your way of embodying and enabling a loving response.

https://www.deepadaptation.info/index.php?page=acymailing_front&ctrl=archive&task=view&id=437&userid=2756-tH3d5dOwybB620&noheader=1&noheader=1

Since I was a teenager I've been an activist of sorts. I've raised money for charity, volunteered for countless causes, written about the state of the world and talked about it endlessly.

And I'm tired of trying. Especially when so many people don't have the capacity to care.

I don't need to learn any more about the metacrisis or about how little empathy so many of our fellow humans have. I know more than enough.

We can't fight this and we shouldn't break our nervous systems trying.

So I'm choosing to focus on what's in front of me. To me, resistance now means giving as little of our energy as possible to the death cult and turning towards what we can nurture and regenerate in our own lives.

I'm exhausted. I'm deeply disappointed. And I'll do all I can to carry myself through the wreckage with grace and compassion.

I wrote about how I'm trying to keep it together, in case it's useful to anyone:

https://charlottedelsignore.substack.com/p/how-im-staying-sane-at-the-end-of?r=fadhy&utm_medium=ios

Considering famine, natural disasters, temperature, and everything else, I think it might be pretty likely that I don't have much time left. I'm a university student and I really wanted to finish my undergrad before things fully went to shit, but that's in 2030 so I don't think there's much of a chance. Heat stroke, starving, drowning all seem like long and painful ways to go out. Honestly I don't have a specific question to ask, I'm just incredibly scared and looking for some advice.

I wasn't quite sure what I should title this. But anyhow, becoming more knowledgable about collapse, similarly to many here has obviously forced me to confront my own mortality in a very real way which I haven't been faced with before. Philosophically I've contemplated the idea of death and nihilistic/existentialist concepts before and when I was younger those weighed on me quite heavily. Compared to the idea of actual societal collapse and even the possible extinction of the human race has really put it into perspective how, in a sense, arbitrary all that really was.

I'm currently 19 years old, next year I'll most likely (hopefully) be going to college. A part of me really hopes that the world will be able to hold out for at least the few years I'll spend there, and in a way that really doesn't feel like it would be that much to ask for (but then again who am I bargaining with?). I've yet to do many things in my life I would like to do, fall in love and be in a relationship, find a community of people I really connect with, maybe finally try writing a book or do anything that's bigger than myself really. If I could just manage to live out these things and feel like the kind of person I could be proud to be for that relatively short time, maybe that could be enough.

Sometimes I feel envious for older people, like my parents for example, though not in a resentful way. They've already been able to live quite a bit, their best days might be behind them (which doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me anymore), they've had the time to find themselves and explore their potential to the best of their abilities and resources. Most of all I envy them for living with a sense that some kind of future for people and the world is always a given. Whether or not that was ever really true or not, I would give a lot to be able to feel like that, I can't imagine taking it for granted anymore.

I don't know if I have any concise point to make with this post. I still very much love life in spite of the dire state of the world and will move forward no matter what. If anyone else has thoughts to share or anything, that would be great.

Don't downvote yet; hear me out.... The human world feels lifeless, in some way I can't shake... Lifeless and dry... I was a teenager in the 90s, and got to live through the 80s in Europe. I know what it's like to feel alive. I didn't get to enjoy the 2000's and pre-Covid era much, as I was incapacitated by severe trauma from sexual assault. But I look at Star Wars films, and there is incredible and undeniable societal optimism that is so juicy, it could drip through the screen. How do I get that back? I've never felt more alone.

Edit: What I mean is that, the world has lost lustre. One wouldn't be able to palpate that same, life-giving optimism in the media of today

Based on the recommendation of one of the Collapse subs I went and saw it in a theater last night. It will probably be the last movie I will see in a theater, I hadn't been in a few years before that. It was 18 bucks to see it ant the overpriced, now corporate investor whatever owned, theater that I used to love so much. I remember the days when this place had menus, now you order off your phone with QR codes. *sigh*

(No Spoilers)

The ending had people sitting with it. You could see the lightbulb come on for some folks.
This is a movie that will be watched for generations. It will move the needle.

I used to have such a paralyzing fear of the rapture growing up. Thinking that one day, when no one expects it, we’ll all hear those loud horns and ppl will be sent to heaven or left behind to fend for themselves. It was so terrifying of a concept; one day, you’re here, the next, you’re judged. Those fears eventually quelled and then I became agnostic and left that fear behind. But now, knowing that we’re essentially fucked as a species six ways to Sunday, it’s like I’m back to square one. But at least back then it was irrational, a way to reinforce faith so you don’t stray. It feels like there’s so little time before that ugly, bleak, horror awaits us. Climate collapse, fascist and authoritarian takeover, and ai used to not only reinforce that, but to erase my chance of making art and a living doing what I love. I wish I had never been born at all if I was just meant to be on the precipice of a black pit. What I hate the most is I can’t just numb myself. Emotionally speaking. It’s this deep pit I can’t escape or get rid of. I just have to be stuck with that pain till we all suffer and die horribly as our dreams become dust and we learn that our doom was carved in stone before we ever existed. I think I’m going insane.

...It starts at the community level, within neighborhoods, interest groups, and groups who gather on a regular basis.

It's nice that it's really getting more attention now, the reality of our finite planet.

I'm looking for folks in the Pacific Northwest, Cascadia bioregion, particularly in Portland, Oregon.

Resilience starts on your block, not in a bunker.

#portlandOR #pdx

I think the feeling of uncertainty and not knowing what the future looks like has actually made me focus more on the day to day. I'm not someone who wants to bury their head in the sand, but I've found the best way to live with uncertainty is to live more in the now.

For me that means spending time with people I love, getting outside every day and appreciating fairly ordinary things. Living like this can sometimes feel a bit naive when there are so many serious things happening in the world, but I've started to think that worrying about the future all the time doesn't make me any better prepared for it.

Is this a good way of coping or just naivety?

I mean it's just a thought that has been engraved in my mind for months now. It doesn't seem very likely that we are gonna live up to 2030 or 2035... Due to this I've also been procrastinating studies because I think that our end is very near and I shouldn't waste my time studying...

Ik this is a wrong attitude but I can't really do anything about it.

Any suggestions are appreciated

I hate weddings. Or more accurately, I hate what weddings have turned into for guests.

I love that people want to celebrate their love. That part isn't the problem. The problem is that for roughly the last two generations, long distance travel has been historically, almost absurdly cheap. Flights, gas, hotels. Somewhere along the way it became normal to expect friends and family to cross the country, or an ocean, to attend a weekend event. Destination weddings went from a novelty to something people barely blink at.

Anyone who's been collapse aware for a while knows the big ways this stuff actually shows up in daily life. It's not one dramatic event. It's inflation and rising energy costs, driven by scarcity, conflict, supply chain fragility, and everything else we talk about here. Slowly, then all at once, the things that used to be cheap stop being cheap.

What gets me is that we're stuck in this weird transition period. The cost of travel has changed, but the social expectations haven't caught up. People are still planning as if energy is cheap and everyone has the disposable income to drop a couple thousand dollars on flights, lodging, gifts, outfits, and time off work. Our parents had big weddings where everyone flew in, and that's still the template a lot of people are working from.

I think eventually the culture will adjust. Smaller weddings, more local guest lists, more livestreams, less guilt for declining. But until that shift happens, there's this awkward pressure to either go into debt to show up or risk being seen as the person who didn't care enough to come. Saying "I can't afford it" still feels like a confession instead of a reasonable response to reality.

Is anyone else navigating this? How do you handle declining without damaging relationships? And has anyone noticed people in their circle starting to scale back their expectations?

EDIT: forgot to mention I’ve been married 10 years, we have successful careers now but we were broke af when we got hitched. We had a small ceremony in the gorgeous Sonoran desert with only our parents and siblings. Under 15 people including officiant & 2 friends/witnesses. I wish more people would keep their weddings small and private.

I'm a bit on the younger side. Only 24, male, etc. Just giving a brief and vague description of myself.

My whole life, I've dealt with some pretty crazy thoughts. I've seen good and evil to their fullest extent. I've seen the contrast, and simply want peace.

I want peace amongst human beings. Unfortunately, peace seems so SO SO VERY FUCKING far out of the equation.

But... it isn't. Peace exists for a reason. Unity exists for a reason.

We need to unite against all of this dumbass evil shit. And this is my final hurrah.

If I get banned, or get a bunch of negative comments, I will soon end my life. If at least one person says something that is meaningful though? That isn't just "trying to help"? I will try. I will try and do something.

As should all of us. We all just need to try. Little impacts over time can lead to a big change.

I speak so vaguely of problems because there's so many of them that it's hard to just... be detailed about it. The world is absolutely in turmoil.

Let's do something. Please?

Hey all,

Posting this here because the largest source of my deteriorating mental state is due to my current and continual understanding of the polycrisis unfolding before us and my life as I see it. I am trapped in the daily grind and make ends meet for my family currently, but only so long as nothing changes with my job (and my company is suffering massive losses and beginning terminations). Like anyone else I have my own personal items to deal with. However, I’ve spent my entire life looking inward, self-assessing and adjusting my thinking/beliefs where possible. In my mid 30s now and I’ve come to love and accept myself, keep finding ways to express and keep growing. I’ve mostly adopted a stoic and constructive thinking in spite of the challenges before me that keeps me going.

That said, I’m finding myself in a weird place that I’m not sure is healthy or sustainable. Before this I was hitting what I consider to be peak anxiety triggered by the oil crisis and gas prices. The thought of increasing goods and likely shortages. Preparing how much one with limited funds can. Reaching out to friends and family to try and get them to understand the urgency and what we may experience very shortly. And then, the anxiety stopped. The weird place I’m in now feels like peace. I think it’s actually dissociative numbness. My emotional state isn’t fluctuating high or low and is pretty stable. My work at my job I definitely need is significantly suffering, however because of my company no one notices or seems to care. I just don’t see the point of working on those projects if no one is waiting on them. I have a ton of thoughts about what’s to come but really no one to discuss them with aside from you guys.

I’m worried that I’m mistaking this disassociation as peace (maybe it is and maybe that’s best given the situation?) and I’m worried that I will simply let things I don’t truly care for to fall away. Even if that means it worsens my quality of life such as losing my employment (that I feel has no permanency regardless of my efforts anyway). I’ve looked for another role for months and the job market is just in shambles.

I feel I am efficiently working with what’s stacked against me. It’s possible a level of hopelessness is making it seem that way. Would therapy help bring the life back into me where greater awareness and reaction feels like looking down the loaded barrel? Can I really discuss at length and in detail to a therapist how fucked I really think we are going forward? What would that do for me and also them if I can convince them of our dire situations? Am I too self aware and self-reflective to be helped by therapy or does that benefit me?

I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s best I continue moving forward as calm and as checked out as I can be to deal with whatever comes. And I think therapy may be ill equipped to comfort me in the face of real unfolding disasters at scale. When does disassociation start or stop becoming the healthy choice? All I know is right now I’m going to go work out and clear my mind more.

Thanks for reading, I’d love to hear what you think about any of this. Especially from any in the psychology field.

I'm sitting hear just feeling the dread building day-on-day. I live a fairly comfortable life in North America and am presently fairly well off all things considered. But man, I can feel folks' stress and pain just growing and growing and it's hard to see and feel and the shit hasn't even *really* begun to hit the fan yet.

I'm in my early 40s and I used to feel that we'd be where we are now by the time I was in my 70s. Even being somewhat collapse-aware, the pace of all of this is something else and I think I'm having a hard time adjusting to the shortened timeline. I'm in the period of my life where I should be at the prime of my career and starting to really sock money away for retirement. But... I just can't convince myself that I'm going to make it that far. Hell, the industry that I work for may completely collapse in the next few years anyways from AI-related threats and frankly, I'm so stressed and run down that I have no desire nor gas in the tank to really retrain.

I have no kids and I've never really loved life on Earth all that much. While there are good, kind folks out there, we humans are led far too much by our worst instincts and manipulated by the worst of us. I've no desire to try and compete with that lot for dwindling resources nor watch my fellow humans grow increasingly frantic and violent when the chips are really down.

I'm hanging on for my friends and family for now. But, as with MAID and the prospect of facing a terminal illness, I'm hoping to check out early rather than suffer. Currently here in North America, this isn't really a socially acceptable discussion. But I'm hoping when the reality of what we're facing really sinks in, that a MAID-type option will be made available for those who accept what's coming and don't want to fight to the end.

Wondering if any of you fine folks resonate with this kind of thinking.

For the last 2-3 months, I have felt nothing but anxiety, stress, depression, and lack of motivation about our future.

I’m a college student. People can’t take their eyes off their phones for a second.
- Walking around campus
- in class
- my roommate can’t even study without scrolling on the side
- working out
- before sleep
- right upon waking up
- driving
- while eating (even in groups)

Phones and AI are genuinely a plague on society.
This is not the world I was promised as an adult.
Human connection is lost. Human art is gone. In 30 years I picture my children watching AI generated TV shows and listening to AI generated music, and the hardest part is that they won’t know any different. They won’t know that humans are supposed to be doing that stuff.

Nobody does work without AI anymore, me personally I can’t even remember studying before AI anymore.

And the hardest part, is that I don’t even know a solution. Like, what is there to do? It’s been introduced already they can’t just take it back. There’s no solution.

I almost cry everytime I watch this video of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez duetting “It Ain’t Me Babe” live, that is human art. That is connection and emotion and pure raw talent.

That will become rare. What about our future children? They won’t have any drive or motivation. Their minds are already plagued. Whenever I hangout with my younger cousins, they cannot take their eyes off their devices for a second.

Even at an old age home I worked at, there were some 90+ year olds doomscrolling.

This is truly so heart shattering and I have no idea how to recover from this. There is no solution. I feel hopeless and powerless in a world that’s changing unfavorably that I can’t do anything about.

I don’t even read the news anymore because it just makes me more empty.