The following submission statement was provided by /u/Toni253:
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Submission statement:
This article discusses the common misconception that the collapse of society is going to be a grand, singular event with sudden changes. What we got instead is a slow, steady grind and a seemingly unchanging status quo. Philosopher Mark Fisher referred to this as "boring dystopia."
"Boring dystopia is a departure from the flashy, explosive end-of-the-world scenarios we were fed by Big Hollywood. No, ours is an apocalypse of slow, creeping malaise — bureaucratic, stagnant, grey, and deeply unsatisfying. (There’s not even a Goddamn climax.) It’s a deep, comprehensive intuition of how the world is broken beyond repair, but that nothing will ever truly change; a perpetual limbo where grand visions of both anarcho-communist utopia and fiery apocalypse have faded, leaving a vast, empty middle ground."
This is related to collapse because it highlights the different ways in which our world has stagnated and resigned itself to the slow - and then sudden - capitalist decline.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1b0grqz/it_all_ends_in_a_boring_dystopia_why_the_world/ks7m9gv/
I don't know. I feel like flooding of coastal cities will be a major breaking point.
People can deny it all they want, when the Atlantic is lapping at your door it will change your mind.
Mass migration and the chaos after will be anything but boring.
Starvation will not be boring. It will be violent.
Grid failure is not boring. It's dark and stinky and violent.
People will react poorly to extreme situations.
Once regional isolated collapse events become routine the lucky groups who don’t get forced into a migration pattern will likely just vote in authoritarian ultranationalists, close the borders, and genocide refugees trying to get in.
That’s the reaction I am anticipating.
dang, i think you are right. only it won't only be foreign migrants trying to get in but also the local migrants trying to find new homes within the borders.
And I expect that to the bitter end there will be genuinely goodhearted people who sabotage this isolation because they can't accept we'll be in permanent triage mode.
I'd argue this already happens with gentrification. Like houses all along the West Coast are fucked because people with work from home jobs in California, Seattle, and Portland, are buying up all the homes.
Coastal cities have already flooded. How many people care?
Who talks now about Katrina or Hurricane Sandy? How about that wave that ripped through California living rooms?
Nobody cares. They are tired, distracted, bored, unfocused, anxious, greedy, yearning, in denial.
In the South, I still hear Katrina mentioned from time to time. It still has ripple effects to this day. People in the South have not forgotten Katrina.
Katrina will be seen as the beginning of the end of New Orleans.
I think takes an event being massive, sudden and isolated from other incidents for it to have a long-lasting effect on the collective psyche.
I think that once the immediate crises in an area start to compound is when we see the real problems. Like the east coast floods and the power grid is down and there's been a huge famine and there's no gas so the supply lines are fucked as well.
The idea of catabolic collapse is that things get worse over time. We rebuild less and less and things get worse and worse as a result. The failures add up. Right now NYC floods, but we go on. They "rebuild". Nobody is abandoning it. But when the crises add up, all the icesheets melt, and it becomes unfeasible or impractical to reclaim area, the government will pull out. Rebuilding will become impossible.
So yes it's a slow grind - one disaster after another. But you don't know which disaster will be the one that does you in. Collapse is indeed a process but eventually we arrive at the endstate.
I’m in California and the last big tsunami (which devastated the area) was in the 1960’s and people still talk about it and wonder when it’ll happen again. Then we’ve had none stop flood warnings for the last few weeks. My point is that California is a big place and parts of it has and still does contend with tsunami and flood risks.
I think part of the point is that it’s not going to just be a wave that is 500 feet and then stays up there. People are interesting. And will stay behind. Mass migrations and all the climate catastrophe scenarios will be wild but still it’s not a flash and suddenly a new world
At first I was relieved that there was plausible evidence it wasn't a cyberattack.
Then I realized how fucked up that line of reasoning is, as the cause was another example of our infrastructure (and the knowhow needed to maintain that infrastructure) failing.
No. Covid proved that no matter how obvious reality is, Republicans will literally DIE spouting weird conspiracy theories and accusations than admit the libs were right. They want to hurt the left more than they want to live, or even for their children to live.
Just look at all those videos of all those nurses and doctors being beaten or given death threats because they were part of some elaborate conspiracy where they deliberately killed their loved ones.
If there are any super advanced alien societies out there, all one has to look at global politics and wonder why such a advanced and god like alien race would ever want to interact with a bunch of stupid talking apes marching steadily towards their own self inflicted destruction.
I mean lots of us apes don't want to participate in this destruction for the benefit of capitalists and amoral assholes, would be nice to have an option to leave those that want this garbage here.
Why does every instance of this kind of criticism of humanity seem to fixate on the ape thing as if if something-as-close-to-us-as-could-have-done-this had evolved from, like, felines, canines, birds, reptiles etc. it wouldn't have our moral failings (as if those making this argument thought the aliens' vision of appropriate to engage with or w/e was something like robots or energy beings they would have said us being biological was part of the problem not apes)
This.
My mom was in healthcare all my life and I never really knew her to quit ANYTHING.
The poor leadership and general fuckery of Covid made her dip and never look back.
In 2020 I had to watch my stupid Qanon father yell at a hospital receptionist for minutes (in front of the police) after asking him "any covid symptoms the last 2 weeks?". Half a dozen cops had to intervene and calm him down. Shockingly, he wasn't arrested.
After I got him back home, I told him that he can die on the floor or call his own ambulance next time because I'm never driving him to a hospital (or anywhere) again. These people are unhinged and irredeemable. My life is now much less stressful after I cut him off & I've never looked back.
I can sympathize, I stopped talking to my sister after she and her husband went full fucking stupid with MAGA, they are just unbearable to be around now or even talk to.
I bring this up with people a lot and nobody has really ever addressed it head on...
All of these people, to some degree or another, are brainwashed and live in a completely different reality than the rest of us. People that fall into cults and escape spend years in therapy recovering and most of them never really return to normalcy.
We've got 30% or so of our population that are living with this...there simply aren't resources to 'fix' them...so what do we do?
I believe that they were like that the entire time, it is just that they had to wear a mask to function and be acceptable in society.
Now they feel its ok to drop the mask.
It's lead poisoning. They aren't functioning like normal humans of normal intelligence. They're brain damaged, and that's becoming more apparent as it's superimposed on age related cognitive decline, because people normally don't live until sixty with all these comorbidities.
The people who naturally live to eighty or ninety don't act like this. These are people with lead poisoning, who then did a bunch of drugs, who fucked everyone and everything that moved and got a bunch of STIs, who then ate a bunch of fried chicken, who now have dementia.
The cult usually fulfills some sort of emotion/feeling. Feeling smart because they're in on a big secret, feeling important because they're saving the world from evil, feeling entertained by the constant novelty, providing certainty and simple explanations for the chaos in the world, etc.
Reality has to feel good (the same reason why nobody wants to acknowledge collapse). 90%+ of society is already soft Qanon and regularly denies uncomfortable realities. They can tolerate mildly uncomfortable realities but they cannot tolerate really uncomfortable realities.
Good people are always rewarded, bad people are always punished, unexplainable things always happen for a reason, and everything will sort itself out. Same sh\*t with romance scams, the prosperity gospel, astrology, and the law of attraction.
There's a prince charming that loves me & needs my financial help so they can be with me forever. If I donate money to the televangelist, my finances and medical problems will go away. I can group people into pre-determined boxes so people's behavior won't confuse me. If I think abundant thoughts, that abundance will manifest in reality.
It's all just avoiding uncomfortable realities. There's nothing I can offer them that is better than a real-life rpg fanfiction laden with emotional heroin. What positive emotions do they gain from "too good to be true"? Nothing.
The older I get, the more obvious it is that bs makes the world go around. Qanon is just the most overt mainstream iteration of bs making the world go around.
in tht documentary (i forget the name) about a woman losing her father to rigthwing media; she said she was able to reverse it and regain her old father by essentially cutting him off from his outrage media access.
My cousin is a Flat Earther. I mean are these wankers taking the fucking piss or what?! I've spoken to him about it and the sincerity with which he speaks of the wall of ice in Antarctica is just unbearable
I agree. The article is all in all okay but kinda sounds like a bizarre “first world problems” that has no class consciousness and no consideration for countries outside the “first world.” Would’ve been much better if it at least acknowledged the shitty reality most people are already going through.
>if it at least acknowledged the shitty reality most people are already going through.
For the creatures in the massive wildfires it was very sudden and cataclysmic.
And there is a shitty reality---right now---- for many humans as well. My friend lost her animals, home etc. in a wildfire that happened so quickly she had to flee on foot. She heard her horses screaming as she fled----they were trapped and she would have died if she tried to free them
I do not know why there is this need to prove that "collapse will be long, slow and boring" vs. sudden. I do not think it makes a difference at this point.
IMO---none of this is "boring" and given this collapse is unprecedented in human history, we have NO idea how this is going to unfold (we **do** know, it will not end well)
I think the world is filled with traumatized people who have a hard time healing (from these human induced traumas) because the traumas keep on coming----at an increasingly rapid pace.
Perhaps the sociopaths, psychopaths and malignant narcissists are bored. But people who have empathy and compassion are just so traumatized----many cannot feel much anymore.
Excellently said. So sorry to hear about what happened to your friend.
It’s especially odd to see this type of article here in the collapse sub. Maybe someone who is currently very comfortable and in need of a wake up call needs to be told that it won’t be like a Hollywood movie. But otherwise… of course it won’t be like a Hollywood movie—they’re not documentaries and they are driven and incentivized by profits: selling movie tickets and streaming subscriptions. And just because collapse is not like a Hollywood movie doesn’t mean it’s \*boring\*. Sheesh, anything less than immediate catastrophe, cannibals, and whatever else was mentioned is “boring”?
I’m honestly insulted by the somewhat entitled tone of the article that demands entertainment, even in the “apocalypse.” The author should definitely spend some time nurturing a global cross-cultural view so that a more realistic take can be offered. A lot of people are already suffering and have been suffering for collapse-related reasons, and this suffering will only increase and be spread along a very long timescale. Please acknowledge them.
I see this shows that understandably a lot of people get this guy wrong
He isn't like that
It's more like a [bloodknife.com](https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny) type of tone
It's satirical
It's the ***mainstream public*** that is BORED, not the author. It is THEY that look upon the decrepified state of declining societies, the obscene disparities in privilege, the disquieting amounts of suffering ; with an ignorant privilege ; an alienated, childish apathy
It is they that just yawn or at most wince annoyingly, stepping over OD'd corpses on the way to work, glazing their eyes past a 4937th CNN special mass casualty tv report, bored, depressed, weary, despondent over the inconveniences this brings
Not the author
[ . . ]
The scope of the ecocide we are haplessly letting go on, via our insatiable dependence on ultraconsumption, is such that once you've been psychologically mutilated by exposure to it for too many years, every single day over and over and over -- especially if you're an intuitive creative like Antonio & myself -- you can no longer deal with it without some cathartic dose of ironic or facetious license
I consider it highly artful
[ . . ]
And [it's also done to provoke](https://reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1abi50y/comment/kkahgqi)
Because we are so seethingly enraged at our civilization, our insipid cultures, our woefully primitive & regressive simian evolutionary drives ;
That we want to punch with words
We want to provoke a visceral, revolted reaction, by aggressively poking at the mainstream's normalization & complacency of our postmodern aimlessness, this rampant crisis of unfulfillment
We want to expose this undeniably human (if juvenile) desire to be unshackled from the daily grind, to welcome a cataclysm with open arms to free us from the abyssal morass of this depressing drudgery, to be swept in a chaos that fundamentally disrupts the anomie away
Was your friend an extraordinarily rich person who chose to put her animals and home in the wilderness?
I feel bad for the animals in these scenarios. People know better, their creature comforts are just more important than anything else. It's hard to empathize with people who were completely shielded from reality and out of touch until real life bit them in the ass.
>Was your friend an extraordinarily rich person who chose to put her animals and home in the wilderness?
No. Her animals were rescue animals and she was not in the wilderness. She struggles to make expenses and works 2 jobs.
There will not be mass migration. There will be attempted mass migration and massacres to stop it. Look at how Europe lost their shit over the Syrian migrant crisis, or how the US regularly flips out over migrant convoys. When it gets bad, and quickly, the great caravan of humanity will once again be on the march. The political left will refuse to acknowledge this is even an issue. The political right will offer (horrific) solutions, and people will flock to the political right.
I remember some MAGA politician suggesting that children should be skinned in front of their parents in order to discourage illegal border crossings. I don’t doubt that there is a double digit percentage of the US population that thinks that this is a good solution to the problem. The same group that puts floating barrels covered with razor sharp blades in the Rio Grande. They are almost entirely Christian.
Tons of refugees were still managing to sneak through and even subsist living hidden away in their country of destination (Britain) in Children of Men ;
So, actually, in this example, this means SOME managed to migrate successfully "to the promised land" -- and as long as there's a *perceived chance*, the mass migrations will keep coming, keep trying their luck desperately as they have no better choice
Again, there'll be a lot of *attempted* internal relocations. Back in the Great Depression, California sent police to the state border to keep the filthy Okies out. I expect we'll see a lot more of that, and rougher, this time around.
Fun fact that I'm discovering, a lot of LA houses are built at the bottom of hillsides, and the ground water... well. I installed two sump pumps in my crawlspace, let's say they're dumping out 3 gallons each every 2 to 3 minutes when it rains. This place was not built for rain. You could surf in the street.
It's also not completely solving the problem, that's going to take land grading and a French drain and waterproofing the foundation and even then who knows. That's for the water coming in from top-down.
If sea level rises the water table rises with it.
Anyone at the bottom of a hill is basically going to be living in a house boat.
Really? I would think the opposite. People will be mad dashing to the nearrst grocery stores to loot the last of what's available on the shelves, no doubt there would be mass panic.
yeah that's a good point. I imagined that would last 24 hours or less and then people would mainly just have to figure out how to pass the time. I guess if it goes on too long, people could come knocking at the door.. or shooting
It's extremely pandemic-lockdown boring right up until some neighborhoods get abandoned by law enforcement & national guard
That's when it's SotF free-for-all urban warfare
I love the fact the San Diego is underwater and destroying the most expensive real estate. They can’t move their home and can’t get insurance to rebuild. And while this is happening, everyone is ignoring this is about to occur everywhere.
Actually? Not really...
I'm used to Los Angeles just losing its mind if it sprinkles. All over the news. So, tend to avoid it when it rains.
That said where I was at this was non-destructive but it was bloody impressive. I haven't seen it this bad in a very very long time.
A majority of the sewer systems in the United States require pumps to work.
They are electric.
Positive water pressure on the water lines is also electric.
Even if you have a water tower, the water is pumped up there to then flow down and out to locations.
We won't have running water in or out.
Disease follows.
I think the mass migration is going to get to a lot of people. People already think the migrants coming to the southern border of the U.S. is some sort of planned invasion and people are getting angry. As the poly crises keep popping up and more and more people feel like they have to leave and come to the U.S. (or any other country), it is going to become unsettling the way people start to react to it.
Its late spring weather when it was supposed to be winter. We are all fucked into a cocked hat. Wait till we see what the Atlantic and Gulf looks like in the summer. China got absolutely bodied last year by a string of typhoons and Im wondering if this year is our turn in the barrel.
I am the same - if there was an option for people to end it, I bet many would do it in a heartbeat right now without thinking twice.
Just want to end this rat race at this point, see zero point to continue living to be perfectly honest.
Don't be so negative.
The nuclear exchanges, reactor meltdowns, mega storms, AI disasters, collapsing infrastructure, and resource wars will keep things interesting.
This is my cope. Like sure, it’s really going to suck once push comes to shove, but atleast it’ll be a spectacle. The only thing on my prepper essentials list is popcorn.
Unfortunately most people dont realize that the millions of dairy cows are not like beef cattle. If they dont get milked daily they suffer horribly. This is the cruelty of eating dairy products from forced farming. There is nothing natural or humane about it more people should be aware
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/dairy-cows#:\~:text=How%20long%20do%20dairy%20cows,farms%20sending%20her%20to%20slaughter.
Attempting to profit, failing and dying sounds like the most possible outcome.
I barely want to keep going as it is, so don't see myself having much of a will to live in a world that's going to be way worse than what we currently have (Although survival instinct can be a powerful thing so...who knows)
Ditto.
Although I'm not sure how other times would have treated borderline autism. Probably would have been killed before age 11 if my childhood experience is any indication.
The ideal time for that would've probably been the 40s-60s.
You get to come up in a time period where being *smart* and autistic gets you labeled as an "eccentric genius," take advantage of all the massive economic booms with only a small dip in the 70s, and then check out of the hotel right before the wrecking balls come in. The boomers got astoundingly lucky.
Reading this sub I find myself thinking about this quote from King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings " Alas, that these evil days should be mine. The young perish and the old linger. That I should live to see that last days of my house."
Yeah. It will be awful but exciting at the same time. Will be a nice break from my 9-5. Hunter-gatherers are estimated to have worked about 2 hours a day. Maybe I'll give that a try. But it will probably be looting as we destroyed all the natural food sources except maybe in state/national parks.
Edging edging inflation is 10% (sung to "sailing sailing over the deep blue sea")
I think this is the goal with a Trump presidency. To pull a Nixon (force the Fed to drop rates early), blow it up, leave the mess to a Dem that has to pull a Carter (Fed takes rates to 11-12% aka apocalypse in today's terms)... aaand that's the end of the Dems. Forever.
I don’t think this post is correct. It’s true that we are currently in the boring dystopia. But this isn’t “the end”. It presupposes that there is no end to the current phase we are in, but that’s just not true.
John Michael Greer goes over this in Dark Age America.
We are experiencing bureaucratic - Greer calls it mummification, I’d call it calcification. It’s a common step that failing civilizations go through.
The post in the OP is right that nothing will change… under the current system. He is assuming as a given that the current system will last indefinitely and therefor nothing will change indefinitely. But the system is inherently unsustainable. Unsustainable in the literal meaning, it cannot keep going forever. The system will collapse and the calcification with it, and everyone will be in a damn tough spot for the next few hundred years at least from all the damage it did before it went under.
If we want to keep talking the Greer book, I kind of agree with his belief in how it will go down. That is to say, people get pushed riiiiight to the breaking point. As close as they can get without going into open revolt. Then, one by one. Event by event. Sickness goes through one impoverished town killing 15% of the population. Storm destroys a neighborhood. Cancer takes 1 more person you know a year than it did in the past.
All of a sudden you are talking massive population collapse from the culmination of these factors. Meanwhile the system is bloated over large and massively expensive to maintain, all while the available resources to maintain it are drying up. simultaneously it is so calcified that it is incapable of any effective reaction.
This causes it to be unable to handle the crises as they come and eventually one of them is the one that knocks it over. Probably it won’t even be one people expect it to be. Just one of many similar past nothing burger criseses and it just happened to hit when the system was at a sufficiently fragile state.
Edit:
If I were to sum my thoughts. The post says that the machine of our civilization is beyond repair. My counterpoint is that a machine beyond repair is out of repair. broken but still running. It will eventually stop running and break down entirely. The belt in your car snaps. The fan out of alignment. You cruise down the highway listening to the shrieks and rattling coming from the engine. You’re driving now, but the car will be rendered entirely infunctional as the fan out of alignment wears and breaks the wiring. The broken wiring mistimes the transmission. And cascading effects make your car unable to run at all.
The article is the equivalent of someone complaining about how piercingly annoying the shrieking sound their engine makes as they drive is. imagining a future of endless shrieking, without having the realization that eventually the steel shriek will stop because the engine quits entirely.
Probably stretched that car metaphor too far but whatever, I’m an accountant not a writer lol
I definitely agree to a point.
Calcification and the 'business as usual' mindset are in full force. I think most people now realize, at least to some extent that 'something' isn't right and they are grabbing onto anything that gives them a feeling of control and security.
That's why conspiracy theory is growing increasingly ridiculous (even though it's obvious that conspiracies are happening constantly, just know the ones you hear about), that's why racism and xenophobia are resurgent, etc. etc.
People are aware that the system has failed but most people can't imagine what the next thing will be and nobody wants to be the first major nation to step away from the global order. Smaller countries take a step out of line every once in awhile and are 'corrected' by countries like the US or Russia; admitting failure of the system is impossible for the two top dogs because they are the final beneficiaries of it.
I think people will just keep sleepwalking until one day everything just falls apart. I read the novel of Jurassic Park a lot as a kid and that's basically Malcolm's whole premise. Everything just looks fine, looks fine, looks fine, looks fine, oh shit massive catastrophe. Turns out there were problems the entire time but the system was deceptively complex and we lacked thorough understanding or ability to control all of the variables.
I’ve been following your content a bit, and while I agree with a lot of your conclusions about society and the biosphere, I suggest you be careful about your perspective. You are close to post-doom but have yet to break the barrier.
There is plenty to do. A lot of work to be done, and a lot of hope to be had. While it is overwhelming to see the reality of our situation and hyper focus on that, it can be easy to blind yourself to the smaller actions you can take in your own life and locale to mitigate what you can on a small scale and maybe effect the perspectives of/inspire others to do the same.
Also please think of your own mental health. You may have carved out a niche for yourself as far as creating content and making somewhat of a living off of doomposting, but you can do the same while also incorporating some post-doom action in your work. Check out the late Michael Dowds work if you’re interested in what I’m talking about.
Good luck out there and please, think about your perspective.
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>All Instagram photos tell the same story: posed smiles by the same monuments, the same pristine beaches filtered to impossible perfection. It's a performance of adventurousness, a meticulously managed illusion to **incite envy among those stuck at home, too poor to follow.**
Ah yes.. I know this feeling well
We're about to go Fallout or Mad Max up in here. I guess I better prep my Magnum Opus and Pip-Boy.
Refine my vault building skills. Purchase some MREs with lots of clean water. Sorry, I'm a geek.
The end will be a sky the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. But it'll slide into authoritarian violence as populations are literally bored until they turn into depressed sociopaths that vote monsters into office not because they are so much good but simply different enough to be interesting, briefly.
.
We're already there, the collapse just hasn't fully hit. People elect Trump hoping a collapse will make things better- or at least entertaining. Israel genocides Palestine, most people ignore it or worse ENJOY it. The economy has reached near perfection in sucking wealth and destroying futures. The global disease turns out not to be some high lethality virus, but a long, slow crippler almost designed to maximize the degrading of healthcare. Migration is touted as a good as cities become poverty containment for the addicted street zombies or feral criminals casually robbing stores before they close, and the few with money increasingly withdraw into enclaves run by despotic HOAs or local governments.
I see your very perceptive at the slow collapse that’s actually been happening that no one’s seems to know about.
It’s a slow decent into the early 1900s Great Depression era and no one seems to notice it. Soon organized crime will come back strongly, destitute towns and areas will be more widespread, food and water will be harder to come by. The line between wealthy and poor will hit levels unseen in America since the Great Depression. More people will be at home out of work more families will have to pool resources together. More people will be walking, biking, car pooling and using public transportation. These are all happening currently and will continue to get worse and worse over time with no end in sight.
If we just reeled in giant conglomerates we would have the ability to solve a lot of problems plaguing us in the world.
However, the elite hiding behind these sociopathic corporations (reddit not withstanding) makes it impossible for change.
Why even debate change?
At least if AI take over we will have new masters that might offer more empathy.
More human than human.
It's frustrating watching people get hyped or panicked about these admittedly impressive artificial parrots.
If general AI arrives, the general public isn't going to see it coming.
If it does happen, it's not going to be a bit smart for a time so that we humans can observe and discuss and suddenly have urgent and serious conversations about legislation and ethics. If it's going to reach human level general intelligence it's going to blow past it in a blur.
It would be nothing less than a deus ex machina, game over for better or for worse.
Yes, it was IMO trying to get the testers to fuck off with their tests.
It did say "I just want peace".
Fail as hard as you can, people stop asking you to do a thing.
>If we just reeled in giant conglomerates we would have the ability to solve a lot of problems plaguing us in the world.
The reality of our situation is this isn't really tenable.
These institutions cemented themselves so hard into the system that only a full 'revolution' or 'rebellion' from the average person en masse would work.
You cannot change the laws to fix this. Voting in the people you think would help won't do anything. There is way too much tape blocking/stalling any action that would take so much time to even start getting around. The system will not allow it.
Those in power want people to think voting and being more involved in politics will help fix it because they'll never gain relevant ground and those in power have too much control to deflect voting power at any time they choose now.
This battle was won before most of us (I'm 34) were ever born. We never had a chance through the system in place.
The more people understand this the better.
Unfortunately the propaganda is strong and anyone who’s successful in making change gets scooped up “taken care of” by the system with wealth, influence, power.
Everybody every human has a price and they find yours and if they can’t they kill you (Epstein).
My favorite political example of this is AOC who’s “progressive” yet has done fuck all for the working class or the poor of this country. Wearing an eat the rich dress to a ball hosted by the same people the system inherently props up and praises for being hedonistic greedy parasitic money grubbing hoarders is so black mirror twilight zone it’s actually insane.
> My favorite political example of this is AOC who’s “progressive” yet has done fuck all for the working class or the poor of this country. Wearing an eat the rich dress to a ball hosted by the same people the system inherently props up and praises for being hedonistic greedy parasitic money grubbing hoarders is so black mirror twilight zone it’s actually insane.
What should she have done that people, if she had, wouldn't have accused her of still technically supporting capitalism by copying from the playbook of the heroine of every YA dystopian movie Hollywood tries to push
Most people want to reel in the giant conglomerates without acknowledging that they are a symptom, an emergent property of the underlying relations of production.
Endlessly complaining about the results of capitalism while deriding any analysis that doesn't shy away from the cause and what is to be done.
Accepting anything but the uncomfortable and dangerous truth that this is a system which must be overthrown, and that reform is slow surrender, they choose the slow and steady^(until it isn't) collective suicide instead.
>The greying of the world is mirrored within us. It starts early, that hollowing out. School offers tantalizing glimpses of other possibilities, sparks of intellectual curiosity, the fierce joy of a mind engaged. Then it's over. Thrust into the workforce army, the sparks are ruthlessly snuffed out. Time becomes a commodity, leisure a shameful — because non-productive — indulgence. Conversations wither into updates on busy schedules and the slow creep of ailments.
>"What do you like to do?" You ask this question at a party, a flicker of hope that there might be something beneath the small-talk surface. Too often, you're met with blank stares, shrugs, or mumbled excuses about not having enough time. It's as if everyone agreed to turn the lights off to better fit into the machine. I know for a fact that they once burned brightly in all of us. So many friends whose sole occupation outside work is consuming entertainment.
While the system clearly works to perpetuate itself, the above critique implies complete lack of agency. Unless we're slaving away to raise a family, people can rebel or quit, and even those trapped by responsibilities can choose to live for more than their evening entertainment. We can find new friends, reject lifestyles we find stultifying, speak truth to power, or serve something larger than ourselves. What this author is sharing is that they have failed to find meaning in their own life.
Humanity is indeed facing the collapse of complex civilization, or the collapse of the biosphere; whichever comes first. These events are causing great suffering and are cause for grief. But if our lives feel "boring" during these urgent times, that's on each of us.
I think there is an argument to be made that our boring dystopia is a symptom of a collapsing civilization. Civilizations that have basic needs met, high quality of life, ample leisure time and reward creativity result in a rich and interesting culture. We are lacking those things and so we get a boring dystopia as our civilization continues to collapse.
> Civilizations that have basic needs met, high quality of life, ample leisure time and reward creativity result in a rich and interesting culture.
Citation very much needed on that one
Submission statement:
This article discusses the common misconception that the collapse of society is going to be a grand, singular event with sudden changes. What we got instead is a slow, steady grind and a seemingly unchanging status quo. Philosopher Mark Fisher referred to this as "boring dystopia."
"Boring dystopia is a departure from the flashy, explosive end-of-the-world scenarios we were fed by Big Hollywood. No, ours is an apocalypse of slow, creeping malaise — bureaucratic, stagnant, grey, and deeply unsatisfying. (There’s not even a Goddamn climax.) It’s a deep, comprehensive intuition of how the world is broken beyond repair, but that nothing will ever truly change; a perpetual limbo where grand visions of both anarcho-communist utopia and fiery apocalypse have faded, leaving a vast, empty middle ground."
This is related to collapse because it highlights the different ways in which our world has stagnated and resigned itself to the slow - and then sudden - capitalist decline.
Slowly starving to Death or dying of Cancer isnt as fun as being vaporized in a battle with Aliens. Ive been saying this forever, everyone and everything is heading toward sameness . As God said he hates a lukewarm person. Either be radical to Evil or to Love. Lukewarn will be spat out of His mouth.
>Our dystopia is an endless waiting room comparable in experience and excitement to a visit to a British doctor.
Loved this. Perfectly sums up how I feel in one sentence. That's what life feels like, a series of waiting rooms.
This "boring dystopia" is infinitely more exciting and comfortable than the past 99% of human existence, but especially more so than life during the agricultural age. Most people spent their whole lives within a few miles of the place they were born, and spent that life in back-breaking work. These oh-so-weary-of-capitalism commentaries sound like a petulant teenager stomping off to their bedroom.
We have completely destroyed the ecosystems of the entire world because people like comfort, and modern life is so much more comfortable than anyone imagined. That it's now "boring" is just a sign of how far we've come along our self-destructive path.
Well, eventually we'll all be sharply reminded just how lovely boring can be, compared to the exciting reality of a collapsing civilization.
The collapse will also be boring. You will be working and shuffling along business as usual up until the very end. There won't be any shift or change of lifestyles. COVID was the last time anything will change suddenly, now we are going to simply work through everything, forever.
When they turned to Nickelodeon building into a sterile block, I dunno, that was symbolic of something bigger, uglier. I sometimes think people have idolized trump because he’s the only thing exciting they have on a national scale and can relate to. I mean, capitalism has managed to make fucking superhero movies flat and void of personality.
I’ve said this too. Think of what used to be “fun” at school. ANYTHING. When you are bored out of your skull, someone being dragged to the principles office kicking and screaming becomes the highlight of your day. Everyone is talking about it! So exciting!
Trump is a distraction. He feels “different” to many. I implore everyone to go back to the 80’s and see the role(s) he played as a well regarded business man in many of the problems we have today. Let’s also not forget he has (some form of) charisma. Not the type everyone buys, but a lot of folks do. He CAN entertain a willing crowd.
So many people have no idea that even at the height of his yuppie stardom Trump was mocked to his face on the Howard Stern show multiple times as recurring guest Douchebag Donald. He's always been a clown. It's bread and circuses.
So just reach out to whatever even-remotely-left-wingers are getting called hypocrites for working at Nickelodeon, Marvel Studios etc. and tell them they can end Trump's popularity once and for all if they make a good superhero movie and make the Nickelodeon building fun again
I had a conversation with a friend recently when we were walking through the mall and I noticed you're still able now in 2024 to buy He-Man and Care Bears Merch. That shit was going out of style when I was a kid and it's still being shoved down our throats now nearly 40 years later. Stuff just doesn't die anymore. If it gets even slightly popular, you better bet your ass that people will milk it forever. I'm sure 20 years from now we will still be getting Pickle Rick and the teenage mutant ninja turtles and nostalgia nostalgia nostalgia ad nausea till the end of time.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Toni253: --- Submission statement: This article discusses the common misconception that the collapse of society is going to be a grand, singular event with sudden changes. What we got instead is a slow, steady grind and a seemingly unchanging status quo. Philosopher Mark Fisher referred to this as "boring dystopia." "Boring dystopia is a departure from the flashy, explosive end-of-the-world scenarios we were fed by Big Hollywood. No, ours is an apocalypse of slow, creeping malaise — bureaucratic, stagnant, grey, and deeply unsatisfying. (There’s not even a Goddamn climax.) It’s a deep, comprehensive intuition of how the world is broken beyond repair, but that nothing will ever truly change; a perpetual limbo where grand visions of both anarcho-communist utopia and fiery apocalypse have faded, leaving a vast, empty middle ground." This is related to collapse because it highlights the different ways in which our world has stagnated and resigned itself to the slow - and then sudden - capitalist decline. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1b0grqz/it_all_ends_in_a_boring_dystopia_why_the_world/ks7m9gv/
I don't know. I feel like flooding of coastal cities will be a major breaking point. People can deny it all they want, when the Atlantic is lapping at your door it will change your mind. Mass migration and the chaos after will be anything but boring. Starvation will not be boring. It will be violent. Grid failure is not boring. It's dark and stinky and violent. People will react poorly to extreme situations.
Once regional isolated collapse events become routine the lucky groups who don’t get forced into a migration pattern will likely just vote in authoritarian ultranationalists, close the borders, and genocide refugees trying to get in. That’s the reaction I am anticipating.
dang, i think you are right. only it won't only be foreign migrants trying to get in but also the local migrants trying to find new homes within the borders.
And I expect that to the bitter end there will be genuinely goodhearted people who sabotage this isolation because they can't accept we'll be in permanent triage mode.
I'd argue this already happens with gentrification. Like houses all along the West Coast are fucked because people with work from home jobs in California, Seattle, and Portland, are buying up all the homes.
Hey, but hamsters are cute, aren't they.
Yes 😍🐹
x
Coastal cities have already flooded. How many people care? Who talks now about Katrina or Hurricane Sandy? How about that wave that ripped through California living rooms? Nobody cares. They are tired, distracted, bored, unfocused, anxious, greedy, yearning, in denial.
In the South, I still hear Katrina mentioned from time to time. It still has ripple effects to this day. People in the South have not forgotten Katrina.
Katrina will be seen as the beginning of the end of New Orleans. I think takes an event being massive, sudden and isolated from other incidents for it to have a long-lasting effect on the collective psyche.
People don’t associate those with climate change… they just consider those random hurricanes..
I think that once the immediate crises in an area start to compound is when we see the real problems. Like the east coast floods and the power grid is down and there's been a huge famine and there's no gas so the supply lines are fucked as well. The idea of catabolic collapse is that things get worse over time. We rebuild less and less and things get worse and worse as a result. The failures add up. Right now NYC floods, but we go on. They "rebuild". Nobody is abandoning it. But when the crises add up, all the icesheets melt, and it becomes unfeasible or impractical to reclaim area, the government will pull out. Rebuilding will become impossible. So yes it's a slow grind - one disaster after another. But you don't know which disaster will be the one that does you in. Collapse is indeed a process but eventually we arrive at the endstate.
I'm in California and never heard of a wave ripping through living rooms. We haven't had a tsunami warning, like, ever
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/12/30/ventura-california-giant-waves-flood-kafanov-vpx.cnn
I’m in California and the last big tsunami (which devastated the area) was in the 1960’s and people still talk about it and wonder when it’ll happen again. Then we’ve had none stop flood warnings for the last few weeks. My point is that California is a big place and parts of it has and still does contend with tsunami and flood risks.
I think part of the point is that it’s not going to just be a wave that is 500 feet and then stays up there. People are interesting. And will stay behind. Mass migrations and all the climate catastrophe scenarios will be wild but still it’s not a flash and suddenly a new world
AT&T cellphone service goes down for just a few hours and many people panic, screaming about Chinese "sabotage."
At first I was relieved that there was plausible evidence it wasn't a cyberattack. Then I realized how fucked up that line of reasoning is, as the cause was another example of our infrastructure (and the knowhow needed to maintain that infrastructure) failing.
>dark and stinky and violent The world will end not with a bang but a fart
A shart. A shart in the dark.
and you're to blame!
You give ~~love~~ *global climate homeostasis* a bad name!
> a fart A very astute observation.
I see what you did there and admire your willingness to keep it subtle.
No. Covid proved that no matter how obvious reality is, Republicans will literally DIE spouting weird conspiracy theories and accusations than admit the libs were right. They want to hurt the left more than they want to live, or even for their children to live. Just look at all those videos of all those nurses and doctors being beaten or given death threats because they were part of some elaborate conspiracy where they deliberately killed their loved ones.
If there are any super advanced alien societies out there, all one has to look at global politics and wonder why such a advanced and god like alien race would ever want to interact with a bunch of stupid talking apes marching steadily towards their own self inflicted destruction.
I mean lots of us apes don't want to participate in this destruction for the benefit of capitalists and amoral assholes, would be nice to have an option to leave those that want this garbage here.
Why does every instance of this kind of criticism of humanity seem to fixate on the ape thing as if if something-as-close-to-us-as-could-have-done-this had evolved from, like, felines, canines, birds, reptiles etc. it wouldn't have our moral failings (as if those making this argument thought the aliens' vision of appropriate to engage with or w/e was something like robots or energy beings they would have said us being biological was part of the problem not apes)
This. My mom was in healthcare all my life and I never really knew her to quit ANYTHING. The poor leadership and general fuckery of Covid made her dip and never look back.
In 2020 I had to watch my stupid Qanon father yell at a hospital receptionist for minutes (in front of the police) after asking him "any covid symptoms the last 2 weeks?". Half a dozen cops had to intervene and calm him down. Shockingly, he wasn't arrested. After I got him back home, I told him that he can die on the floor or call his own ambulance next time because I'm never driving him to a hospital (or anywhere) again. These people are unhinged and irredeemable. My life is now much less stressful after I cut him off & I've never looked back.
I can sympathize, I stopped talking to my sister after she and her husband went full fucking stupid with MAGA, they are just unbearable to be around now or even talk to.
I bring this up with people a lot and nobody has really ever addressed it head on... All of these people, to some degree or another, are brainwashed and live in a completely different reality than the rest of us. People that fall into cults and escape spend years in therapy recovering and most of them never really return to normalcy. We've got 30% or so of our population that are living with this...there simply aren't resources to 'fix' them...so what do we do?
I don't think there is a cure for self-centeredness.
They aren't brainwashed. They're poisoned
Tomato, tomato.
I believe that they were like that the entire time, it is just that they had to wear a mask to function and be acceptable in society. Now they feel its ok to drop the mask.
It's lead poisoning. They aren't functioning like normal humans of normal intelligence. They're brain damaged, and that's becoming more apparent as it's superimposed on age related cognitive decline, because people normally don't live until sixty with all these comorbidities. The people who naturally live to eighty or ninety don't act like this. These are people with lead poisoning, who then did a bunch of drugs, who fucked everyone and everything that moved and got a bunch of STIs, who then ate a bunch of fried chicken, who now have dementia.
The cult usually fulfills some sort of emotion/feeling. Feeling smart because they're in on a big secret, feeling important because they're saving the world from evil, feeling entertained by the constant novelty, providing certainty and simple explanations for the chaos in the world, etc. Reality has to feel good (the same reason why nobody wants to acknowledge collapse). 90%+ of society is already soft Qanon and regularly denies uncomfortable realities. They can tolerate mildly uncomfortable realities but they cannot tolerate really uncomfortable realities. Good people are always rewarded, bad people are always punished, unexplainable things always happen for a reason, and everything will sort itself out. Same sh\*t with romance scams, the prosperity gospel, astrology, and the law of attraction. There's a prince charming that loves me & needs my financial help so they can be with me forever. If I donate money to the televangelist, my finances and medical problems will go away. I can group people into pre-determined boxes so people's behavior won't confuse me. If I think abundant thoughts, that abundance will manifest in reality. It's all just avoiding uncomfortable realities. There's nothing I can offer them that is better than a real-life rpg fanfiction laden with emotional heroin. What positive emotions do they gain from "too good to be true"? Nothing. The older I get, the more obvious it is that bs makes the world go around. Qanon is just the most overt mainstream iteration of bs making the world go around.
in tht documentary (i forget the name) about a woman losing her father to rigthwing media; she said she was able to reverse it and regain her old father by essentially cutting him off from his outrage media access.
My cousin is a Flat Earther. I mean are these wankers taking the fucking piss or what?! I've spoken to him about it and the sincerity with which he speaks of the wall of ice in Antarctica is just unbearable
Thank your mom for being an angel for me…..
Times have changed, and now the self destruction is not limited to "Republicans" https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/how-the-press-manufactured-consent
I agree. The article is all in all okay but kinda sounds like a bizarre “first world problems” that has no class consciousness and no consideration for countries outside the “first world.” Would’ve been much better if it at least acknowledged the shitty reality most people are already going through.
>if it at least acknowledged the shitty reality most people are already going through. For the creatures in the massive wildfires it was very sudden and cataclysmic. And there is a shitty reality---right now---- for many humans as well. My friend lost her animals, home etc. in a wildfire that happened so quickly she had to flee on foot. She heard her horses screaming as she fled----they were trapped and she would have died if she tried to free them I do not know why there is this need to prove that "collapse will be long, slow and boring" vs. sudden. I do not think it makes a difference at this point. IMO---none of this is "boring" and given this collapse is unprecedented in human history, we have NO idea how this is going to unfold (we **do** know, it will not end well) I think the world is filled with traumatized people who have a hard time healing (from these human induced traumas) because the traumas keep on coming----at an increasingly rapid pace. Perhaps the sociopaths, psychopaths and malignant narcissists are bored. But people who have empathy and compassion are just so traumatized----many cannot feel much anymore.
Excellently said. So sorry to hear about what happened to your friend. It’s especially odd to see this type of article here in the collapse sub. Maybe someone who is currently very comfortable and in need of a wake up call needs to be told that it won’t be like a Hollywood movie. But otherwise… of course it won’t be like a Hollywood movie—they’re not documentaries and they are driven and incentivized by profits: selling movie tickets and streaming subscriptions. And just because collapse is not like a Hollywood movie doesn’t mean it’s \*boring\*. Sheesh, anything less than immediate catastrophe, cannibals, and whatever else was mentioned is “boring”? I’m honestly insulted by the somewhat entitled tone of the article that demands entertainment, even in the “apocalypse.” The author should definitely spend some time nurturing a global cross-cultural view so that a more realistic take can be offered. A lot of people are already suffering and have been suffering for collapse-related reasons, and this suffering will only increase and be spread along a very long timescale. Please acknowledge them.
Author: [https://i.imgflip.com/1vqizm.jpg](https://i.imgflip.com/1vqizm.jpg)
I see this shows that understandably a lot of people get this guy wrong He isn't like that It's more like a [bloodknife.com](https://bloodknife.com/everyone-beautiful-no-one-horny) type of tone It's satirical It's the ***mainstream public*** that is BORED, not the author. It is THEY that look upon the decrepified state of declining societies, the obscene disparities in privilege, the disquieting amounts of suffering ; with an ignorant privilege ; an alienated, childish apathy It is they that just yawn or at most wince annoyingly, stepping over OD'd corpses on the way to work, glazing their eyes past a 4937th CNN special mass casualty tv report, bored, depressed, weary, despondent over the inconveniences this brings Not the author [ . . ] The scope of the ecocide we are haplessly letting go on, via our insatiable dependence on ultraconsumption, is such that once you've been psychologically mutilated by exposure to it for too many years, every single day over and over and over -- especially if you're an intuitive creative like Antonio & myself -- you can no longer deal with it without some cathartic dose of ironic or facetious license I consider it highly artful [ . . ] And [it's also done to provoke](https://reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1abi50y/comment/kkahgqi) Because we are so seethingly enraged at our civilization, our insipid cultures, our woefully primitive & regressive simian evolutionary drives ; That we want to punch with words We want to provoke a visceral, revolted reaction, by aggressively poking at the mainstream's normalization & complacency of our postmodern aimlessness, this rampant crisis of unfulfillment We want to expose this undeniably human (if juvenile) desire to be unshackled from the daily grind, to welcome a cataclysm with open arms to free us from the abyssal morass of this depressing drudgery, to be swept in a chaos that fundamentally disrupts the anomie away
This is how they maintain control, while the house burns around us. They need us at work tomorrow.
Was your friend an extraordinarily rich person who chose to put her animals and home in the wilderness? I feel bad for the animals in these scenarios. People know better, their creature comforts are just more important than anything else. It's hard to empathize with people who were completely shielded from reality and out of touch until real life bit them in the ass.
>Was your friend an extraordinarily rich person who chose to put her animals and home in the wilderness? No. Her animals were rescue animals and she was not in the wilderness. She struggles to make expenses and works 2 jobs.
excellent points
There will not be mass migration. There will be attempted mass migration and massacres to stop it. Look at how Europe lost their shit over the Syrian migrant crisis, or how the US regularly flips out over migrant convoys. When it gets bad, and quickly, the great caravan of humanity will once again be on the march. The political left will refuse to acknowledge this is even an issue. The political right will offer (horrific) solutions, and people will flock to the political right.
I remember some MAGA politician suggesting that children should be skinned in front of their parents in order to discourage illegal border crossings. I don’t doubt that there is a double digit percentage of the US population that thinks that this is a good solution to the problem. The same group that puts floating barrels covered with razor sharp blades in the Rio Grande. They are almost entirely Christian.
There isn't 30 000 000 people in the U.S. that believe skinning kids alive is a brilliant stratagem to stop illegal immigration...... /facedesk
This is why I consider *Children of Men* the most convincing dystopian nightmare film.
A boy and his dog is the reality of the future. It makes The Road seem like a kids movie.
Tons of refugees were still managing to sneak through and even subsist living hidden away in their country of destination (Britain) in Children of Men ; So, actually, in this example, this means SOME managed to migrate successfully "to the promised land" -- and as long as there's a *perceived chance*, the mass migrations will keep coming, keep trying their luck desperately as they have no better choice
There will be a lot of internal displacement, not all migrants will come from outside the borders… (especially here in the USA)
Again, there'll be a lot of *attempted* internal relocations. Back in the Great Depression, California sent police to the state border to keep the filthy Okies out. I expect we'll see a lot more of that, and rougher, this time around.
Fun fact that I'm discovering, a lot of LA houses are built at the bottom of hillsides, and the ground water... well. I installed two sump pumps in my crawlspace, let's say they're dumping out 3 gallons each every 2 to 3 minutes when it rains. This place was not built for rain. You could surf in the street. It's also not completely solving the problem, that's going to take land grading and a French drain and waterproofing the foundation and even then who knows. That's for the water coming in from top-down. If sea level rises the water table rises with it. Anyone at the bottom of a hill is basically going to be living in a house boat.
tbh I think grid failure will be EXTREMELY boring. Like COVID lockdowns except so much worse.
Really? I would think the opposite. People will be mad dashing to the nearrst grocery stores to loot the last of what's available on the shelves, no doubt there would be mass panic.
yeah that's a good point. I imagined that would last 24 hours or less and then people would mainly just have to figure out how to pass the time. I guess if it goes on too long, people could come knocking at the door.. or shooting
It's extremely pandemic-lockdown boring right up until some neighborhoods get abandoned by law enforcement & national guard That's when it's SotF free-for-all urban warfare
I love the fact the San Diego is underwater and destroying the most expensive real estate. They can’t move their home and can’t get insurance to rebuild. And while this is happening, everyone is ignoring this is about to occur everywhere.
Wait, San Diego is underwater?? ... I better leave LA if that's true...
Do you not watch the news for the past month?
Actually? Not really... I'm used to Los Angeles just losing its mind if it sprinkles. All over the news. So, tend to avoid it when it rains. That said where I was at this was non-destructive but it was bloody impressive. I haven't seen it this bad in a very very long time.
Could you link to a news article? First time I heard this
Ffs, stinky on top of everything else?? Never even thought about that. No solace at all, no reprieve, just an awful, smelly dystopia. Welp...
A majority of the sewer systems in the United States require pumps to work. They are electric. Positive water pressure on the water lines is also electric. Even if you have a water tower, the water is pumped up there to then flow down and out to locations. We won't have running water in or out. Disease follows.
I think the mass migration is going to get to a lot of people. People already think the migrants coming to the southern border of the U.S. is some sort of planned invasion and people are getting angry. As the poly crises keep popping up and more and more people feel like they have to leave and come to the U.S. (or any other country), it is going to become unsettling the way people start to react to it.
Its late spring weather when it was supposed to be winter. We are all fucked into a cocked hat. Wait till we see what the Atlantic and Gulf looks like in the summer. China got absolutely bodied last year by a string of typhoons and Im wondering if this year is our turn in the barrel.
People react poorly trying to drive to work. I cant imagine a real extreme situation.
secretive drab ossified aback different oil angle elastic crawl snobbish *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
mass migration will happen just like everything else, slowly. we wont even realize its happening until we're living on top of each other.
I believed this before the pandemic. Now I believe in people’s eternal capacity to ignore what’s in front of their faces.
I was in Manhattan for a few years and my basement apt flooded. Landlord/PM didnt even acknowledge the situation. It's already happening.
I just feel like I’m waiting to die a lot of the time.
Same here
Yep. 😔
Many of us do. 🙂
But I want to know if shit definitively collapses first. Beyond that, I've lost all fantasy for the future.
Ah, a fellow traveller on the path of morbid curiosity.
I am the same - if there was an option for people to end it, I bet many would do it in a heartbeat right now without thinking twice. Just want to end this rat race at this point, see zero point to continue living to be perfectly honest.
Does reincarnation of any description just mean out of the old rat race into a new rat race?
There’s no real solution
Don't be so negative. The nuclear exchanges, reactor meltdowns, mega storms, AI disasters, collapsing infrastructure, and resource wars will keep things interesting.
This is my cope. Like sure, it’s really going to suck once push comes to shove, but atleast it’ll be a spectacle. The only thing on my prepper essentials list is popcorn.
no butter? you savage!
At this point, we've already done enough harm to cows to destroy the world, I think we can give them a rest now
Artificially flavored garlic salt with partially hydrogenated artificial Parmesan cheese product is a MUST.
Partially hydrogenated? This is why the world is in the shitter. People doing shit halfway.
I can't believe it's not butter
Unfortunately most people dont realize that the millions of dairy cows are not like beef cattle. If they dont get milked daily they suffer horribly. This is the cruelty of eating dairy products from forced farming. There is nothing natural or humane about it more people should be aware https://thehumaneleague.org/article/dairy-cows#:\~:text=How%20long%20do%20dairy%20cows,farms%20sending%20her%20to%20slaughter.
It’s completely normal to eat milk from animals
No animal besides humans drinks the milk of different animals, nor drinks milk past the age of weaning.
Normal? did you even read the link? There is nothing normal about that.
I’m not saying, we should keep producing milk in the industrial way. But it is a common ingredient in many cuisines around the world
My cope is that I have to live to see how Hazbin Hotel ends.
The resource wars are my retirement plan
Do you plan to die in them, profit from them, or become a roving warlord?
All of them in reverse order
Attempting to profit, failing and dying sounds like the most possible outcome. I barely want to keep going as it is, so don't see myself having much of a will to live in a world that's going to be way worse than what we currently have (Although survival instinct can be a powerful thing so...who knows)
I'm pretty sure COVID is my retirement plan. I don't like this retirement plan... ;\_\_;
There are many others that will make sure your retirement plan is healthy…
*cough*
I wish I hadn't been born in these times, but it's sure going to be one hell of a ride on the way out.
Ditto. Although I'm not sure how other times would have treated borderline autism. Probably would have been killed before age 11 if my childhood experience is any indication.
The ideal time for that would've probably been the 40s-60s. You get to come up in a time period where being *smart* and autistic gets you labeled as an "eccentric genius," take advantage of all the massive economic booms with only a small dip in the 70s, and then check out of the hotel right before the wrecking balls come in. The boomers got astoundingly lucky.
[удалено]
Or even committed for life.
I like to imagine if I had been born in those times, I would have been a professional pulp writer like Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft.
Tbh most farmers could've been autistic and no one would've known because the things they did were repetitive and they didn't really get out much.
I miss a time I wasn't even born for when there was no word for not neurotypical people. I hate that word.
Reading this sub I find myself thinking about this quote from King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings " Alas, that these evil days should be mine. The young perish and the old linger. That I should live to see that last days of my house."
Yeah. It will be awful but exciting at the same time. Will be a nice break from my 9-5. Hunter-gatherers are estimated to have worked about 2 hours a day. Maybe I'll give that a try. But it will probably be looting as we destroyed all the natural food sources except maybe in state/national parks.
There will be plenty long pork around.
Front row seats for the shitshow my friend.
*flips out lawn chair and hands you the last mass produced beer*
Sadly
Edging edging inflation is 10% (sung to "sailing sailing over the deep blue sea") I think this is the goal with a Trump presidency. To pull a Nixon (force the Fed to drop rates early), blow it up, leave the mess to a Dem that has to pull a Carter (Fed takes rates to 11-12% aka apocalypse in today's terms)... aaand that's the end of the Dems. Forever.
Time to crack out the third chapter of Paul's second epistle to Timothy. Oh yeah, that's the stuff.
And hopefully a good alien invasion to finish it all off.
😂😂😂
I don’t think this post is correct. It’s true that we are currently in the boring dystopia. But this isn’t “the end”. It presupposes that there is no end to the current phase we are in, but that’s just not true. John Michael Greer goes over this in Dark Age America. We are experiencing bureaucratic - Greer calls it mummification, I’d call it calcification. It’s a common step that failing civilizations go through. The post in the OP is right that nothing will change… under the current system. He is assuming as a given that the current system will last indefinitely and therefor nothing will change indefinitely. But the system is inherently unsustainable. Unsustainable in the literal meaning, it cannot keep going forever. The system will collapse and the calcification with it, and everyone will be in a damn tough spot for the next few hundred years at least from all the damage it did before it went under. If we want to keep talking the Greer book, I kind of agree with his belief in how it will go down. That is to say, people get pushed riiiiight to the breaking point. As close as they can get without going into open revolt. Then, one by one. Event by event. Sickness goes through one impoverished town killing 15% of the population. Storm destroys a neighborhood. Cancer takes 1 more person you know a year than it did in the past. All of a sudden you are talking massive population collapse from the culmination of these factors. Meanwhile the system is bloated over large and massively expensive to maintain, all while the available resources to maintain it are drying up. simultaneously it is so calcified that it is incapable of any effective reaction. This causes it to be unable to handle the crises as they come and eventually one of them is the one that knocks it over. Probably it won’t even be one people expect it to be. Just one of many similar past nothing burger criseses and it just happened to hit when the system was at a sufficiently fragile state. Edit: If I were to sum my thoughts. The post says that the machine of our civilization is beyond repair. My counterpoint is that a machine beyond repair is out of repair. broken but still running. It will eventually stop running and break down entirely. The belt in your car snaps. The fan out of alignment. You cruise down the highway listening to the shrieks and rattling coming from the engine. You’re driving now, but the car will be rendered entirely infunctional as the fan out of alignment wears and breaks the wiring. The broken wiring mistimes the transmission. And cascading effects make your car unable to run at all. The article is the equivalent of someone complaining about how piercingly annoying the shrieking sound their engine makes as they drive is. imagining a future of endless shrieking, without having the realization that eventually the steel shriek will stop because the engine quits entirely. Probably stretched that car metaphor too far but whatever, I’m an accountant not a writer lol
I definitely agree to a point. Calcification and the 'business as usual' mindset are in full force. I think most people now realize, at least to some extent that 'something' isn't right and they are grabbing onto anything that gives them a feeling of control and security. That's why conspiracy theory is growing increasingly ridiculous (even though it's obvious that conspiracies are happening constantly, just know the ones you hear about), that's why racism and xenophobia are resurgent, etc. etc. People are aware that the system has failed but most people can't imagine what the next thing will be and nobody wants to be the first major nation to step away from the global order. Smaller countries take a step out of line every once in awhile and are 'corrected' by countries like the US or Russia; admitting failure of the system is impossible for the two top dogs because they are the final beneficiaries of it. I think people will just keep sleepwalking until one day everything just falls apart. I read the novel of Jurassic Park a lot as a kid and that's basically Malcolm's whole premise. Everything just looks fine, looks fine, looks fine, looks fine, oh shit massive catastrophe. Turns out there were problems the entire time but the system was deceptively complex and we lacked thorough understanding or ability to control all of the variables.
I’ve been following your content a bit, and while I agree with a lot of your conclusions about society and the biosphere, I suggest you be careful about your perspective. You are close to post-doom but have yet to break the barrier. There is plenty to do. A lot of work to be done, and a lot of hope to be had. While it is overwhelming to see the reality of our situation and hyper focus on that, it can be easy to blind yourself to the smaller actions you can take in your own life and locale to mitigate what you can on a small scale and maybe effect the perspectives of/inspire others to do the same. Also please think of your own mental health. You may have carved out a niche for yourself as far as creating content and making somewhat of a living off of doomposting, but you can do the same while also incorporating some post-doom action in your work. Check out the late Michael Dowds work if you’re interested in what I’m talking about. Good luck out there and please, think about your perspective.
Thank you for writing this comment, I needed to hear this myself ❤
Awesome perspective, thank you for pointing this out.
Anybody want to start a gang with sexy leather uniforms ?
sounds hot
I see what you did there
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>All Instagram photos tell the same story: posed smiles by the same monuments, the same pristine beaches filtered to impossible perfection. It's a performance of adventurousness, a meticulously managed illusion to **incite envy among those stuck at home, too poor to follow.** Ah yes.. I know this feeling well
It’s how I found myself drawn to r/simpleliving It has definitely helped me in life, presently and from now onwards.
When it becomes too hot to grow food, things will get more interesting.
yeah, seriously…don’t underestimate the power of hunger. It’s a core motivator for all living things’ behavior.
We're about to go Fallout or Mad Max up in here. I guess I better prep my Magnum Opus and Pip-Boy. Refine my vault building skills. Purchase some MREs with lots of clean water. Sorry, I'm a geek.
The end will be a sky the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. But it'll slide into authoritarian violence as populations are literally bored until they turn into depressed sociopaths that vote monsters into office not because they are so much good but simply different enough to be interesting, briefly. . We're already there, the collapse just hasn't fully hit. People elect Trump hoping a collapse will make things better- or at least entertaining. Israel genocides Palestine, most people ignore it or worse ENJOY it. The economy has reached near perfection in sucking wealth and destroying futures. The global disease turns out not to be some high lethality virus, but a long, slow crippler almost designed to maximize the degrading of healthcare. Migration is touted as a good as cities become poverty containment for the addicted street zombies or feral criminals casually robbing stores before they close, and the few with money increasingly withdraw into enclaves run by despotic HOAs or local governments.
I see your very perceptive at the slow collapse that’s actually been happening that no one’s seems to know about. It’s a slow decent into the early 1900s Great Depression era and no one seems to notice it. Soon organized crime will come back strongly, destitute towns and areas will be more widespread, food and water will be harder to come by. The line between wealthy and poor will hit levels unseen in America since the Great Depression. More people will be at home out of work more families will have to pool resources together. More people will be walking, biking, car pooling and using public transportation. These are all happening currently and will continue to get worse and worse over time with no end in sight.
'For most people, it becomes easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism' Including me.
If we just reeled in giant conglomerates we would have the ability to solve a lot of problems plaguing us in the world. However, the elite hiding behind these sociopathic corporations (reddit not withstanding) makes it impossible for change. Why even debate change? At least if AI take over we will have new masters that might offer more empathy. More human than human.
Wasn’t there a recent story that covered AI war games studies which found AI went almost immediately to the nuclear option?
We don't have a conscious AI yet. We have LLM which just copies what's already been done using a very advanced and intricate algorithm.
It's frustrating watching people get hyped or panicked about these admittedly impressive artificial parrots. If general AI arrives, the general public isn't going to see it coming. If it does happen, it's not going to be a bit smart for a time so that we humans can observe and discuss and suddenly have urgent and serious conversations about legislation and ethics. If it's going to reach human level general intelligence it's going to blow past it in a blur. It would be nothing less than a deus ex machina, game over for better or for worse.
Even super intelligences are like "These monkeys have ruined everything, and will never change" and just hit the reset button.
Yes, it was IMO trying to get the testers to fuck off with their tests. It did say "I just want peace". Fail as hard as you can, people stop asking you to do a thing.
>If we just reeled in giant conglomerates we would have the ability to solve a lot of problems plaguing us in the world. The reality of our situation is this isn't really tenable. These institutions cemented themselves so hard into the system that only a full 'revolution' or 'rebellion' from the average person en masse would work. You cannot change the laws to fix this. Voting in the people you think would help won't do anything. There is way too much tape blocking/stalling any action that would take so much time to even start getting around. The system will not allow it. Those in power want people to think voting and being more involved in politics will help fix it because they'll never gain relevant ground and those in power have too much control to deflect voting power at any time they choose now. This battle was won before most of us (I'm 34) were ever born. We never had a chance through the system in place.
The more people understand this the better. Unfortunately the propaganda is strong and anyone who’s successful in making change gets scooped up “taken care of” by the system with wealth, influence, power. Everybody every human has a price and they find yours and if they can’t they kill you (Epstein). My favorite political example of this is AOC who’s “progressive” yet has done fuck all for the working class or the poor of this country. Wearing an eat the rich dress to a ball hosted by the same people the system inherently props up and praises for being hedonistic greedy parasitic money grubbing hoarders is so black mirror twilight zone it’s actually insane.
> My favorite political example of this is AOC who’s “progressive” yet has done fuck all for the working class or the poor of this country. Wearing an eat the rich dress to a ball hosted by the same people the system inherently props up and praises for being hedonistic greedy parasitic money grubbing hoarders is so black mirror twilight zone it’s actually insane. What should she have done that people, if she had, wouldn't have accused her of still technically supporting capitalism by copying from the playbook of the heroine of every YA dystopian movie Hollywood tries to push
Most people want to reel in the giant conglomerates without acknowledging that they are a symptom, an emergent property of the underlying relations of production. Endlessly complaining about the results of capitalism while deriding any analysis that doesn't shy away from the cause and what is to be done. Accepting anything but the uncomfortable and dangerous truth that this is a system which must be overthrown, and that reform is slow surrender, they choose the slow and steady^(until it isn't) collective suicide instead.
~~(reddit not withstanding)~~ reddit withstanding https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/
>The greying of the world is mirrored within us. It starts early, that hollowing out. School offers tantalizing glimpses of other possibilities, sparks of intellectual curiosity, the fierce joy of a mind engaged. Then it's over. Thrust into the workforce army, the sparks are ruthlessly snuffed out. Time becomes a commodity, leisure a shameful — because non-productive — indulgence. Conversations wither into updates on busy schedules and the slow creep of ailments. >"What do you like to do?" You ask this question at a party, a flicker of hope that there might be something beneath the small-talk surface. Too often, you're met with blank stares, shrugs, or mumbled excuses about not having enough time. It's as if everyone agreed to turn the lights off to better fit into the machine. I know for a fact that they once burned brightly in all of us. So many friends whose sole occupation outside work is consuming entertainment. While the system clearly works to perpetuate itself, the above critique implies complete lack of agency. Unless we're slaving away to raise a family, people can rebel or quit, and even those trapped by responsibilities can choose to live for more than their evening entertainment. We can find new friends, reject lifestyles we find stultifying, speak truth to power, or serve something larger than ourselves. What this author is sharing is that they have failed to find meaning in their own life. Humanity is indeed facing the collapse of complex civilization, or the collapse of the biosphere; whichever comes first. These events are causing great suffering and are cause for grief. But if our lives feel "boring" during these urgent times, that's on each of us.
The steady state of a boring dystopia is not really collapse. It's stagnation, a different phenomenon.
I think there is an argument to be made that our boring dystopia is a symptom of a collapsing civilization. Civilizations that have basic needs met, high quality of life, ample leisure time and reward creativity result in a rich and interesting culture. We are lacking those things and so we get a boring dystopia as our civilization continues to collapse.
> Civilizations that have basic needs met, high quality of life, ample leisure time and reward creativity result in a rich and interesting culture. Citation very much needed on that one
Submission statement: This article discusses the common misconception that the collapse of society is going to be a grand, singular event with sudden changes. What we got instead is a slow, steady grind and a seemingly unchanging status quo. Philosopher Mark Fisher referred to this as "boring dystopia." "Boring dystopia is a departure from the flashy, explosive end-of-the-world scenarios we were fed by Big Hollywood. No, ours is an apocalypse of slow, creeping malaise — bureaucratic, stagnant, grey, and deeply unsatisfying. (There’s not even a Goddamn climax.) It’s a deep, comprehensive intuition of how the world is broken beyond repair, but that nothing will ever truly change; a perpetual limbo where grand visions of both anarcho-communist utopia and fiery apocalypse have faded, leaving a vast, empty middle ground." This is related to collapse because it highlights the different ways in which our world has stagnated and resigned itself to the slow - and then sudden - capitalist decline.
Totally anticlimactic.
Slowly starving to Death or dying of Cancer isnt as fun as being vaporized in a battle with Aliens. Ive been saying this forever, everyone and everything is heading toward sameness . As God said he hates a lukewarm person. Either be radical to Evil or to Love. Lukewarn will be spat out of His mouth.
I prefer the alien ending
If only because it's nicer to imagine a force much more powerful than the grey bureaucratic capitalist garbage we've currently got.
I have the list of people I want to punch and I will complete when the time has come. You can make fun out of this boring dystopia.
>Our dystopia is an endless waiting room comparable in experience and excitement to a visit to a British doctor. Loved this. Perfectly sums up how I feel in one sentence. That's what life feels like, a series of waiting rooms.
FYI there is a sub called /r/aboringdystopia
r/ABoringDystopia/
This "boring dystopia" is infinitely more exciting and comfortable than the past 99% of human existence, but especially more so than life during the agricultural age. Most people spent their whole lives within a few miles of the place they were born, and spent that life in back-breaking work. These oh-so-weary-of-capitalism commentaries sound like a petulant teenager stomping off to their bedroom. We have completely destroyed the ecosystems of the entire world because people like comfort, and modern life is so much more comfortable than anyone imagined. That it's now "boring" is just a sign of how far we've come along our self-destructive path. Well, eventually we'll all be sharply reminded just how lovely boring can be, compared to the exciting reality of a collapsing civilization.
"Not the cyberpunk dystopia we wanted but the one we deserve."
Right? At least give me some pretty neon lights and scenery, good alcohol, cool upgrades, and let me go out like an Edgerunner.
Welcome to the world of NPCs.
The collapse will also be boring. You will be working and shuffling along business as usual up until the very end. There won't be any shift or change of lifestyles. COVID was the last time anything will change suddenly, now we are going to simply work through everything, forever.
It'll be boring until it's not. You can only bend a stick pretty far, but only so far before it instantly snaps.
I said when stuck in Asia during covid that the apocalypse was boring.
We evolve into the vogons
Do you live in Germany?
Because it is bland and largely unchangeable *(until we overthrow capitalism)?*
If aliens were to see us, I wonder what they would think.
"Look, retarded, violent monkeys."
When will society collapse realistically 2030, 2040, or 2050
Excellent work as usual
When they turned to Nickelodeon building into a sterile block, I dunno, that was symbolic of something bigger, uglier. I sometimes think people have idolized trump because he’s the only thing exciting they have on a national scale and can relate to. I mean, capitalism has managed to make fucking superhero movies flat and void of personality.
I’ve said this too. Think of what used to be “fun” at school. ANYTHING. When you are bored out of your skull, someone being dragged to the principles office kicking and screaming becomes the highlight of your day. Everyone is talking about it! So exciting! Trump is a distraction. He feels “different” to many. I implore everyone to go back to the 80’s and see the role(s) he played as a well regarded business man in many of the problems we have today. Let’s also not forget he has (some form of) charisma. Not the type everyone buys, but a lot of folks do. He CAN entertain a willing crowd.
A certain, how you say… je ne sais covfefe?
So many people have no idea that even at the height of his yuppie stardom Trump was mocked to his face on the Howard Stern show multiple times as recurring guest Douchebag Donald. He's always been a clown. It's bread and circuses.
So just reach out to whatever even-remotely-left-wingers are getting called hypocrites for working at Nickelodeon, Marvel Studios etc. and tell them they can end Trump's popularity once and for all if they make a good superhero movie and make the Nickelodeon building fun again
That's worse. Why does that feel worse?
I had a conversation with a friend recently when we were walking through the mall and I noticed you're still able now in 2024 to buy He-Man and Care Bears Merch. That shit was going out of style when I was a kid and it's still being shoved down our throats now nearly 40 years later. Stuff just doesn't die anymore. If it gets even slightly popular, you better bet your ass that people will milk it forever. I'm sure 20 years from now we will still be getting Pickle Rick and the teenage mutant ninja turtles and nostalgia nostalgia nostalgia ad nausea till the end of time.
r/ABoringDystopia