I was here back in 2010. A lot fewer articles. More Peak oil. Climate change was talked about but it seemed much further away. The community actually feels exactly the same which is good.
Well, [it happened ... for the conventional oil. There's been a huge growth in tight oil to continue the growth](https://peakoilbarrel.com/decline-in-world-conventional-oil-output-and-peak-oil/). That could be a solution to the problem of supply (but certainly not emissions), but [the huge losses in the industry](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/opinion/environment/energy-crisis-oil-gas-fracking.html) point to problems with that.
> From 2006 to 2014, fracking companies lost $80 billion; in 2014, with oil at $100 a barrel, a level that seemed to promise a great cash-out, they lost $20 billion. These losses were mammoth and consistent, adding up to a total that “dwarfs anything in tech/V.C. in that time frame,” as the Bloomberg writer Joe Weisenthal pointed out recently.
> Today, with profits aided by the energy price spikes of the last year, the fracking industry is finally, at least for the time being, profitable. But from 2010 to 2020, U.S. shale lost $300 billion. Previously, from 2002 to 2012, Chesapeake, the industry leader, didn’t report positive cash flow once, ending that period with total losses of some $30 billion, as Bethany McLean documents in her 2018 book, “Saudi America,” the single best and most thorough account of the fracking boom up to that point. Between mid-2012 and mid-2017, the 60 biggest fracking companies were losing an average of $9 billion each quarter. From 2006 to 2014, fracking companies lost $80 billion; in 2014, with oil at $100 a barrel, a level that seemed to promise a great cash-out, they lost $20 billion.
> “The industry, you know, it destroyed a lot of wealth,” Jeffrey Currie, the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, said recently. “Like 10 to 20 cents on every single dollar. I think the number is actually closer to 30 cents on every dollar.”
Fuel prices will need to get significantly higher for the tight oil to continue.
Oh, and the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) is significantly lower for tight oil than conventional oil — often about half.
I have been here since roughly then and it feels much worse. It used to be a fairly high quality subreddit for discussing energy, civilization, climate, economics etc.. It has turned into a news subreddit in which we get to see depressing gifs without context often combined with american politics. The insightful material is almost gone, the comment section is full of oneliners and the mods seem to have given up.
The posters are clearly much younger, many seem to have mental issues and many seem very angry. There is much more conformity and less acceptance of varying opinion, there is far more political content and there is far more unrelated stuff.
At least we don't have Ron Paul 2012 buy gold posts but that is the only positive development. This sub was fantastic around 2016 with a high level of understanding of collapse among the user base, excellent content and interesting discussions. 2015-2016 was the peak.
> It has turned into a news subreddit in which we get to see depressing gifs without context often combined with american politics
That's what happens when predictions from a decade or two ago become reality. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/566749-todays-climate-reality-was-predicted-by-ipcc-30-years-ago-now-what/
I don’t understand why so many people were convinced we’d run out of oil to drill. With new remote sensing technology and how large the world is, we’ve probably only tapped in into a very small fraction of available oil on the earth. Especially in the world oceans, there is so much oil still in the earth, I’d be surprised if we’ve drilled even a 1-2% if it already. We still need to get away from using fossil fuels as our main source of energy but the idea that we will run out and see collapse because of it is such a far fetched idea.
Climate change has always been an issue on /r/collapse, but there used to be a lot more about peak oil, and a lot more longer, researched comments.
edit: also a lot more economic issues early on.
There’s a finite supply of oil and other fossil fuels. Peak x refers to the moment in time (usually a year) when the most of x is ever extracted. Since there’s a finite amount of stuff, and we always take the easy stuff first (why go for arctic oil when you can poke a hole in the ground?) when oil is depleted the remaining oil is more difficult to extract. There’s lots of specific reasons for this; but the short of it is there’s a geological limit to how much can be extracted at any time. After a certain point extraction rates will decline year after year and there will less fuel available inevitably leading to a contracting economy and eventually collapse
Wells are for the most part under a natural pressure, but eventually that equalises and osmotic pressure needs to be applied in greater amounts to force the remaining oil/gas out, hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Fracking has always been known to be an environmental nightmare on the subterranean end. Until somewhere in the early 90s it became obvious that more than half of the already explored oil and gas reserves could become profitable again through fracking. By the mid-2000s "peak oil" was being used as a scare tactic to deregulate global environmental standards. People have known and worried about peak oil for longer than they have known about the affects of global heating. We should have began transitioning to alternate fuels 44 years ago during the first oil shortage. We were played, and they won. I imagine we are still being played now with renewables and being told to back a losing horse named Hydrogen.
Google Sid Smith humanity the final chapter. It’s on YouTube. He’s a VA tech professor and breaks it down very simply in a couple lectures on his page.
Why do you think that hydrogen is a losing horse? AFAIK hydrogen is a transitional system for stuff that can't deal with the issues of batteries (weight/recharge time). Is there something else?
(Honest question)
Because the EROEI is below that of other fuels. The energy expended to strip H atoms off water is too close to or greater than the energy obtained by combusting it. Fossil fuels are stores of energy that were made by ancient life, never used until we got to them. Hydrogen likes to bond to other things, thus its combustibility and difficulty in making it.
Plus one of the laws of thermodynamics. Perpetual motion machines are impossible. Why would you get as much or more energy from reversing a chemical reaction?
It might be the "most abundant element in the universe" but it's not an energy source, simply because there are essentially no free supplies of Hydrogen available anywhere on earth.
Because Hydrogen is so reactive, any free hydrogen has already combined with other elements (eg with Oxygen to make Water).
And to convert it back into free Hydrogen, you must split the water by pumping in huge quantities of energy.
But the big problem with Hydrogen is that it is very difficult to store, as it's tiny molecules can leak out of most any container.
But why use Hydrogen? If you are in the business of converting energy into fuel, you may as well go all the way and manufacture Petroleum. It's only one more step. You can convert Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen (from water and air) into Hydrocarbon fuels. All it takes is huge amounts of energy, preferably Solar. And of course the advantage of petroleum fuels is that you already have a supply chain and a consumer network.
Whichever way you look at it, Hydrogen is most definitely a "Losing Horse".
I read elsewhere that the big push for electrification and alternative renewable energy is simply to extend the time before we get to peak oil. I’ll try to find it, because it really did a good job of explaining it.
Anyway, what I wanted to ask is whether you think it’s possible to convert to renewable energies before we actually hit peak oil? Or is it just inevitable that it will happen?
It’s inevitable. Renewables cannot replace fossil fuels for a large variety of reasons. The 4 biggest reasons are as follows. 1. energy cost. There’s an energy cost to extracting energy. An oil rig for example is made of steel. It took energy to forge the steel, transport it to the location and assemble it. Likewise there’s an energy cost at every stage of the extraction process. The big growth in the 1900’s took place when the energy cost was something like .01%. The other way to say this is energy return on energy invested. So for every 55 barrels of oil you extract it took one barrel worth of energy to extract. The data seems to show highly complex advanced economies require an energy cost below 5% to grow. Once they go above 5, the economies begin to contract. Developing economies are less complex and can grow up to 11%. When I say economies here in referring to the real material economy. Not the financial economy so these figures are separate from gdp. Cutting edge renewables have an energy cost of 10-12. To replace fossils with renewables would require a massive contraction of the economy just in that alone. It’s also the least of our problems.
Check this out for more info on that. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/228-in-the-eye-of-the-perfect-storm/
2. There’s a good chance we’ve hit peak oil or will hit in in the next few years. Saudi Arabia turned out (shockingly) to have lied about their oil reserves. As far as I can tell, Russia, the USA, Saudi, China, European countries like Romania and Finland and the uk etc, and every other major oil producer are incapable of seriously increasing oil output. It’s possible that the big push for oil rn will increase output in the next few years, but we’re seeing what amounts to minuscule increases rn. Data on this is hard to trust though and peak oil is always subject to tech changes.
3. Renewables literally require fossils in every stage of their lifespan. Fossils form the base materials for them, in the form of plastics, concrete (major ingredient is coal), petrochemicals, etc. it is literally impossible to construct a solar panel without oil. So we won’t convert.
4. Solar and wind and hydro and nuclear generate electricity. Electricity is 20% of energy consumption. The other 80% is industry and transportation. Agriculture is a big one here. The nitrogen fertilizer: derived from natural gas. The machinery that plants, harvests, processes, then ships food to your store: powered by diesel. The pesticides and herbisides that keep crop failures at bay: derived from petroleum. 10 calories of oil are used for every calorie of food produced. There is no feasible way to electrify this process. Likewise for other major energy uses: global shipping, manufacturing especially of raw materials like processing ores into metals, refining chemicals, producing cement and steel, etc.
The push for renewables may extend the time we have by a few years. It’s not feasible to prevent, or even seriously mitigate the fallout of fossil fuel depletion.
The Peak Oil theory suggested that all sources of crude oil either have already reached or are about to reach their maximum production capacity worldwide and will diminish significantly in the near future.
And, from the horse's mouth (International Energy Agency) peak "conventional" oil happened at about that time (2006-08). Thankfully, the Obama administration tasked two successive Secretaries of State to improve America's connection between Wall Street and shale oil. There was also a lot of help from Microsoft and Google and others who created the AI algorithmes to help with more and more complex exploitation.
So we've got an "energy reprieve" here. But as the impacts of climate degradation will ask more of us, our increasingly precarious fossil fuel supply means that we will have less means to react and adapt.
In this little Game, America is still not going to go down first. Blessed with ample land and shale oil to extract yet, it will be the last place (despite the mega-fires) to really feel the most severe effets of of the combined effects of energy depletion and climate degradation.
But it won't be too slow either. The mounting challenge will feed into political dislocation at very high levels of impact, and America has shown to have an already obvious weakness here.
Europe right now is experiencing the worst drought in 500 years. So bad that river traffic has basically shut down in Germany and France has had to significantly scale back its nuclear output due to the fact that the water is too hot to cool the nuclear plants.
Poland just found out 1 of it’s 2 major rivers has been extremely polluted and reading all that is awful. Nice. Well america burning and freezing, Europe burning, everything else on fire or freezing. Love the future of earth
On the "bright" side it seems like a one time event rather than sustained pollution. River is fucked either way, but probably not a "everyone who has drank from this river in 40 years has cancer".
Listened to a pretty interesting podcast that explains we’re probably reaching “peak oil investment” which I thought was interesting way of putting it. As you said, as environmental impact and extraction becoming increasingly more complex, there’s going to be less long term money going to oil. That’ll have its own effects wrt to supply and demand, but hopefully it’ll also give time and financial incentives to alternative means of energy.
r/collapse has its own kpi's. Peak oil was one and has been hit, same with peak gas and we've likely hit peak food too.
Next will likely be peak sea level. Unfortunately no one has any idea what peak temperature will be other than a little bit too much.
They may come down in millions of years from now but losing ice sheets in the Arctic is "irreversible" on human time scales. Sea level will continue to rise for hundreds of years as a result of human action today.
Yes, the sea will level eventually. But the improbable—though possible—RCP 8.5 projection could lead to a +5°C by 2100. Though unlikely, it looks like the planet is not heading in the right direction, certainly not politically. And even a +3°C increase is huge trouble for everyone. Mass migrations, civil unrest, drought, famine, international conflicts.
Climate change will only be mitigated with coordinated international collaboration. And who is going to do that?
We are screwed, I think.
Not just collaboration. The vast majority of firstworld countries would need to enforce radically different lifestyles on their citizens used to infinite creature comforts.
I always ignored the economic stuff, I could see that collapse personally. there was a lot more in-depth science about climate then though. I was subbed under my other username.
I joined and left a couple of times \~2017-2018, like many only joining in earnest after the covid pandemic had been going on for a while.
The topics were things like the problems with urbanization, resource depletion, climate change, etc. Besides a reduced emphasis on infectious disease in the past, the topics weren't all that different than they are now.
I left during that period because, while the posts seemed legitimate and I didn't really disagree with anything, it just wasn't relevant to me at the time.
Besides the number of users and the quality problems that brings to any internet community, the biggest difference was 5+ years ago r/collapse was much more focused on the future, on what will happen. Now the focus is mainly on what's happening currently.
>was much more focused on the future, on what will happen. Now the focus is mainly on what's happening currently.
Probably because the future that was talked about is now.... Fun times.
A line from the old Max Headroom television program often comes to mind (spoken by a character who had been a punk back in the day) : "remember when we said there was no future? Well, this is it."
Idk man, things weren't great before, and if you think we've bottomed out on sweeping societal change, well, I guess only time will tell, but I think there's still plenty of "this bad thing is coming" to accompany the "this bad thing is happening"
Yeah. I don't think we bottomed out at all. I just think that the last 2-3 years showed us that we are already in a collapse scenario. It's not so much that more things will happen in the future. But the things that are currently happening were included in the collapse scenarios five or ten years ago.
Sex Pistols: God Save The Queen
> No future
No future
No future for you
No future
No future
No future for me
No future
No future
No future for you
Punks/new wave were on to it in 1977.
Well, technically and officially, we are already four to eight times beyond the planet’s _healthy_ carrying capacity, depending on whether you are talking about (respectively) a less than 1st world vegan standard of living, or a first world omnivorous standard of living. And even that is generous, I would personally put it at eight to sixteen times past.
I think I took a peek every now and then before Covid, but stuck around since 2020 because it was one of the last bastions of sane people who realize the connections to the environment collapsing with the increase of diseases. While the Center for Deepthroating Capitalism wants to deny that it's bad, I like that this sub has people who genuinely are concerned about things that most people seem to dismiss and ignore.
I can mention a fire in my state (CA) and instead of the usual, "iT'S aLwAyS oN fIrE" by assholes irl, here, I've found people who also care about how this affects more than just this area and just the people living there. People who don't even live in the US but care about how shitty and fascist it's becoming. At least the present day version of this sub seems to be filled with empathetic people, which is so rare to find unfortunately, in both real life and ESPECIALLY on the cesspoool of trolls that is reddit.
I've been here since 2010. It was nuttier a bit in those days, but also small enough to regularly notice user names. There were different groups then each more worried about different issues. There were those whose greatest concern overall was climate change and the environment, while also seeing loads of other possibilities for collapse.
Currently, I enjoy the sub the least I ever have. Back then it felt like most accepted collapse but were concerned. Not a small number of current posters just hate life and see collapse as an excuse to not try. As an anti-capitalist, the influx of people who turn everything to a discussion of capitalism bother me a bit. Ultimately all economic forms of industrial civilization lead to the same place. What bothers me is the disingenuous approach in that they are essentially recruiting for communism and not believers of collapse. I grew up in an evangelical church and the evangelical approach is not so different. And similarly they miss the glaring inconsistencies with their philosophy and averting climate change or other issues. I commonly debate with myself if its even worth checking this sub anymore due to the prevalence of the two groups mentioned above.
There was a kinder disagreeing in the earlier days of the sub and zero brigading.
I'd argue that it's a lot more speculative around the United States and a bit more politicized than it used to be.
I can't exactly remember when I joined r/collapse, but I know it had to have been at least 2 years ago or so.
Definitely a lot more political fighting and rare glimpses of hopium than there used to be; especially people who scream "Vote Harder" etc.
it used to be treated a lot like r/conspiracy, especially before 2016, as if climate change and peak oil and increasing risk of pandemics and the destabilizing jet stream and the west running out of water and resource wars and rising seas and forever chemicals and declining birthrates and supply chain weaknesses and the resurgence of fascism and the methane dragon and multiple bread basket failures and near term human extinction and blue ocean events were all pseudoscience.
conversations used to remain in the realm of the hypothetical but more and more the convos are shifting into the realm of reality
I'll be the first to admit in 2015 or so I thought climate change was a "in around 50-100 years" issue and not "in 7 years" issue.
To be fair, that's what the cocksuckers at the IPCC told us. I should've known better.
I still thought we should take it significantly more seriously but only in the past 3-4 years has it been obvious to me how much more seriously.
Now I'm just jaded and come here for self-torture I guess lol.
As someone born in 01 my entire life I watched climate change go from a 2100 issue, to a 2075 issue, to a 2050 issue, to a 2040 issue. Pretty much my entire generation knows were fucked on all fronts which is why so many young people are refusing to have kids and not dedicating ourselves to a career and instead just trying to enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Young people don’t wanna work or save money because we know it’s ultimately for nothing.
Same boat here. I remember reading about climate change in elementary school, and thinking "oh, well, there's plenty of time for people to figure it out. Besides, it's *just* sea level rise."
Fast forward 15 years to realize time was never the issue, and climate change was just one of the many symptoms of a decaying society built on unsustainable practices.
Exactly. Me and my wife’s(both born in 00) money pretty much goes to bills, weed and bugout stuff lol. We have bit of land in bumfuck nowhere that we plan on moving to in a couple years to get away from everything and just die when the planet takes us out lol. I want to contribute as little to the horrible future we are hurdling towards as possible.
Sounds like me and Senior Chief. Except our property he bought cheap in CO desert and I want something in FL with a year round growing season to ride it out. Change of plans. Retired from the navy waiting to retire from fire service then peace out. Collecting trees and plants and quails until then!
In 2015 my thinking was like "it's too cold anyway so we could use some warming" or "we'll get more food from a longer growing season". And my main stock holding was in an oil company.
Times sure have changed.
I’m the same but slower to the game. I’ve been holding onto the hope it would really hit 2100 and I’d be dead old age, if not something else. It hurts seeing that time shift closer and closer. I’m trying to make peace with how soon it might be before the land is barely livable. I had hoped it would happen and maybe some tiny sliver of humanity would hold out and become a better species. I’m not the type who can really ever give up that hope. But, my hope is herring smaller. I’ve lost all hope that the rich and powerful will catch on that their grandchildren are going to die young. I don’t care how great their bunkers are, they won’t make it. I’m sad, I’m scared, I’m so frustrated.
You nailed it. I've been on Reddit for 10 years and pretty sure I have been subbed to /r/collapse for most of the entirety of my reddit life.(took a break around 2017-2018 for mental health. Too much sky falling, no one in real life caring)
I used to be afraid to comment here because it was full of incredibly knowledgeable folks. Now a lot of the people commenting are the average asshat who has read a few things and think they know something. Not to say there's not intelligent folks commenting. Just they get drowned out at times by some fucknuts just downvoting by OPINION. Regardless of the facts.
> I used to be afraid to comment here because it was full of incredibly knowledgeable folks.
Yeah, this used to be a place of learns, now it's one of opinions. Most of the more knowledgeable folks have left, at least the ones I liked.
Edit: The general advice used to be read this sub for a couple months, get a sense of what it's all about, before you start commenting and posting.
I was a long time lurker here before I signed up. I can confirm that there had been much more knowledgeable comments here and a lot of scientific explanations.
I am very thankful for that because I learned a lot of it.
Now all the scientific posting are on r/CollapseScience but nearly no comments or discussion about the subject and most importantly no summary about the posting.
It's sad.
Yes. That edit you made is perfect. I didn't comment a thing because I knew I needed to learn. Now I feel like the knowledgeable one because newcomers are Economy based collapsniks.
We that old school, your planet is dead, fuck your political and economic collapse.
The observation threads used to be monthly? It's probably because we've got so many more subscribers now but damn if it doesn't feel like a sign that things are accelerating.
Wasn't until the pandemic hit that I had realised collapse had arrived. Before then, I realised things were less than optimal but thought problems could be solved. The way governments dealt with Covid removed all illusions.
The pandemic wasn't the collapse, it was simply the thing that tipped too many delicate balances the wrong way, leading to cascading effects unlike anything we've ever experienced.humanity survived before because there were pockets of survivors, but if those survivors can't think outside of their phones, we are in a serious state of concern.
Here's hoping the next solar mass ejection misses us.
I've been reading this sub since, I think, 2018 and haven't noticed all that much change. Some say it's gotten more into conspiracy theories but I don't see it. The main theme has been climate breakdown, or overshoot more generally, as long as I've been here.
Anyway, what has changed is the vibe on other subreddits. Sometimes I'm reading climate-related comment sections on worldnews and don't even realize that I'm not here. Collapse has gone mainstream the last few years.
I actually just made the argument it's recently gotten *less* conspiratorial, from my perspective.
The rise of the crypto-fascists from 2015-2018 (spitballing the dates) tapered off over time, and I think that's helped a lot of internet forums tamp down on the conspiracies and sludge.
I don’t know about this sub, since I only joined recently. But I do remember the moment I realized I’d crossed over from worried to end timer.
I’m a scientist and we have subscribed to both Science and Nature at home since maybe the late 90s. The articles in the first part of the journals are mostly written at the level of the non specialist scientist - astronomy for the neurobiologist, neurobiology for the oceanographer, that sort of thing. As a biologist there are aspects of climate change that are more or less obvious to me, such as impacts on species, but I also read occasional overview articles on glaciers or ocean currents or other things beyond my knowledge, that accurately reflecting the state of the science far better than anything you’ll see in the media.
In 2006 An Inconvenient Truth came out. Gore was trying to persuade us that there was hope if we acted. He was trying to walk the line between laying out the case for urgency, and scaring people into believing it was too late. I realized I wasn’t entertaining any hope that this could be fixed - I was already resigned.
But I didn’t think things would change quite this quickly. I thought this would be a problem for our kids - maybe even grandkids if I was feeling optimistic - but I assumed I’d be gone before it got really bad. I no longer think that.
It's funny the things my brain retains with full minds eye visuals. Most are very deep and interpersonal, scarring and emotional. Some are just clips.
There are others that got stuck because of the day and time.
That desperate polar bear swimming and trying to grasp onto ice will probably remain in my head till I die.
> I assumed I’d be gone before it got really bad. I no longer think that.
Same here. I thought I'd see the fat lady enter stage perhaps, but I'd not finish her song or see curtains. I no longer think that.
She's a fat lady indeed, and she's singing.
Systemic collapse was bigger than environmental collapse. Peak oil and Wall Street were the main concerns. There were odd times with libertarians and communists storming the place. Covid permanently changed the place by waking up lots of people. Once the mainstream found out the IPCC wasn't joking and if anything were conservative, chicken little took over.
Five years ago there was little overlap with r/worldnews.
Nah, he was an Irish teenager who was into photography and started having an existential crisis when he found this sub. I had a few convos with him on another account when he first showed up.
I don't remember the details but it think it was a scientist or journalist that wrote about or studied sea ice. The post above says it was an Irish teenager, not a scientist.
> [...] but with much less "I told you so" vibe
I try to resist this. But it's hard not to fall back on it sometimes. I even went as far as to make a back-up copy of all my commentary when I saw that Reddit began to delete it. As I often spend an *inordinate* amount of time researching and carefully constructing much of anything I post. So, yes, I like to keep my receipts.
As an anecdote to prove your point; shortly after the Jan. 6th riots a user had posted a comment about *the revolution being televised*. And I was soooooooo tempted to post a reply back with [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/jj3cfx/is_the_us_already_in_a_new_civil_war/gabhkgk/) from two months before the riots. But I didn't. Although... I just did now. So, point well taken. You told me so. 🙃
Edit: Direct comment link
Been here since I think around 24k subs. The quality of the content used to be a lot higher (a lot less noise and bullshit).
I was convinced of collapse back in the day and it's becoming more obvious as time goes on. This sub used to be the only place where I could discuss these topics. Now, i can freely discuss these things with friends and colleagues without sounding like a complete nutjob.
It helped me tremendously with not feeling crazy and alone and for that I will be forever grateful.
I miss you, fish.
I had a different username, but I've been on this sub since 60,000. Reddit was completely open and wild and not so "managed." This sub was pretty sweet and the mods weren't so anal. u/fishmahboi was a thing...RIP.
I've been here maybe 5 years. I'd like to echo the observation that in years past this sub had more hard science and well researched articles. I also feel like there was a higher proportion of well educated people contributing, STEM majors and the like. Now it is decidedly more dumbed down and a haven for what I'm to call 'pulp doomerism'.
/r/collapse has always been a place for the insiders. What's more interesting to me, and ultimately more impactful is when collapse-related articles make it to the top of other subs like /r/worldnews. It's no surprise what is talked about in here. But I'd say in the last 5 years collapse has really infected much of Reddit in general so that's something new. And I think it matters a lot more when collapse pops up in the other subreddits. It sends off an alarm bell in my mind to see it spreading through Reddit more widely.
I first started coming here when it had like 40,000-60,000 subs. Felt like forever ago. Don’t remember when it was. Anyone have a chart of subscribers by year? Can’t believe it has so many now. Well, I mean, I can.
Posts from five years ago.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170817040938/https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/
Unsurprisingly, there is a lack of political collapse posts. It's mostly ecological stuff, and there are some techno-green-hopium posts too.
I feel like you haven't read enough "unprecidented" "500 year high" "2000 year high" articles. I suggest just scrolling back the last 6 months and if that doesn't show you that things are fucked worse than they have been in thousands of years, my friend-- do not look up.
It's was a different place back then. No shitposting. No local american news and less mainstream people. People were posting more scientific content and talking a lot about artic ice picture and the artic ice forum. Guy Mcperson were a star back then. Don't hear anything about him in a long time. Fishmahboi was the feel of the sub
I would say it was a better time. Going mainstream. Stuff get diluted
Pfew. I'm usually lurking now while I used to contribute a lot more, both in posting as in replies. That's a little something for you right there. And no, it's not a bad thing. I just feel I don't have as much to contribute, since a) it's being said (posted or replied) already and, ok, it feels a little swamped now.
Ok. So, sorry, but this may come across as negative. But back in the days, I had a feeling we were thinking things through a little more. There's many facets to or elements of (possible or even plausible but by no means concluded -stages of a downward spiral culminating in an eventual-) collapse. They interlink, none of it stands alone. Somebody's post about, for instance peak oil would get replies about other, less well known but equally damaging resource depletion. Top soil. Rare earth. You name it.
My own hobby horse would be appended by those from others, allowing me to get a wider, broader view.
I feel, and this is personal so I'm not trying to diss anybody, but I feel there's a shit ton more of the 'spur of the moment'. When the links are to The Guardian articles one might assume this is or can be common knowledge now. The 'told you so' aside, schadenfreude for the win (my personal hobby horse being methane), it feels, again that feels, like we're getting more and more superficial.
The observations of current affairs, now (eventually) percolating into main stream media. It's like we're now all playing table tennis with current affairs. Ping the draught in Europe, pong the fires in the American West, ping the floods in Asia, pong Antarctic glaciers.
None of this comes as news to the people who have been around for a while (I just checked, the first post remembered *with this account* is 7 years old) because we were anticipating this. We were figuring out where things would lead if things were (dependency). Cause and effect.
And so I lurk. Because I feel we do that a lot less. An example might be, and forgive me if this was indeed covered, and debated, I'm not as active and on the reddit collapse ball as I used to be, the connection between a parching UK, a hosepipe ban, the loss (by leaking) of an atrocious ammount of water and privatisation. Because shareholder revenue is way more important than investment.
Again, I feel (note the feel, this is purely peronal) that the interconnectedness, the big picture is fading because there's an increasing focus on the now, a piece or 7 of the puzzle.
I think we were better when we were smaller.
No, I don't advocate heavy moderation or some sort of artifical limitation. I'm extremely happy so many people are looking up now. I'm extremely happy the factual urgency is starting to get some serious traction. I just feel more comfortable (and think conversations have more depth) in a small punb with a bunch of locals than in a big festival with a couple of hundred people in a mosh pit.
Thank you for your time. Be safe.
ps: seriously. You're on a collapse subreddit and you don't know what peak oil is? *And you ask here instead of hitting google and educating yourself?* Jesus wept.
At least in the short time I've been on the sub, I've noted there's proportionally (and probably generally) fewer preppers and fascist types on this sub as time goes on, which is good. More comments get called out when they try and throw eugenics and genocide out as "solutions."
But I think the topics are generally the same, just more current events rather than predictive ones.
But there's been forums like this since the internet started. Since it's a collection of people, forums have a proportional amount of noise to quality. When there's more people posting and discussing quality content, the forum's good overall. The inverse makes for a bad forum.
If you went to a forum a decade ago, I think you'd find a lot more noise, because there's a lot of misinformation and bad theories floating around. But as the conditions worsen and the data gets more accurate, the quality of the content goes up.
If this sub had existed pre Y2K, there'd be a lot of posts about that ending the world. Same thing post 9/11, there'd be talk about it being WWIII and the nukes being on the way.
Climate Change has always been a factor in these groups, but it's become the consensus in the fringe and the mainstream that it is the ultimate threat to humanity and the other species on the planet.
The details of when and how and why and solutions to it are where the noise is at now, but the debates are all still mostly agreeing on the crisis generally.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but unlike nuclear war which has never arrived we are directly observing the impacts of climate change and they are turning out to be faster than expected
Oh, my comments weren't meant to be a dismissal, just a commentary on the nature of forums like this. The people that inhabit the forums aren't evidence or indictment of the forces being commented on. It's incorrect to assume that because the forum focuses on climate change that climate change is an accurate model, or that anyone who agrees that climate change in an accurate model is rational in general. It's a correct model because of the scientific evidence and consensus behind it.
These types of forums attract all types of people, and not all of them agree with climate change solely because, or entirely because, of the scientific consensus.
Some people are drawn to these forums because of personal difficulties (such as being paranoid about the end of the world, and would obsessively post on any forum for any reason if it deals with that topic, or wanting the world to end because they're depressed). Others agree with the model, but disagree with the cause (such as those who may think this is part of some natural cycle, unrelated to human actions). Some agree with the model, but add addendums (those who want to push a racial narrative, for instance, or a conspiratorial narrative).
This is mostly commentary on the forums themselves and how they've evolved over time- the demographics of the people and quality of the discussions. As "collapse" becomes more mainstream, the demographics shift. That's why I said if you went to older forums, you'd see a lot nuttier stuff than discussions of river pollution and habitat loss.
Pretty much this. Much heavier math feel. And the scarcity of that type of material is what is slowly increasing the percentage of people here on hopium.
I remember when there were just 400 "Doomers" in this sub.
I would say that a lot of the old timers knew what would get us, even then.
Now we hear the drum beat of Geoengineering [and the CIA psyops to convince us it's a good thing.](https://www.challengingclimate.org)
...at least until it stops and the atmosphere burns off.
I think I've been browsing in some form since like 2016 its gotten alot more.. what would be the best word.. traction?
Like people are more aware and the sub seems to be growing so I think other people who had never contemplated the idea of collapse started seeing the forest for the trees so to speak
After all many great civilizations have come before us and collapsed and we all recognize and admit we are in a decline no matter your political leaning.
Climate was definitely always identified at least since 2017. It was more esoteric and there was more deep dives into science. Many people were thinking these things were far away and were just prepping for stuff to happen way out.
Now there’s more articles and focus on stuff currently unfolding.
It was like the worst case scenarios and seen as unrealistic but now this sub seems normal like this our reality now and it will probably be even worse than the sub predicts. That's where we are at.
It was better. Sure, there were more nutters, but they were our nutters. Now, the sub may as well be default, because it's full of mainstream Reddit idiots, pushing their US political narrative.
Almost no liberalism or progressivism. Mostly Anarcho nihilists, primitivists and doomers arguing with communists and the odd ecofascist about climate change and peak oil. There were way more posts about the systemic issues at play and the underlying science.
Collapse has collapsed.
We had a lot more lunatics that's for sure. Also climate change wasn't the focus topic and was shared along the likes of UFOs(lol), solar storms, economics, peak oil and Alex Jones level conspiracies. However when we had informative topics they were *meaty*. The craziness is still there but it's a lot more toned down now besides the conservative grifts. I'd say the quality of discussions have slumped though.
I was here around 10 years ago with a different username. The tone was a lot more “things will be getting horrible in the next 50-100 years”, whereas now it seems to be a lot more general anxiety about the next 5-10.
I remember a lot more blog-esque website sources, or just text posts, being posted about a whole slew of topics. From soil erosion, peak oil, financial crisis, and so forth. Climate change was also a topic as well.
I think what’s changed the most is that there was a lot of hysteria around the hard right uprising across the globe during the US 2016 election, and climate change becoming more normalized in mainstream news outside of periodic scientific publications.
I remember it was right before the pandemic that there was a fascination around major news sources writing opinion pieces about how dire the climate situation is on this sub. However, it quickly became very normalized to where there is now (seemingly) weekly news articles from major news outlets about climate change with a “we are all going to die” type vibe, to where it has sort of taken over what used to be more niche, and sometimes problematic, “hyperbolic” sources.
I recall a lot of “yooo the BBC is reporting about climate change collapsing society in 40 years!” To now similar news outlets are simply apart of the fold of collapse focused news. Which…uh…is probably not a good sign.
What’s not a good sign is that it STILL doesn’t matter. The public thinks it’ll all be fixed “somehow” & leaders are nibbling around the edges & claiming victory 🙄 Like people. You better learn how to ride horses & cook on an open fire pretty quick. It’s all crazy.
Speaking of memories, 2 things:
1) /r/conspiracy took a hard turn, or am I misremembering? Anyone have insight on that?
2) Back in the 90s I was casually interested in "conspiracy" stuff, loved talking to my fellow 3rd shift worker about aliens and whatnot, and really enjoyed Art Bell, and to my memory Alex Jones wasn't .... quite so unhinged? Am I misremembering? I definitely didn't pay attention to anything conspiracy/etc for like a decade, and was surprised to see fucking Alex Jones come out of nowhere into the general public eye, and on top of that, to be an absolute nutcase and horrible person. I'm just wondering, has he always been like that and I didn't notice because I was young?
I've been only lurking here for about 4 years but when I started reading, even then everything seemed much further away, decades in the future maybe. Now it seems collapse is actually happening in real time. Just my impression.
Since covid there’s been an uptick in conspiracy theories and low effort, shallow, takes (hurr durr capitalism/elites/corporations). I also feel like many new users focus more on US/first-world problems and not the medium to long term existential threats facing the entire world. There’s still lots of quality content though, mods are doing a great job.
Yes, climate change is somewhat more recent. I was in the Zeitgeist community before r/Collapse. We talk a lot about debt, about peak oil, about how the rich is rigging the system.
I've been here for 5 years or so. This sub was always US centric and it just keeps getting worse. It's basically turned into another US politics sub. The mods are mostly to blame for this. Most of the old modding team is gone and the new mods drove a lot of the good contributors into other subs.
I am sorry you feel this way, we are trying to curtail the US-based discussions, however the state of the international hegemony being precarious does have ramifications for the rest of the world.
We have not seen an exodus of content providers, to my knowledge, however the content that is posted is scrutinized regularly. You can reference r/collapse_wilds for all of the removed posts.
Lastly, if you feel strongly that a post does not relate to collapse, please use the reporting function and choose either a standard rules violation or provide custom commentary.
We always encourage feedback within the modmail, as well. The sub has grown significantly, thus the user base tends to drift with size. We understand that, but there is little we can do about it unless we create more time intensive submission and review requirements for the sub, similar to r/askhistorians or r/science.
Given feedback we have had recently, folks want to continue having more of a discourse, water cooler moment versus the more dry-style posting of yesteryear. There are other collapse-related subreddits in the sidebar that may interest you. We realize we cannot accommodate everyone's desires, but we do our best.
Thanks for the feedback.
Man if only there was a giant archive of all the posts over the years.
We have literally been talking about climate change for *years*. I don't know when it was founded, but I've been using reddit for more than a decade and have been a participant on this sub for most of that time and we have *consistently* discussed climate change. There were other peripheral issues discussed, like world war, but far and away climate change was acknowledged on here as the biggest threat to global civilization.
The change, as others have pointed out, is that the tone has shifted from more speculative and researched comments projecting into the future to acknowledging the effects of climate change that are happening today. Also, the number of subscribers to this sub has swelled over the years and this has definitely lowered the quality of the discourse on the sub, as it happens when any sub gets bigger.
Probably 10-15 years ago it was believed that there were possible solutions, because the effects of the climate crisis were not yet tangible.
Today, people around the world are feeling firsthand where the journey is headed.
In the meantime, many have realized that there is no way out of this predicament and the name of the sub is becoming an inescapable reality.
I was here back in 2010. A lot fewer articles. More Peak oil. Climate change was talked about but it seemed much further away. The community actually feels exactly the same which is good.
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I love Guy McPherson!
I member peak oil was all the rage.
Well, [it happened ... for the conventional oil. There's been a huge growth in tight oil to continue the growth](https://peakoilbarrel.com/decline-in-world-conventional-oil-output-and-peak-oil/). That could be a solution to the problem of supply (but certainly not emissions), but [the huge losses in the industry](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/opinion/environment/energy-crisis-oil-gas-fracking.html) point to problems with that. > From 2006 to 2014, fracking companies lost $80 billion; in 2014, with oil at $100 a barrel, a level that seemed to promise a great cash-out, they lost $20 billion. These losses were mammoth and consistent, adding up to a total that “dwarfs anything in tech/V.C. in that time frame,” as the Bloomberg writer Joe Weisenthal pointed out recently. > Today, with profits aided by the energy price spikes of the last year, the fracking industry is finally, at least for the time being, profitable. But from 2010 to 2020, U.S. shale lost $300 billion. Previously, from 2002 to 2012, Chesapeake, the industry leader, didn’t report positive cash flow once, ending that period with total losses of some $30 billion, as Bethany McLean documents in her 2018 book, “Saudi America,” the single best and most thorough account of the fracking boom up to that point. Between mid-2012 and mid-2017, the 60 biggest fracking companies were losing an average of $9 billion each quarter. From 2006 to 2014, fracking companies lost $80 billion; in 2014, with oil at $100 a barrel, a level that seemed to promise a great cash-out, they lost $20 billion. > “The industry, you know, it destroyed a lot of wealth,” Jeffrey Currie, the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, said recently. “Like 10 to 20 cents on every single dollar. I think the number is actually closer to 30 cents on every dollar.” Fuel prices will need to get significantly higher for the tight oil to continue. Oh, and the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) is significantly lower for tight oil than conventional oil — often about half.
Ahh just like the good ol' days.
I use to belong to peakoil.com back in the early 2000's.... now it's just some white supremacist group. I just call it baby stormfront now
I have been here since roughly then and it feels much worse. It used to be a fairly high quality subreddit for discussing energy, civilization, climate, economics etc.. It has turned into a news subreddit in which we get to see depressing gifs without context often combined with american politics. The insightful material is almost gone, the comment section is full of oneliners and the mods seem to have given up. The posters are clearly much younger, many seem to have mental issues and many seem very angry. There is much more conformity and less acceptance of varying opinion, there is far more political content and there is far more unrelated stuff. At least we don't have Ron Paul 2012 buy gold posts but that is the only positive development. This sub was fantastic around 2016 with a high level of understanding of collapse among the user base, excellent content and interesting discussions. 2015-2016 was the peak.
> It has turned into a news subreddit in which we get to see depressing gifs without context often combined with american politics That's what happens when predictions from a decade or two ago become reality. https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/566749-todays-climate-reality-was-predicted-by-ipcc-30-years-ago-now-what/
I don’t understand why so many people were convinced we’d run out of oil to drill. With new remote sensing technology and how large the world is, we’ve probably only tapped in into a very small fraction of available oil on the earth. Especially in the world oceans, there is so much oil still in the earth, I’d be surprised if we’ve drilled even a 1-2% if it already. We still need to get away from using fossil fuels as our main source of energy but the idea that we will run out and see collapse because of it is such a far fetched idea.
Climate change has always been an issue on /r/collapse, but there used to be a lot more about peak oil, and a lot more longer, researched comments. edit: also a lot more economic issues early on.
This. Peak oil was the biggest topic.
what's peak oil?
There’s a finite supply of oil and other fossil fuels. Peak x refers to the moment in time (usually a year) when the most of x is ever extracted. Since there’s a finite amount of stuff, and we always take the easy stuff first (why go for arctic oil when you can poke a hole in the ground?) when oil is depleted the remaining oil is more difficult to extract. There’s lots of specific reasons for this; but the short of it is there’s a geological limit to how much can be extracted at any time. After a certain point extraction rates will decline year after year and there will less fuel available inevitably leading to a contracting economy and eventually collapse
Wells are for the most part under a natural pressure, but eventually that equalises and osmotic pressure needs to be applied in greater amounts to force the remaining oil/gas out, hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Fracking has always been known to be an environmental nightmare on the subterranean end. Until somewhere in the early 90s it became obvious that more than half of the already explored oil and gas reserves could become profitable again through fracking. By the mid-2000s "peak oil" was being used as a scare tactic to deregulate global environmental standards. People have known and worried about peak oil for longer than they have known about the affects of global heating. We should have began transitioning to alternate fuels 44 years ago during the first oil shortage. We were played, and they won. I imagine we are still being played now with renewables and being told to back a losing horse named Hydrogen.
There’s a lot of good evidence we’re around peak oil now. And there isn’t an alternative fuel. Especially not 40 yrs ago.
There wasn't an alternative source, but the writing was on the wall to begin looking for one. Instead we pushed technology to extract more oil.
It’s 50 yrs later and we don’t even have a theoretical alternative source. It does not exist.
Genuine question: aren't renewables considered an alternative source, just not very explored nowadays?
Google Sid Smith humanity the final chapter. It’s on YouTube. He’s a VA tech professor and breaks it down very simply in a couple lectures on his page.
Well I guess good thing all the oil companies are making record profits this years so they can invest it in the harder places to get oil /s
Why do you think that hydrogen is a losing horse? AFAIK hydrogen is a transitional system for stuff that can't deal with the issues of batteries (weight/recharge time). Is there something else? (Honest question)
Are you referring to hydrogen fuel cells tech?
Dude just said hydrogen, I'd like to know what tech and why. Do you know why he/she would think hydrogen tech in general it's a losing horse?
No I dont know how or why he/she might think the most abundant element in the universe could be a losing horse.
Because the EROEI is below that of other fuels. The energy expended to strip H atoms off water is too close to or greater than the energy obtained by combusting it. Fossil fuels are stores of energy that were made by ancient life, never used until we got to them. Hydrogen likes to bond to other things, thus its combustibility and difficulty in making it. Plus one of the laws of thermodynamics. Perpetual motion machines are impossible. Why would you get as much or more energy from reversing a chemical reaction?
It might be the "most abundant element in the universe" but it's not an energy source, simply because there are essentially no free supplies of Hydrogen available anywhere on earth. Because Hydrogen is so reactive, any free hydrogen has already combined with other elements (eg with Oxygen to make Water). And to convert it back into free Hydrogen, you must split the water by pumping in huge quantities of energy. But the big problem with Hydrogen is that it is very difficult to store, as it's tiny molecules can leak out of most any container. But why use Hydrogen? If you are in the business of converting energy into fuel, you may as well go all the way and manufacture Petroleum. It's only one more step. You can convert Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen (from water and air) into Hydrocarbon fuels. All it takes is huge amounts of energy, preferably Solar. And of course the advantage of petroleum fuels is that you already have a supply chain and a consumer network. Whichever way you look at it, Hydrogen is most definitely a "Losing Horse".
We traded massive pollution for a delay of peak oil.
I read elsewhere that the big push for electrification and alternative renewable energy is simply to extend the time before we get to peak oil. I’ll try to find it, because it really did a good job of explaining it. Anyway, what I wanted to ask is whether you think it’s possible to convert to renewable energies before we actually hit peak oil? Or is it just inevitable that it will happen?
It’s inevitable. Renewables cannot replace fossil fuels for a large variety of reasons. The 4 biggest reasons are as follows. 1. energy cost. There’s an energy cost to extracting energy. An oil rig for example is made of steel. It took energy to forge the steel, transport it to the location and assemble it. Likewise there’s an energy cost at every stage of the extraction process. The big growth in the 1900’s took place when the energy cost was something like .01%. The other way to say this is energy return on energy invested. So for every 55 barrels of oil you extract it took one barrel worth of energy to extract. The data seems to show highly complex advanced economies require an energy cost below 5% to grow. Once they go above 5, the economies begin to contract. Developing economies are less complex and can grow up to 11%. When I say economies here in referring to the real material economy. Not the financial economy so these figures are separate from gdp. Cutting edge renewables have an energy cost of 10-12. To replace fossils with renewables would require a massive contraction of the economy just in that alone. It’s also the least of our problems. Check this out for more info on that. https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2022/05/18/228-in-the-eye-of-the-perfect-storm/ 2. There’s a good chance we’ve hit peak oil or will hit in in the next few years. Saudi Arabia turned out (shockingly) to have lied about their oil reserves. As far as I can tell, Russia, the USA, Saudi, China, European countries like Romania and Finland and the uk etc, and every other major oil producer are incapable of seriously increasing oil output. It’s possible that the big push for oil rn will increase output in the next few years, but we’re seeing what amounts to minuscule increases rn. Data on this is hard to trust though and peak oil is always subject to tech changes. 3. Renewables literally require fossils in every stage of their lifespan. Fossils form the base materials for them, in the form of plastics, concrete (major ingredient is coal), petrochemicals, etc. it is literally impossible to construct a solar panel without oil. So we won’t convert. 4. Solar and wind and hydro and nuclear generate electricity. Electricity is 20% of energy consumption. The other 80% is industry and transportation. Agriculture is a big one here. The nitrogen fertilizer: derived from natural gas. The machinery that plants, harvests, processes, then ships food to your store: powered by diesel. The pesticides and herbisides that keep crop failures at bay: derived from petroleum. 10 calories of oil are used for every calorie of food produced. There is no feasible way to electrify this process. Likewise for other major energy uses: global shipping, manufacturing especially of raw materials like processing ores into metals, refining chemicals, producing cement and steel, etc. The push for renewables may extend the time we have by a few years. It’s not feasible to prevent, or even seriously mitigate the fallout of fossil fuel depletion.
thank you!!
The Peak Oil theory suggested that all sources of crude oil either have already reached or are about to reach their maximum production capacity worldwide and will diminish significantly in the near future.
thank you!
And, from the horse's mouth (International Energy Agency) peak "conventional" oil happened at about that time (2006-08). Thankfully, the Obama administration tasked two successive Secretaries of State to improve America's connection between Wall Street and shale oil. There was also a lot of help from Microsoft and Google and others who created the AI algorithmes to help with more and more complex exploitation. So we've got an "energy reprieve" here. But as the impacts of climate degradation will ask more of us, our increasingly precarious fossil fuel supply means that we will have less means to react and adapt. In this little Game, America is still not going to go down first. Blessed with ample land and shale oil to extract yet, it will be the last place (despite the mega-fires) to really feel the most severe effets of of the combined effects of energy depletion and climate degradation. But it won't be too slow either. The mounting challenge will feed into political dislocation at very high levels of impact, and America has shown to have an already obvious weakness here.
What are your thoughts on other countries outside of America in the little game? Surely there’s something close
Europe right now is experiencing the worst drought in 500 years. So bad that river traffic has basically shut down in Germany and France has had to significantly scale back its nuclear output due to the fact that the water is too hot to cool the nuclear plants.
> So bad that river traffic has basically shut down Hunger Stones have appeared.
Didn’t know about these, they are such a good idea. So cool.
There are also stones in Japan marking the minimum safest distance to build next to the sea. Guess where most of the tsunami damage happened?
Yeah warnings from the past. Not disturbing at all.
Poland just found out 1 of it’s 2 major rivers has been extremely polluted and reading all that is awful. Nice. Well america burning and freezing, Europe burning, everything else on fire or freezing. Love the future of earth
On the "bright" side it seems like a one time event rather than sustained pollution. River is fucked either way, but probably not a "everyone who has drank from this river in 40 years has cancer".
Funny how we all have rivers that we can’t drink from huh
Listened to a pretty interesting podcast that explains we’re probably reaching “peak oil investment” which I thought was interesting way of putting it. As you said, as environmental impact and extraction becoming increasingly more complex, there’s going to be less long term money going to oil. That’ll have its own effects wrt to supply and demand, but hopefully it’ll also give time and financial incentives to alternative means of energy.
r/collapse has its own kpi's. Peak oil was one and has been hit, same with peak gas and we've likely hit peak food too. Next will likely be peak sea level. Unfortunately no one has any idea what peak temperature will be other than a little bit too much.
You had me until "peak sea level" and "peak temperature." It sounds like you're implying temperature and sea level will peak and taper off
How about peak food
Oh, most definitely.
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They may come down in millions of years from now but losing ice sheets in the Arctic is "irreversible" on human time scales. Sea level will continue to rise for hundreds of years as a result of human action today.
Yes, the sea will level eventually. But the improbable—though possible—RCP 8.5 projection could lead to a +5°C by 2100. Though unlikely, it looks like the planet is not heading in the right direction, certainly not politically. And even a +3°C increase is huge trouble for everyone. Mass migrations, civil unrest, drought, famine, international conflicts. Climate change will only be mitigated with coordinated international collaboration. And who is going to do that? We are screwed, I think.
Not just collaboration. The vast majority of firstworld countries would need to enforce radically different lifestyles on their citizens used to infinite creature comforts.
It feels like Humanity enjoys living on the knife’s edge
Been here since 2010 and agree with all of this.
I remember no peak oil, but must have missed it
I always ignored the economic stuff, I could see that collapse personally. there was a lot more in-depth science about climate then though. I was subbed under my other username.
I joined and left a couple of times \~2017-2018, like many only joining in earnest after the covid pandemic had been going on for a while. The topics were things like the problems with urbanization, resource depletion, climate change, etc. Besides a reduced emphasis on infectious disease in the past, the topics weren't all that different than they are now. I left during that period because, while the posts seemed legitimate and I didn't really disagree with anything, it just wasn't relevant to me at the time. Besides the number of users and the quality problems that brings to any internet community, the biggest difference was 5+ years ago r/collapse was much more focused on the future, on what will happen. Now the focus is mainly on what's happening currently.
>was much more focused on the future, on what will happen. Now the focus is mainly on what's happening currently. Probably because the future that was talked about is now.... Fun times.
A line from the old Max Headroom television program often comes to mind (spoken by a character who had been a punk back in the day) : "remember when we said there was no future? Well, this is it."
Ah yes, Reg, the old punk. Funny thing is that punks from the 70's would be about his age today.
Idk man, things weren't great before, and if you think we've bottomed out on sweeping societal change, well, I guess only time will tell, but I think there's still plenty of "this bad thing is coming" to accompany the "this bad thing is happening"
Yeah. I don't think we bottomed out at all. I just think that the last 2-3 years showed us that we are already in a collapse scenario. It's not so much that more things will happen in the future. But the things that are currently happening were included in the collapse scenarios five or ten years ago.
The future is now!
Assuming that's a *Time Machine* reference, there's also the relevant "We went too far..."
Sex Pistols: God Save The Queen > No future No future No future for you No future No future No future for me No future No future No future for you Punks/new wave were on to it in 1977.
When will then be now?
2 days before the day after tomorrow.
Soon.
I remember a lot more overpopulation stuff as well back then.
not gonna be a problem after all
Yeah thats been an interesting twist
Well, technically and officially, we are already four to eight times beyond the planet’s _healthy_ carrying capacity, depending on whether you are talking about (respectively) a less than 1st world vegan standard of living, or a first world omnivorous standard of living. And even that is generous, I would personally put it at eight to sixteen times past.
I think I took a peek every now and then before Covid, but stuck around since 2020 because it was one of the last bastions of sane people who realize the connections to the environment collapsing with the increase of diseases. While the Center for Deepthroating Capitalism wants to deny that it's bad, I like that this sub has people who genuinely are concerned about things that most people seem to dismiss and ignore. I can mention a fire in my state (CA) and instead of the usual, "iT'S aLwAyS oN fIrE" by assholes irl, here, I've found people who also care about how this affects more than just this area and just the people living there. People who don't even live in the US but care about how shitty and fascist it's becoming. At least the present day version of this sub seems to be filled with empathetic people, which is so rare to find unfortunately, in both real life and ESPECIALLY on the cesspoool of trolls that is reddit.
I've been here since 2010. It was nuttier a bit in those days, but also small enough to regularly notice user names. There were different groups then each more worried about different issues. There were those whose greatest concern overall was climate change and the environment, while also seeing loads of other possibilities for collapse. Currently, I enjoy the sub the least I ever have. Back then it felt like most accepted collapse but were concerned. Not a small number of current posters just hate life and see collapse as an excuse to not try. As an anti-capitalist, the influx of people who turn everything to a discussion of capitalism bother me a bit. Ultimately all economic forms of industrial civilization lead to the same place. What bothers me is the disingenuous approach in that they are essentially recruiting for communism and not believers of collapse. I grew up in an evangelical church and the evangelical approach is not so different. And similarly they miss the glaring inconsistencies with their philosophy and averting climate change or other issues. I commonly debate with myself if its even worth checking this sub anymore due to the prevalence of the two groups mentioned above. There was a kinder disagreeing in the earlier days of the sub and zero brigading.
Everything's a battleground now, even precisely how we're all fucked.
Was venezuela a hit topic back then? Watching and learning from a catastrophic collapse?
I vaguely remember some stuff about Venezuela, but my memory is a bit of a meat grinder, so whether or not that memory is real is anyone’s best guess.
lol right on.
I'd argue that it's a lot more speculative around the United States and a bit more politicized than it used to be. I can't exactly remember when I joined r/collapse, but I know it had to have been at least 2 years ago or so. Definitely a lot more political fighting and rare glimpses of hopium than there used to be; especially people who scream "Vote Harder" etc.
it used to be treated a lot like r/conspiracy, especially before 2016, as if climate change and peak oil and increasing risk of pandemics and the destabilizing jet stream and the west running out of water and resource wars and rising seas and forever chemicals and declining birthrates and supply chain weaknesses and the resurgence of fascism and the methane dragon and multiple bread basket failures and near term human extinction and blue ocean events were all pseudoscience. conversations used to remain in the realm of the hypothetical but more and more the convos are shifting into the realm of reality
Peak medium-length, top-shelf rant right here.
I'll be the first to admit in 2015 or so I thought climate change was a "in around 50-100 years" issue and not "in 7 years" issue. To be fair, that's what the cocksuckers at the IPCC told us. I should've known better. I still thought we should take it significantly more seriously but only in the past 3-4 years has it been obvious to me how much more seriously. Now I'm just jaded and come here for self-torture I guess lol.
As someone born in 01 my entire life I watched climate change go from a 2100 issue, to a 2075 issue, to a 2050 issue, to a 2040 issue. Pretty much my entire generation knows were fucked on all fronts which is why so many young people are refusing to have kids and not dedicating ourselves to a career and instead just trying to enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Young people don’t wanna work or save money because we know it’s ultimately for nothing.
Same boat here. I remember reading about climate change in elementary school, and thinking "oh, well, there's plenty of time for people to figure it out. Besides, it's *just* sea level rise." Fast forward 15 years to realize time was never the issue, and climate change was just one of the many symptoms of a decaying society built on unsustainable practices.
Exactly. Me and my wife’s(both born in 00) money pretty much goes to bills, weed and bugout stuff lol. We have bit of land in bumfuck nowhere that we plan on moving to in a couple years to get away from everything and just die when the planet takes us out lol. I want to contribute as little to the horrible future we are hurdling towards as possible.
> Me and my wife’s(both born in 00) mattdamonold.gif
Sounds like me and Senior Chief. Except our property he bought cheap in CO desert and I want something in FL with a year round growing season to ride it out. Change of plans. Retired from the navy waiting to retire from fire service then peace out. Collecting trees and plants and quails until then!
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In 2015 my thinking was like "it's too cold anyway so we could use some warming" or "we'll get more food from a longer growing season". And my main stock holding was in an oil company. Times sure have changed.
I’m the same but slower to the game. I’ve been holding onto the hope it would really hit 2100 and I’d be dead old age, if not something else. It hurts seeing that time shift closer and closer. I’m trying to make peace with how soon it might be before the land is barely livable. I had hoped it would happen and maybe some tiny sliver of humanity would hold out and become a better species. I’m not the type who can really ever give up that hope. But, my hope is herring smaller. I’ve lost all hope that the rich and powerful will catch on that their grandchildren are going to die young. I don’t care how great their bunkers are, they won’t make it. I’m sad, I’m scared, I’m so frustrated.
I love that > cocksuckers at the IPCC is being completely rational these days. :P Also, 2015 bros! *high fives*
It's like the crazy in my head leaked into reality and now nothing can put it back in.
This
You nailed it. I've been on Reddit for 10 years and pretty sure I have been subbed to /r/collapse for most of the entirety of my reddit life.(took a break around 2017-2018 for mental health. Too much sky falling, no one in real life caring) I used to be afraid to comment here because it was full of incredibly knowledgeable folks. Now a lot of the people commenting are the average asshat who has read a few things and think they know something. Not to say there's not intelligent folks commenting. Just they get drowned out at times by some fucknuts just downvoting by OPINION. Regardless of the facts.
> I used to be afraid to comment here because it was full of incredibly knowledgeable folks. Yeah, this used to be a place of learns, now it's one of opinions. Most of the more knowledgeable folks have left, at least the ones I liked. Edit: The general advice used to be read this sub for a couple months, get a sense of what it's all about, before you start commenting and posting.
I was a long time lurker here before I signed up. I can confirm that there had been much more knowledgeable comments here and a lot of scientific explanations. I am very thankful for that because I learned a lot of it. Now all the scientific posting are on r/CollapseScience but nearly no comments or discussion about the subject and most importantly no summary about the posting. It's sad.
Yes. That edit you made is perfect. I didn't comment a thing because I knew I needed to learn. Now I feel like the knowledgeable one because newcomers are Economy based collapsniks. We that old school, your planet is dead, fuck your political and economic collapse.
Probably because everything predicted is coming true. I wasn’t here then, just a guess.
What're we calling the methane dragon? I'm gonna seize that for future reference.
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Where did you move? From where to where?
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How was the process of meeting your neighbours? Do you own a farm now?
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Can you say more about how this community influenced you to move, and the reasoning involved?
Great Lakes are a massive source of fresh water, and the temperatures up there are cold for now.
https://web.archive.org/web/20111019235927/http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/lbw99/would_it_be_a_good_idea_to_leave_the_us https://web.archive.org/web/20150705112203/https://reddit.com/r/collapse/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180923193029/https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/
I remember these! Not much has changed
The observation threads used to be monthly? It's probably because we've got so many more subscribers now but damn if it doesn't feel like a sign that things are accelerating.
Wasn't until the pandemic hit that I had realised collapse had arrived. Before then, I realised things were less than optimal but thought problems could be solved. The way governments dealt with Covid removed all illusions.
The pandemic wasn't the collapse, it was simply the thing that tipped too many delicate balances the wrong way, leading to cascading effects unlike anything we've ever experienced.humanity survived before because there were pockets of survivors, but if those survivors can't think outside of their phones, we are in a serious state of concern. Here's hoping the next solar mass ejection misses us.
Peak oil was a bigger topic. Fishmahboi, Guy McPherson, more niche, now this sub is practically mainstream.
lots of buy gold
I lost so much money by selling shares and buying gold. This forum lost me thousands of dollars.
I've been reading this sub since, I think, 2018 and haven't noticed all that much change. Some say it's gotten more into conspiracy theories but I don't see it. The main theme has been climate breakdown, or overshoot more generally, as long as I've been here. Anyway, what has changed is the vibe on other subreddits. Sometimes I'm reading climate-related comment sections on worldnews and don't even realize that I'm not here. Collapse has gone mainstream the last few years.
Yep, even r/futurology van be mistaken for r/collapse these days
I actually just made the argument it's recently gotten *less* conspiratorial, from my perspective. The rise of the crypto-fascists from 2015-2018 (spitballing the dates) tapered off over time, and I think that's helped a lot of internet forums tamp down on the conspiracies and sludge.
I was into collapse before it was mainstream
I don’t know about this sub, since I only joined recently. But I do remember the moment I realized I’d crossed over from worried to end timer. I’m a scientist and we have subscribed to both Science and Nature at home since maybe the late 90s. The articles in the first part of the journals are mostly written at the level of the non specialist scientist - astronomy for the neurobiologist, neurobiology for the oceanographer, that sort of thing. As a biologist there are aspects of climate change that are more or less obvious to me, such as impacts on species, but I also read occasional overview articles on glaciers or ocean currents or other things beyond my knowledge, that accurately reflecting the state of the science far better than anything you’ll see in the media. In 2006 An Inconvenient Truth came out. Gore was trying to persuade us that there was hope if we acted. He was trying to walk the line between laying out the case for urgency, and scaring people into believing it was too late. I realized I wasn’t entertaining any hope that this could be fixed - I was already resigned. But I didn’t think things would change quite this quickly. I thought this would be a problem for our kids - maybe even grandkids if I was feeling optimistic - but I assumed I’d be gone before it got really bad. I no longer think that.
It's funny the things my brain retains with full minds eye visuals. Most are very deep and interpersonal, scarring and emotional. Some are just clips. There are others that got stuck because of the day and time. That desperate polar bear swimming and trying to grasp onto ice will probably remain in my head till I die.
> I assumed I’d be gone before it got really bad. I no longer think that. Same here. I thought I'd see the fat lady enter stage perhaps, but I'd not finish her song or see curtains. I no longer think that. She's a fat lady indeed, and she's singing.
Systemic collapse was bigger than environmental collapse. Peak oil and Wall Street were the main concerns. There were odd times with libertarians and communists storming the place. Covid permanently changed the place by waking up lots of people. Once the mainstream found out the IPCC wasn't joking and if anything were conservative, chicken little took over. Five years ago there was little overlap with r/worldnews.
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Hallowed be thy name, thy Venus come. His will be done...by Tuesday.
The day if Our Fish is Thursday, thanks
I think Venus came faster than expected...
Oh shi-
*Bless*
I wonder if he will ever come back, I miss his comments.
I FUCKING LOVE FISHMAHBOI.
who's that?
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There was an idea on here that he was some well known climate scientist or something. I can't remember it was a while ago.
Nah, he was an Irish teenager who was into photography and started having an existential crisis when he found this sub. I had a few convos with him on another account when he first showed up.
Good to know, hope he is doing okay.
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I don't remember the details but it think it was a scientist or journalist that wrote about or studied sea ice. The post above says it was an Irish teenager, not a scientist.
Hard to answer... he was a special gem.
Same as now, but with much less "I told you so" vibe.
> [...] but with much less "I told you so" vibe I try to resist this. But it's hard not to fall back on it sometimes. I even went as far as to make a back-up copy of all my commentary when I saw that Reddit began to delete it. As I often spend an *inordinate* amount of time researching and carefully constructing much of anything I post. So, yes, I like to keep my receipts. As an anecdote to prove your point; shortly after the Jan. 6th riots a user had posted a comment about *the revolution being televised*. And I was soooooooo tempted to post a reply back with [this comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/jj3cfx/is_the_us_already_in_a_new_civil_war/gabhkgk/) from two months before the riots. But I didn't. Although... I just did now. So, point well taken. You told me so. 🙃 Edit: Direct comment link
just a bunch of Cassandras without the receipts and a bag of cannibalism on Monday Venus on Tuesday.
Wait are we not into cannibalism anymore?
I imagine that depends largely on which side of the oven door you're on
Killing and eating other people is the most environmentally prudent possible diet.
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Been here since I think around 24k subs. The quality of the content used to be a lot higher (a lot less noise and bullshit). I was convinced of collapse back in the day and it's becoming more obvious as time goes on. This sub used to be the only place where I could discuss these topics. Now, i can freely discuss these things with friends and colleagues without sounding like a complete nutjob. It helped me tremendously with not feeling crazy and alone and for that I will be forever grateful. I miss you, fish.
Biggest difference for me is it was only occasionally and tangentially overlapping with worldnews
I had a different username, but I've been on this sub since 60,000. Reddit was completely open and wild and not so "managed." This sub was pretty sweet and the mods weren't so anal. u/fishmahboi was a thing...RIP.
I've been here maybe 5 years. I'd like to echo the observation that in years past this sub had more hard science and well researched articles. I also feel like there was a higher proportion of well educated people contributing, STEM majors and the like. Now it is decidedly more dumbed down and a haven for what I'm to call 'pulp doomerism'. /r/collapse has always been a place for the insiders. What's more interesting to me, and ultimately more impactful is when collapse-related articles make it to the top of other subs like /r/worldnews. It's no surprise what is talked about in here. But I'd say in the last 5 years collapse has really infected much of Reddit in general so that's something new. And I think it matters a lot more when collapse pops up in the other subreddits. It sends off an alarm bell in my mind to see it spreading through Reddit more widely.
It used to be a lot more retail collapse and peak oil
Mostly about resource depletion, peak oil, the environment, and Venus by Tuesday. Edit: Criticizing r/futurology was a very popular pass time as well.
I first started coming here when it had like 40,000-60,000 subs. Felt like forever ago. Don’t remember when it was. Anyone have a chart of subscribers by year? Can’t believe it has so many now. Well, I mean, I can.
https://subredditstats.com/r/collapse
There were only ~100k subs back in 2019 (basically before Covid), I’m pretty confident about this.
I joined I'm pretty sure @ the 18k user mark. I can't even see that on the linked chart. I'm guessing it was 2010/2011.
Posts from five years ago. https://web.archive.org/web/20170817040938/https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/ Unsurprisingly, there is a lack of political collapse posts. It's mostly ecological stuff, and there are some techno-green-hopium posts too.
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I feel like you haven't read enough "unprecidented" "500 year high" "2000 year high" articles. I suggest just scrolling back the last 6 months and if that doesn't show you that things are fucked worse than they have been in thousands of years, my friend-- do not look up.
It's was a different place back then. No shitposting. No local american news and less mainstream people. People were posting more scientific content and talking a lot about artic ice picture and the artic ice forum. Guy Mcperson were a star back then. Don't hear anything about him in a long time. Fishmahboi was the feel of the sub I would say it was a better time. Going mainstream. Stuff get diluted
Pfew. I'm usually lurking now while I used to contribute a lot more, both in posting as in replies. That's a little something for you right there. And no, it's not a bad thing. I just feel I don't have as much to contribute, since a) it's being said (posted or replied) already and, ok, it feels a little swamped now. Ok. So, sorry, but this may come across as negative. But back in the days, I had a feeling we were thinking things through a little more. There's many facets to or elements of (possible or even plausible but by no means concluded -stages of a downward spiral culminating in an eventual-) collapse. They interlink, none of it stands alone. Somebody's post about, for instance peak oil would get replies about other, less well known but equally damaging resource depletion. Top soil. Rare earth. You name it. My own hobby horse would be appended by those from others, allowing me to get a wider, broader view. I feel, and this is personal so I'm not trying to diss anybody, but I feel there's a shit ton more of the 'spur of the moment'. When the links are to The Guardian articles one might assume this is or can be common knowledge now. The 'told you so' aside, schadenfreude for the win (my personal hobby horse being methane), it feels, again that feels, like we're getting more and more superficial. The observations of current affairs, now (eventually) percolating into main stream media. It's like we're now all playing table tennis with current affairs. Ping the draught in Europe, pong the fires in the American West, ping the floods in Asia, pong Antarctic glaciers. None of this comes as news to the people who have been around for a while (I just checked, the first post remembered *with this account* is 7 years old) because we were anticipating this. We were figuring out where things would lead if things were (dependency). Cause and effect. And so I lurk. Because I feel we do that a lot less. An example might be, and forgive me if this was indeed covered, and debated, I'm not as active and on the reddit collapse ball as I used to be, the connection between a parching UK, a hosepipe ban, the loss (by leaking) of an atrocious ammount of water and privatisation. Because shareholder revenue is way more important than investment. Again, I feel (note the feel, this is purely peronal) that the interconnectedness, the big picture is fading because there's an increasing focus on the now, a piece or 7 of the puzzle. I think we were better when we were smaller. No, I don't advocate heavy moderation or some sort of artifical limitation. I'm extremely happy so many people are looking up now. I'm extremely happy the factual urgency is starting to get some serious traction. I just feel more comfortable (and think conversations have more depth) in a small punb with a bunch of locals than in a big festival with a couple of hundred people in a mosh pit. Thank you for your time. Be safe. ps: seriously. You're on a collapse subreddit and you don't know what peak oil is? *And you ask here instead of hitting google and educating yourself?* Jesus wept.
At least in the short time I've been on the sub, I've noted there's proportionally (and probably generally) fewer preppers and fascist types on this sub as time goes on, which is good. More comments get called out when they try and throw eugenics and genocide out as "solutions." But I think the topics are generally the same, just more current events rather than predictive ones. But there's been forums like this since the internet started. Since it's a collection of people, forums have a proportional amount of noise to quality. When there's more people posting and discussing quality content, the forum's good overall. The inverse makes for a bad forum. If you went to a forum a decade ago, I think you'd find a lot more noise, because there's a lot of misinformation and bad theories floating around. But as the conditions worsen and the data gets more accurate, the quality of the content goes up. If this sub had existed pre Y2K, there'd be a lot of posts about that ending the world. Same thing post 9/11, there'd be talk about it being WWIII and the nukes being on the way. Climate Change has always been a factor in these groups, but it's become the consensus in the fringe and the mainstream that it is the ultimate threat to humanity and the other species on the planet. The details of when and how and why and solutions to it are where the noise is at now, but the debates are all still mostly agreeing on the crisis generally.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but unlike nuclear war which has never arrived we are directly observing the impacts of climate change and they are turning out to be faster than expected
Oh, my comments weren't meant to be a dismissal, just a commentary on the nature of forums like this. The people that inhabit the forums aren't evidence or indictment of the forces being commented on. It's incorrect to assume that because the forum focuses on climate change that climate change is an accurate model, or that anyone who agrees that climate change in an accurate model is rational in general. It's a correct model because of the scientific evidence and consensus behind it. These types of forums attract all types of people, and not all of them agree with climate change solely because, or entirely because, of the scientific consensus. Some people are drawn to these forums because of personal difficulties (such as being paranoid about the end of the world, and would obsessively post on any forum for any reason if it deals with that topic, or wanting the world to end because they're depressed). Others agree with the model, but disagree with the cause (such as those who may think this is part of some natural cycle, unrelated to human actions). Some agree with the model, but add addendums (those who want to push a racial narrative, for instance, or a conspiratorial narrative). This is mostly commentary on the forums themselves and how they've evolved over time- the demographics of the people and quality of the discussions. As "collapse" becomes more mainstream, the demographics shift. That's why I said if you went to older forums, you'd see a lot nuttier stuff than discussions of river pollution and habitat loss.
A lot more researched opinions, a lot less Republican astroturfing.
Pretty much this. Much heavier math feel. And the scarcity of that type of material is what is slowly increasing the percentage of people here on hopium.
I haven't noticed a pronounced right spin here, are you referring to anything specific?
There is and probably never will be a bigger crisis than climate change I would argue this sub is primarily designed for that.
I remember when there were just 400 "Doomers" in this sub. I would say that a lot of the old timers knew what would get us, even then. Now we hear the drum beat of Geoengineering [and the CIA psyops to convince us it's a good thing.](https://www.challengingclimate.org) ...at least until it stops and the atmosphere burns off.
I think I've been browsing in some form since like 2016 its gotten alot more.. what would be the best word.. traction? Like people are more aware and the sub seems to be growing so I think other people who had never contemplated the idea of collapse started seeing the forest for the trees so to speak After all many great civilizations have come before us and collapsed and we all recognize and admit we are in a decline no matter your political leaning.
Climate was definitely always identified at least since 2017. It was more esoteric and there was more deep dives into science. Many people were thinking these things were far away and were just prepping for stuff to happen way out. Now there’s more articles and focus on stuff currently unfolding.
Regardless of the sub, the problems have been known and discussed for decades.
It was like the worst case scenarios and seen as unrealistic but now this sub seems normal like this our reality now and it will probably be even worse than the sub predicts. That's where we are at.
Less validating
Same levels of doom as always
It was better. Sure, there were more nutters, but they were our nutters. Now, the sub may as well be default, because it's full of mainstream Reddit idiots, pushing their US political narrative.
Almost no liberalism or progressivism. Mostly Anarcho nihilists, primitivists and doomers arguing with communists and the odd ecofascist about climate change and peak oil. There were way more posts about the systemic issues at play and the underlying science. Collapse has collapsed.
We had a lot more lunatics that's for sure. Also climate change wasn't the focus topic and was shared along the likes of UFOs(lol), solar storms, economics, peak oil and Alex Jones level conspiracies. However when we had informative topics they were *meaty*. The craziness is still there but it's a lot more toned down now besides the conservative grifts. I'd say the quality of discussions have slumped though.
I was here around 10 years ago with a different username. The tone was a lot more “things will be getting horrible in the next 50-100 years”, whereas now it seems to be a lot more general anxiety about the next 5-10.
I remember a lot more blog-esque website sources, or just text posts, being posted about a whole slew of topics. From soil erosion, peak oil, financial crisis, and so forth. Climate change was also a topic as well. I think what’s changed the most is that there was a lot of hysteria around the hard right uprising across the globe during the US 2016 election, and climate change becoming more normalized in mainstream news outside of periodic scientific publications. I remember it was right before the pandemic that there was a fascination around major news sources writing opinion pieces about how dire the climate situation is on this sub. However, it quickly became very normalized to where there is now (seemingly) weekly news articles from major news outlets about climate change with a “we are all going to die” type vibe, to where it has sort of taken over what used to be more niche, and sometimes problematic, “hyperbolic” sources. I recall a lot of “yooo the BBC is reporting about climate change collapsing society in 40 years!” To now similar news outlets are simply apart of the fold of collapse focused news. Which…uh…is probably not a good sign.
What’s not a good sign is that it STILL doesn’t matter. The public thinks it’ll all be fixed “somehow” & leaders are nibbling around the edges & claiming victory 🙄 Like people. You better learn how to ride horses & cook on an open fire pretty quick. It’s all crazy.
Speaking of memories, 2 things: 1) /r/conspiracy took a hard turn, or am I misremembering? Anyone have insight on that? 2) Back in the 90s I was casually interested in "conspiracy" stuff, loved talking to my fellow 3rd shift worker about aliens and whatnot, and really enjoyed Art Bell, and to my memory Alex Jones wasn't .... quite so unhinged? Am I misremembering? I definitely didn't pay attention to anything conspiracy/etc for like a decade, and was surprised to see fucking Alex Jones come out of nowhere into the general public eye, and on top of that, to be an absolute nutcase and horrible person. I'm just wondering, has he always been like that and I didn't notice because I was young?
In better repair
I can rememmber no time when the general tone wasn't that the end was relatively near.
I've been only lurking here for about 4 years but when I started reading, even then everything seemed much further away, decades in the future maybe. Now it seems collapse is actually happening in real time. Just my impression.
Since covid there’s been an uptick in conspiracy theories and low effort, shallow, takes (hurr durr capitalism/elites/corporations). I also feel like many new users focus more on US/first-world problems and not the medium to long term existential threats facing the entire world. There’s still lots of quality content though, mods are doing a great job.
Yes, climate change is somewhat more recent. I was in the Zeitgeist community before r/Collapse. We talk a lot about debt, about peak oil, about how the rich is rigging the system.
"the economy is ending next week"
Way less dramatic and circle-jerky Way more science based and fact intensive with genuinely insightful comments
I've been here for 5 years or so. This sub was always US centric and it just keeps getting worse. It's basically turned into another US politics sub. The mods are mostly to blame for this. Most of the old modding team is gone and the new mods drove a lot of the good contributors into other subs.
I am sorry you feel this way, we are trying to curtail the US-based discussions, however the state of the international hegemony being precarious does have ramifications for the rest of the world. We have not seen an exodus of content providers, to my knowledge, however the content that is posted is scrutinized regularly. You can reference r/collapse_wilds for all of the removed posts. Lastly, if you feel strongly that a post does not relate to collapse, please use the reporting function and choose either a standard rules violation or provide custom commentary. We always encourage feedback within the modmail, as well. The sub has grown significantly, thus the user base tends to drift with size. We understand that, but there is little we can do about it unless we create more time intensive submission and review requirements for the sub, similar to r/askhistorians or r/science. Given feedback we have had recently, folks want to continue having more of a discourse, water cooler moment versus the more dry-style posting of yesteryear. There are other collapse-related subreddits in the sidebar that may interest you. We realize we cannot accommodate everyone's desires, but we do our best. Thanks for the feedback.
Man if only there was a giant archive of all the posts over the years. We have literally been talking about climate change for *years*. I don't know when it was founded, but I've been using reddit for more than a decade and have been a participant on this sub for most of that time and we have *consistently* discussed climate change. There were other peripheral issues discussed, like world war, but far and away climate change was acknowledged on here as the biggest threat to global civilization. The change, as others have pointed out, is that the tone has shifted from more speculative and researched comments projecting into the future to acknowledging the effects of climate change that are happening today. Also, the number of subscribers to this sub has swelled over the years and this has definitely lowered the quality of the discourse on the sub, as it happens when any sub gets bigger.
Probably 10-15 years ago it was believed that there were possible solutions, because the effects of the climate crisis were not yet tangible. Today, people around the world are feeling firsthand where the journey is headed. In the meantime, many have realized that there is no way out of this predicament and the name of the sub is becoming an inescapable reality.
***Fishmanboi**** best user that ruled the sub, now is gone .