Quincy Sandbank uploaded this video recently. Collapse related because it explains how the build quality of modern technology is a harbinger of doom for the economy. Planned obsolescence has always existed but never has it been so blatant and prolific. It is finding its way into products and services that used to be dirt cheap and last a lifetime (shout out to /r/BIFL).

The video is about an hour long but it is well researched and very high quality.

All comments in this thread MUST be greater than 150 characters.

Example - Location: New Zealand

This ONLY applies to top-level comments, not replies to comments. You're welcome to make regionless or general observations, but you still must include 'Location: Region' for your comment to be approved. This thread is also [in-depth], meaning all top-level comments must be at least 150-characters.

Users are asked to refrain from making more than one top-level comment a week. Additional top-level comments are subject to removal.

All previous observations threads and other stickies are viewable here.

We're scared shitless and we aren't scientists or engineers or in any type of position where we can make a difference. Not to mention lots of people in higher fields or positions of influence assume we're just overwhelmed by "being a teenager".

When I volunteer for campaigns, or write in letters, or call representatives I'm treated like a baby asking for candy, even when I come equipped with primary sources and case studies.

The more I learn about the barriers to positive impact, the worse the panic gets.

How can I manage societal barriers to making a real impact while minimizing panic enough to remain functional in daily life?

Mainstream financial institutions are locked in a fantasy. The climate risk analysis used by major pension funds, and the math is absurd - they are gambling with billions of pounds of public money.

Their official disclosures claim that a catastrophic 4C warming scenario will only cause a "muted" 1% dip in annual returns. A 4C shift means absolute global chaos, mass displacement, and total agricultural failure, but because these funds hire corporate economists who treat the natural world as an infinite resource and completely ignore non-linear ecological tipping points, their spreadsheets tell them everything will be fine.

When grassroots groups like Divest Derbyshire try to bring rigorous data from climate scientists and actuaries into the room, the bureaucracy immediately closes ranks. They've gone so far as to ban public questions at committee meetings and block oversight just to preserve business as usual. We are watching the entire financial infrastructure aggressively fund its own destruction.

I hope this can resonate with some of you. It's easy to get disheartened, and for very good reason. I've only just became an adult and it feels like the world I'm entering is already ending. I feel powerless, I feel hopeless, and I feel that way all the time. But, if these are really going to be my last days, I don't want to spend them constantly afraid and despondent. I want to live as much as I can, experience as much as I can, and find as much joy as I can in the things I have today that I might not have tomorrow. That's what this poem is about, essentially! I hope this can inspire some hope or stir some thought or something, idk qwq

Please know that this could be very triggering because it does have mentions of WORST CASE SCENARIO side effects of a potential collapse in the first part of the poem! Read with caution and know that a lot of it is hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration to make a point). All of what is described is not literally happening tomorrow, please do not take it as such. This is not meant to spread panic or misinformation!!! Do not take what is said in this poem as fact!!! This is a creative work about my personal perspective, fears, and life as I am currently living it. What is described in this poem may not even actually happen and if it does, it might be significantly less dramatic than what is described and it will likely be much slower than suddenly occurring one day. Please please PLEASE don't take it as fact, I'm genuinely not trying to scare anyone.

TLDR: This poem is not meant to be taken as fact, spread misinformation, or cause panic. Exercise caution while reading it.

Written by S. P.

Tomorrow, it will be hot.
Billions will succumb to the rising water and the rising temperatures, the world will cook like a furnace.
Tomorrow, the water will run out.
Our lakes and rivers will be bare, animals will flee for wetter grounds or die trying.
Tomorrow, the last insect will die.
Chicks will cry out their last keens of hunger to their parents, our crops will bear no more fruit.
Tomorrow, the air will be poison.
Years have taken their toil, factories will make what fills our lungs settle as black soot with no way out.
Tomorrow, we will be able to extract no more oil.
The very last drop will be taken and no more will come, our power lines will go dark.
Tomorrow, the oceans will choke on waste.
More and more fish will free float on the top of acidic water, while the mammals and hunter's insides turn to plastic.
Tomorrow, the last tree will fall.
The old growth will be stolen and the new growth won't grow quick enough, animals will have no shade or places to raise their young.
Tomorrow, the world will end.
Tomorrow, I will die.
Today, I whistle.
I hear the click click click of my dog as she trots to me, interested in the meat I have in my hand.
Today, I walk.
The wind makes my damp skin cool again, the leaves sway and the birds call out "danger, humans!" as we pass.
Today, I sing.
That one song I've heard a thousand times by now comes on, I replicate the tones as I hear them and silently thank my parents for keeping me in choir all my life.
Today, I eat.
The greasy and definitely-not-good-for-me potato slivers enter my mouth, the salt and the fat calling to a deep, ancestral part of me.
Today, I laugh.
My friend sits at my side with Mark on the TV, we're elated to watch his character fall and fail again and again while he groans and curses the inconsistent mechanics.
Today, I read.
I sit with my head against my mother's chest, the words of the evolution book we're working through a tad too British for my American ears.
Today, I write.
Tales get woven as my fingers fly over the keyboard, it seems like Sans and Papyrus are going through another drama just to my tastes.
Today, I dance.
I can feel the bass rattle around my lungs while the nerves I'd gathered get shaken out, sweat beads from every pore as I feel the heat and the unity of the crowd.
Today, I study.
My professor is the single most frustrating one I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, I grumble through a study session since SOMEONE won't do their job and teach me.
Today, I sleep.
My arms are curled around stuffies who have been with me for ages, comforting scents and the sound of my noisemaker lull me.
Today, I love.
My boyfriend-girlfriend-situationship pops onto my screen, I hear their voice again and my heart swells as we talk about the house we'll live in someday.
Tomorrow, I will die.
Today, I am alive. And I think that is enough.

Things are looking pretty dire in regards to how much energy the earth is absorbing and it's looking like climate change is accelerating and, if left to its course, is going to cause civilisational collapse in the near term.

However, with our knowledge of how certain pollutants can reflect sunlight back to space and cool the earth and the extremely low cost to doing so, it's pretty obvious that we are going to geoengineer our way out of runaway climate collapse (at least, the can will be kicked several decades down the road).

When left with two choices:
billions of people starving to death and the end of civilisation OR spraying some sulfur in the atmosphere for what would amount to a rounding error in even a middling economy's budget, we're obviously going to geoengineer. Yeah there might be some negative side effects and it won't help with things like biosphere collapse and the oceans being too acidic, but everyone is going to be demanding their governments to do this as the alternative will seem even worse.

The world will continue its trend of becoming a worse place to live in with increased military conflict, decreased economic freedom from younger people having to take the tax burden as the number of elderly people that need to be taken care of start to outnumber the working population and the rise of more authoritarian governments as we're even starting to see in the United States. If you're going to prepare for anything it should be this. I don't think there will be a major breadbasket failure to put us out of our misery, especially of you live in a decently rich country.

In this video, a course on system dynamics is being taught to the audience. System Dynamics is one of the many tool to explain collapse dynamics.

What's that viral quote again? "Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it."

The torture of climate obstruction is that it exists to trap us in the cycle of explanation and debate forever. Polluters and their cronies are not trying to win the climate argument, merely to prolong it in perpetuity so there's never enough public consensus for action. Obstructionists always say they're just "asking questions." But year after year, the questions and the answers are the same.

We are given only a limited number of truly perfect summer days in our time on Earth. One of the more insidious cruelties of fossil fuel greed is how it slowly strips those days from us, more and more throughout our lifetimes, perhaps without us even realizing what we have lost. On a normal summer day like today, it might be pretty hot and maybe even a little hazy—but we might still be able to go for a bike ride or watch the dogs play at the park or stroll to the thrift store to terrorize our roommates with another stupid piece of home decor.

Instead, we are trapped inside, afraid to breathe, because a small, powerful group of polluting industries and their political allies spent decades lying about the problem and are still working, right now, to reverse what little progress has been made.

How many more summer days have to be stolen before we stop pretending this is natural? How many unprecedented disasters must be explained before the explanation is allowed to stick? How many times must scientists establish the same basic facts before we stop tiptoeing around the problem? What, exactly, are we still waiting to learn?

Wildfires, aquatic deoxygenation, Ebola, oil shortages, famine warnings, shipwrecks, and escalation in Iran (again).

Last Week in Collapse: July 12-18, 2026

This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, soul-crushing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see/can't-look-away moments in Collapse.

This is the 238th weekly newsletter. The July 5-11, 2026 edition is available here if you missed it last week. These newsletters are also available (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox by signing up to the Substack version.

——————————

Wildfires across Ontario made the air in Toronto (Greater Toronto Area pop:7.8M) the most polluted in the world temporarily. Other wildfires in Minnesota and Canada contributed to orange-gray skies and widespread terrible air pollution, stretching and diminishing farther south past Washington DC. For some, the blazes looked like doomsday had landed. The White House claimed that "the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air and suggested retaliatory tariffs." Unsurprisingly, Thunder Bay set a new minimum temperature at 24.9 °C (77 °F). Additional heat records were also set across the U.S. in the first half of the week.

Heavy rains and flooding across Bangladesh for the past two weeks has now affected over 1.1M people, and accounted for 53 deaths as of Tuesday. France instituted water restrictions that are unprecedented for this time of the year, following an early Drought in the wake of recent deadly heat waves. Meanwhile, some sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean hit 30 °C (86 °F) last week, while the North Sea saw temperatures over 20 °C.

Although we don't know everything about how marine heat waves impact marine life, we know the effects can be pretty bad. It can cause algal blooms, and shift migration patterns of various species, which also impacts the feeding habits of other fauna. Heat waves lead to coral dieoff, and interfere with sea plant life, and cause "thermal expansion,", whereby warmer water expands slightly and raises sea levels.

Some meteorologists think that a Super El Niño might actually aggravate winter storms in North America, leading to earlier and stronger snowstorms this year, just when El Niño is expected to peak. The reason is due to warming in the stratosphere (10-50 km above earth's surface) disrupting the polar vortex and pushing Arctic air farther south. NOAA now says there's an 82% chance that the El Niño will become "very strong" (aka Super) by the winter. This means that temperature anomalies in the sea surface of part of the Pacific Ocean will hit or surpass 1.5-2.0 °C (and they are currently 1 °C warmer than usual, and setting new daily records for weeks on end). Some people think it will surpass even the Super El Niño forecasts and move into historic territory, with 3.5 °C above non-El Niño conditions. Worst-case scenario thinkers say it could also cause a serious food crisis if a Drought-flooding whiplash damaged crops—particularly in Africa, South America, and India. It has happened before, once in the historical record, causing massive Drought and a global famine in 1877 that claimed the lives of 50M+ people, 3% of the planet's human population. But we have 7,000,000,000 more people today…and a lot more knowledge, fossil fuels, and coordination.

A heat wave struck North Africa, bringing temps of up to 49 °C (120 °F) in Algeria. Iran set a new record that has also set the 2026 record for the hottest natural temperature: 52.7 °C (127 °F). Some places in Japan set all-time heat records, while in China, 20+ records were broken for July, with some temps hitting 46 °C (115 °F). Sites in Siberia set new minimum temps around 22 °C.

Spain saw temperatures hit 38 °C at dawn. Central Asia recorded temperatures over 48 °C in some places. A landslide in Chongqing (metro pop: 18.5M), the largest city in the world by area, killed 8 and left dozens missing. Part of Victoria, Australia saw a new July high, while part of Argentina reportedly saw a temperature exceed 40 °C in their winter… Meanwhile, a wildfire blazes not far from Manchester, UK, and Puerto Rico is imposing water rationing in the face of a serious Drought.

A news agency updated its count for the number of Europeans killed by the June heat wave: 12,000+ is the number now, though different countries calculate differently, and the number is probably higher still. A 42-page report from the UK on the topic now says 2,700+ people were slain by the heat across the Kingdom in May & June.

A forthcoming study on ocean acidification links the ongoing phenomenon to "earth system memory"—that is, long-term physical/chemical/biological impacts that are now part of our geological record. The study looks beyond the "decline in global mean surface-ocean pH since the late 1980s, documenting an unambiguous, observation-based signal of ongoing surface ocean acidification" and at chemical changes on the seafloor. Scientists can compare this to the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, when earth's temperature rose by 5-8 °C over a period of 3,000-20,000 years, and the ocean's pH fell by ~0.46. The rebalancing of the oceans' pH levels took tens/hundreds of thousands of years to occur—not something possible in a few years with ambitious human geoengineering.

A study in Limnology {the study of inland aquatic ecosystems} and Oceanography proposes adding a new planetary boundary to the current framework: "aquatic deoxygenation." The writers conclude that the phenomenon is more linked to the other boundaries than previously believed, and "argue that aquatic deoxygenation is approaching an 'unsafe space,' with Earth-system impacts that are likely to be irreversible in our lifetimes." They propose four indicators that would signal that we have crossed the boundary, if this new category is added. This would round out the planetary boundaries at ten: Climate Change; Biosphere Integrity; Biogeochemical Flows; Land-System Change; Freshwater Change; Novel Entities; Ocean Acidification; Atmospheric Aerosol Loading; and Stratospheric Ozone Depletion; and Aquatic Deoxygenation.

"Severe oxygen depletion poses an acute risk of asphyxiation to most organisms that breathe underwater, and occasionally we are confronted with its lethal effects in the form of mass fish kills and coastal 'dead zones.'...critically important ecological processes play out in the first few partially oxygenated millimeters. As oxygen declines, so does the abundance of multi-cellular life….aquatic deoxygenation is mechanistically linked to all other planetary boundary processes such that even relatively modest declines in DO {dissolved oxygen} have the potential to propagate across the Earth system and undermine climate and ecological stability….the multiple feedbacks between aquatic deoxygenation and the other planetary boundaries, long-term memory of aquatic systems, and limited recovery pathways for DO strongly suggest escalating planetary-scale risks…" -excerpts from the study

——————————

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC passed 2,000 confirmed cases, along with 700 deaths. Over 80% of new cases are coming "from unknown chains of transmission," according to one WHO doctor. Ebola has also spread to two new provinces of the DRC close to South Sudan, though it remains concentrated in Ituri province (pop: 4M). Ebola has also appeared in Kisangani (pop: 1.6M), concerning those who think the virus might travel in humans down the long river towards Kinshasa (pop: 22M) and wreak havoc. The WHO says they only have 40% of the $115M they need to respond properly to the Ebola outbreak.

The UK is advising its people to prepare in the event of "significant and prolonged disruption to essential services" coming from extreme weather. Across much of Europe, reserves of LNG are getting harder to fill up because the Iran War pushed prices up 70%+ for the continent, which historically bought a lot of Qatar's LNG.

An upcoming study found microplastics in the deep-sea fauna that live near hydrothermal vents; 92% of samples were contaminated, with an average of over 3 microplastics per individual. Interestingly, "the total abundance of MPs in Indian Ocean specimens was approximately 1.9 times higher than in Pacific Ocean specimens, despite the latter being four times larger, reflecting distinct regional anthropogenic pressures…global plastic production has exceeded 8 billion metric tons, a significant portion of which persists in the environment as long-lasting waste." More than 90% of the oceans are deep-sea (deeper than 200 meters).

Though new cases of the New World Screwworm are down in Texas livestock compared to June, some people are worried about feral hogs carrying the parasite farther north—and there are over 2.6M wild hogs estimated in Texas alone. Canada has blocked the import of a wide range of animals from Texas out of caution. The Screwworm has not yet been confirmed in any wildlife in the U.S. so far.

Bangladesh is backsliding into a measles crisis after years of vaccine delays and reports of vaccine shortages in some areas. About 1,000 unconfirmed cases of measles are now reported each day, along with unquantified numbers of dead. India is also recording an uptick in measles, but is seeing "only" about 150 cases per day. The U.S., also experiencing a measles outbreak that will surpass all of 2025's cases by mid-August, is experiencing about 14 measles cases each day.

The U.S. is levying a 25% tariff on a range of Brazilian goods (but exempting oil & gas, beef, and coffee, among others), following the old tariff being struck down by the judicial branch. Brazil is planning reciprocal tariffs tha could come as soon as next week. Because the U.S. heavily tariffed China, the PRC is instead sending tons of goods and tech to Europe—disrupting European industries, especially for automobiles. China's domestic markets are oversaturated so the country must aggressively seek out new markets to sell to, if they want to keep their ailing economy from Collapsing. China's quarterly economic growth slumped to one of its lowest rates in 35 years.

Russia's refinery output has fallen to 20+ year lows amid ongoing strikes from Ukraine. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, along with Iran's attacks on 30 Middle Eastern refineries and Russia's disabled refineries, have created an imbalance in the global energy market: there are not enough active refineries connected to the consumers to refine the oil that's available. Gasoline/petrol and diesel prices may stay elevated long after Hormuz reopens. As a result of oil shortages, Cuba's electrical grid Collapsed yet again on Tuesday, the third blackout in two weeks. Some say the island is moving towards a breaking point later this year.

As The Algorithm began to exert more and more influence over people's social media and individually constructed unreality, a large and growing number of people, or at least 55% of the Americans, just stopped posting altogether. Somewhere along the way everything became harvested and monetized, or just weaponized by bad faith actors wielding politics & ragebait like a chisel. Yet somehow the anxiety of leaving these toxic platforms is worse than the anxiety of participating in them, leaving users still trapped in an addictive FOMO spiral that ends only when your eyes burn out and a discomforting sleep takes you, or the demands of the working world. The full survey, conducted in early June 2026, has more.

A Lancet study out of Canada determined that Long COVID's neurological symptoms (brain fog, mental fatigue, memory problems) may be related to a loss of dopamine-releasing neurons. "These results indicate that long COVID is, at least in part, a disorder of the brain's dopamine system." The scientists claims that "brain-related symptoms {as a result of Long COVID}, such as apathy, cognitive slowing, memory difficulties, anhedonia, and low mood, affect about 2% of the general population and persist for months to years."

——————————

A shipwreck off the Libyan coast left 50+ of the 60+ migrants aboard dead on Tuesday. It is believed that another refugee ship fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh was overturned in the past two weeks, taking some 280 passengers along with it.

The U.S. approved the same of about $2B of weapons to Saudi Arabia. An exposé on child recruitment by Haiti's gangs shows how the armed groups entice starving teenagers (and younger) with the promise of food and clothes, before mainstreaming them into jobs as lookouts, messengers, guards, and then raiders. To refuse participation entails death.

An interdisciplinary study in Nature examines the links between climate change food insecurity and armed conflict in the Sahel. Although armed conflict only overlaps with about 4% of the Sahel and Lake Chad's agricultural cropland, "about 91% of the external calorie inflows required to reduce local deficits intersect conflict-impact zones during transport." In other words, moving food to needy places means using routes affected by armed conflict.

"Sub-Saharan Africa faces persistent food security challenges. Its population is projected to increase by 2.5-fold by 2050, which is expected to triple the demand for cereals….Armed conflict is widely recognized as an important driver of food insecurity….the study area covers six countries: Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, and Sudan….The food security challenge in the Sahel and Lake Chad Region reflects a gap between biophysical production potential and the capacity to redistribute food through transport networks. Our simulations indicate that the region has the caloric potential to support internal self-sufficiency….The physical capacity to produce food may exist, but the network connections required to redistribute calories can be constrained by conflict exposure…" -selections from the study

A group of food security academics published an article about the threats of famine hitting the Horn of Africa and its intersection with War, disease, and price changes. They say that last year, and going into this year, there has been below-average rainfall in parts of Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia—and projections for rain in these areas (plus the two Sudans) are less than average. This may be worsened by El Niño, and rising violence in South Sudan and Ethiopia may push the region beyond a level it can manage. Plus the fertilizer shortage from Hormuz, the threat of Ebola, aid cuts, and internal displacement.

Tuesday protests in Pakistan's part of Kashmir led to the deaths of two policemen and seven protestors angry over the cost of living, political representation, wheat shortages, unemployment, and heavy-handed government responses. A fatal shooting of a man by an ICE agent has again sent some Americans protesting to the streets. The Trump administration is also targeting "far-left political terrorism" as part of its (inter)national security strategy.

Artificial intelligence may yet become the great equalizer in strategic and tactical development. Nigerian jihadists have turned to AI and integrated its capabilities in problem-solving (and problem-making). Terrorist units have gamed AI into teaching them how to make bombs, develop & implement strategy, build military infrastructure, and tweak motorcycles for better battle performance.

A Chinese AI startup reportedly leap-frogged an OpenAI and Anthropic model for "front-end coding," the side of programming that consumers see & interact with. The model, Kimi3 (or K3), has worried Americans and helped close the gap between the superpowers' AI capabilities. But what are normal people using AI for in their weekly lives?

The United States and Iran traded a series of strikes for several days, with dozens of military and civilian casualties continuing to rise. President Trump threatened striking Pickaxe Mountain in the coming days — an underground nuclear complex in the mountains of central Iran, just south of the Natanz Nuclear Facility. "Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges," said Trump on Tuesday. But as early as Friday, the U.S. began targeting bridges in southern Iran. Several Iranian strikes in Jordan left at least two American soldiers dead. Both sides believe aggression works to their advantage.

The anti-Iranian government of Yemen bombed the airport landing strip of the pro-Iranian government of Yemen (Houthis) on Monday. This triggered Houthis into launching missiles at Saudi Arabia, and sparked fears of a potential closure of the Bab-el-Mandeb—because ships transiting the Red Sea might be too scared (or too expensive to insure) to attempt a peaceful passage. One professor remarked that Houthis leveraging their position on the key waterway, while Hormuz remains closed, could create "a pincer movement that blows away the stability and security of the Gulf." Although Iran's economy is suffering from Tuesday's closure of Hormuz, Iran is betting that the economic pain distributed across the world is more painful, and will force concessions from the United States and the global community.

IDF attacks killed 12+ people across a couple strikes on Tuesday. Israel's government meanwhile approved some $434M USD to support the establishment of another 34 West Bank settlements. Some farmers in the West Bank are racing to harvest their wheat crops before the wheat is targeted by bombs or fires.

Following the January 3 capture of Venezuela's Presidente, some writers allege that the U.S. Secretary of State has assumed nearly all powers over the oil-rich nation—despite having (allegedly) never set foot in the country. Secretary Rubio has reportedly gained supreme leverage over Venezuela's oil & gas holdings, received & directs export revenues, approved defense arrangements, manipulates Venezuela's foreign policy, and manages to some extent the earthquake relief operations. Monthly inflation in Venezuela more-than-doubled in June, to 13.8%.

Ukraine's President removed their popular Minister of Defense last week, a young & reform-minded technocrat who feuded with older & more traditional military minds. Lithuania's President has reportedly seen intelligence leading him to believe that Russia is planning a limited operation against infrastructure in an Eastern European NATO state. The EU and Ukraine made an agreement to use European manufacturing to mass produce Ukrainian drones. Russian strikes on Wednesday killed three in Odesa. Ukraine claims to have hit 110+ Russian vessels (cargo ships, military vessels, tankers, tugboats) from July 6-15, just in the Sea of Azov.

——————————

Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:

-The experience of terrible air pollution can be a dangerous & frightening ordeal, says one weekly observation from southern Ontario. Masks may not be enough for some people.

-Some of us Collapse-aware people are seemingly surrounded by people oblivious to our complex polycrisis, judging by the comments in this thread asking who's connected to a doom-pilled community. Answers vary; it's a sliding scale. But I suspect most people would be willing to concede at least a few of the 100+ Collapse factors already confronting humanity and our planet.

Got any feedback, questions, comments, upvotes, reports, gossip, doomy job opportunities, World Cup finale predictions, etc.? Last Week in Collapse is also posted on Substack; if you don't want to check r/collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to an email inbox every weekend. As always, thank you for your support. What did I miss this week?

TLDW:

Korean chip giants are another example of an economy reliant on the AI bubble, and will be among the first to be affected if the hyperscalers slow down on spending billions on AI.

Also those companies are most of the Korean economy.

Even with very high profits, stock prices are incredibly volatile.

Plus, younger Koreans have been priced out of housing, and have turned en-mass to risky leveraged investments, so risky that many are getting completely wiped out even while the stocks they hold are still trending up.

Plus those leveraged investments make the stock value even more volatile, with the leveraged ETFs creating a feedback loop.

So the entire economy is primed to crash if there is even a tiny slow down in sales, and the small investors that own most of the stock are leveraged in a way where millions of people could see their accounts go to zero or even negative overnight.

The El Nino is already at 2°c High and it still supposed to peak in November ~ December which mean we will enter uncharted territory and that a super El Nino is almost 100% gonna happen. BUT I shared this post cross community, because it is for me really interesting to see more and more collapse related discussions in mainstream sub. When I was reading the comments under this post, I just felt like I was on "Collapse", not on "Canada"..

I'd day collapse related because the impending doom is getting more and more acknowledged outside of this specific sub. Sorry Mod if it's to low efforts

Says that Milton Friedman & Hayek's neoliberal model has led to economic disasters (cities the 2008 crisis as an example) - globalization and rationalism has just created the rise of technocrats/oligarchs and nothing's really improved.

Thoughts?

There are so many things happening around the world that many people may not know about or hear about often.

For example, many people know about the restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan and the ongoing conflicts and humanitarian crises affecting people in places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But what other situations around the world deserve more attention?

What are some issues, conflicts, human rights concerns, environmental problems, or humanitarian crises that you think the world needs to be more aware of?

Some examples that come to mind are:

• The humanitarian crisis in Sudan caused by ongoing conflict.
• The situation of the Rohingya people and the struggles of refugees from Myanmar.
• The ongoing humanitarian challenges in Yemen after years of conflict.
• The persecution and displacement of minority groups in different parts of the world.
• The impact of climate change on vulnerable communities, especially small island nations and developing countries.

What else is happening around the world that people should know about? What stories are being overlooked that deserve more attention?

(BTW, I'm not exactly sure which flair to use, so I'm sorry if it doesn't fit what I've mentioned)

Hi, I'm sure many here understand the alienation and loneliness arising from being the only collapse-aware person in their family or friend group.

I am a fulltime artist, 52, leftist, vegan, just looking for collapse-aware kindred spirits in or near Nordrhein-Westfallen, Germany. I am trying to spend LESS time online, not more, so I am not looking for long-distance friendships (Also happily married and not looking for romance, thanks!).

I don't want to talk about collapse all the time; I just want to be able to hang out with people who know about it too, and share my grief.

If you have the same wish but don't live near me, feel free to comment your general location in the comments as an invitation to others who might be in your vicinity.

Wishing you all well as we navigate this dystopian existence.

Keep your shit running or you'll be walking

I've lived in suburban New England my entire life. I used to read posts about the social fabric eroding and the decay of American society and think people were just exaggerating. I could still walk around my single-family home neighborhood and see kids riding bikes, chat to neighbors, and even when I went out and drove around to places you'd encounter an occasional jerk but you could forget about it and move on with your life.

I swear something changed in the past few months. Like I, personally, am in a great mood and more content with life than I've ever been but I'm not exaggerating when I say I go out in public to the store or the mall and a significant percentage of the people are miserable and angry. I know it's common to blame the summer heat and I know there's a correlation between heat and violence, but it's 80F here this week, it's a nice day, not even hot.

My best attempt to verbalize what I feel changed is that it feels like the percentage of people that are angry and entitled, on a hair-trigger to yell at anyone they perceive as wronging or inconvenience them has skyrocketed overnight.

Massachusetts is known for aggressive drivers, but lately it seems like I am getting cut off left and right, people are doing the dumbest stuff to save 2 seconds and nearly cause an accident. And if you honk you no longer get the "sorry wave" but they either honk back or flip you off. Like I've been driving here for 20 years, I know the "driving culture" and adapted to it, and I can tell something shifted because I feel like I go driving for 20 mins and 4 or 5 other vehicles do something requiring me to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them when they're in the wrong. It's like they think they're in GTA and every other vehicle is just piloted by an NPC out to inconvenience them.

I've also observed way more people (usually boomers) having absolute meltdowns in public. Like full on waving their arms, yelling and throwing a tantrum. I've seen this multiple times where a boomer will be in the wrong line for something at a store, like there's a sandwich and a hot bar line, and if someone gets to the hot bar line after them and gets served the boomer will absolutely flip out about "being there first" even though they're waiting in an entirely different line. Usually this seems like boomer men targeting service workers and women with their anger because they know they can't fight back. The other week, some 80+ year old dude wandered 10 feet out of his way to shoulder-check me as I was walking through a parking lot. I'm not sure what he expected to happen, but even though I wasn't expecting it I barely budged and I'm sure he got a massive bruise from it.

Today my wife got honked at, followed, and yelled at by a boomer lady while my wife was driving on a main road with the right of way, the boomer lady was trying to turn out of a shopping plaza and she was apparently mad my wife didn't stop on the main road to let her turn out? Idk, this is why all our vehicles have dashcams, people are crazy.

Are people just leaving their homes itching for a fight? Have their brains been melted by being fed a constant stream of ragebait on social media? Now I feel like I'm experiencing what I previously wrote off as doomer BS, I don't live in a super wealthy area but it's above average, so maybe that insulated the onset a bit.

Sorry if this is rambling or hard to follow, I tried to format it in a readable way. But at this point I feel like I'm living in a completely different world than even January of 2026 and I'm just looking for other peoples' thoughts/input on it.

This is the first year that my household has been fully prepared for wildfire smoke. We've always gotten by with an old purifier with a filter that needed replacing ages ago. This year we stocked up on new HEPA filters, got two more purifiers, tape for our windows, and N95s in every car.

While I'm grateful to be in a position where these items are available and affordable to me now, I've been thinking a lot about how this is the new normal, how it's getting noticeably worse, and has been for nearly 10 years. I think about what it would be like to live for 3 months a year in heavy smoke without these simple devices if the supply chain for filters were to become overstressed or completely break down. Clean, breathable air is something we take for granted in privileged parts of the world.

How much would you be willing to sacrifice for clean air?

Blessing in disguise as it only gets worse from here on out

US here but not entirely US related. I feel like in recent months I see more and more news stories about things being defunded, underfunded, or shut down due to lack of funding. International programs, climate programs. National research, state budgets. Fewer stories about new investments in things, new partnerships beings announced, etc.

My working rule of thumb for collapse has been "when things get destroyed and we stop replacing them." But I'm wondering if this is a more subtle thing. In the same way that prices for everyday goods continue to go up, is part of collapse the research funding that dries up and never re-appears, the social programs that get shutdown and never get restarted, the organizations that stop replaced by nothing. Smaller budgets for institutions. Smaller tax revenues leading to smaller everything.

When you realize the weather forecasting is getting worse due to lack of funding and lack of people... just the gradual deterioration of things that used to be stronger. They still "exist" in some form but "everybody just knows" that they are weaker, less effective, less reliable.

Even when you factor in inequality--it feels like the billions and trillions are more... imaginary? Like, you hear about all these people getting so rich, but you also read how these valuations are getting further and further from reality, and these people take out loans on their perceived value. Debt upon debt upon speculation upon potential upon risk... It doesn't even feel real, like, it's not deployable wealth somehow that could be used to actually do things in the world, if that makes any sense. I'm skeptical one could literally take the "wealth" from billionaires and use it to fund public services. I'm not even sure their wealth is real. Does that even make sense?

Like, China's economic growth peaked in 2021, their population peaked in 2021. They have the largest deficit of any major country, and higher levels of private debt than any other country. 2021 was peak China. It's 2026. And people are looking to China like it's going to be the savior of the green revolution.

https://www.ft.com/content/0dbbef33-059b-4ec9-b504-31f37a0c4053?syn-25a6b1a6=1

I'm just using that as an example. Moore's Law has been dead for years. What are we even talking about anymore?

The rat race of building the giant ai data centers has made things even worst. Collapse related because if we look at the investment vs the actual returns in ai , this bubble is soon gonna burst. This website shows how much money is invested vs the returns

https://isaiprofitable.com/

Genuine question. I've read a lot about collapse (Rome, the Maya, Weimar, ecological collapse, state failure, etc.) The focus is almost always on why things fell apart.

But I realized I almost never hear much about the people inside those societies who recognized what was happening early and actually tried to change the trajectory. Were there movements that almost worked? People who slowed things down? Communities that organized differently? Or do we mostly remember the collapse because those stories got erased?

Maybe I'm coping, but it feels like we're weirdly good at cataloging failure and much worse at studying resistance, and maybe if we knew more about successful resistance against collapsing societies, we could do more resistance of our own.

Curious if anyone has examples.