We have exactly 9 years, 3 months, 1 week, 2 days, and a couple hours

Given enough time, everything changes. Society as it is now will go away eventually, but it’s hard to say that society will ‘collapse’. Things can get better or worse, and in either case there will be people who think it they’ve gotten better, and people who think they’ve gotten worse.

It’s hard to stay optimistic with how perception is shaped nowadays. Let me try to slightly change that perspective. I don’t have a link to the study, but a majority of interviewed Americans thought that crime was on the rise, and worse than ever, when in fact it has been decreasing steadily since the early 90s. Public perception was shaped by the broad popularity of televised police, detective, true crime documentaries, and fictional media. A good thing was happening, but that’s not what people thought.

Climate change and pollution are bad, but renewables are on the rise on average, and being pushed hard by the public in general.

Increasingly divided and radical governments are bad, but people are getting sick of it, and governments will have to adapt or be replaced.

Economic woes are definitely a problem, but we’re slowly making baby steps, doing things like banning airbnb here and there, etc. Economic woes have come and gone.

Misinformation and disinformation is everywhere, but we’re more aware of it than ever. We’re suspicious of intent, of sources, etc. Not all of us trust the right sources, but we’re starting to implement fact checking, we’re making platforms that show news on the political spectrum, we have ways to find blind spots, etc.

Dangerous health crises aren’t the end of the world. The black plague and the ‘spanish’ flu killed a lot of people, and neither lead to the breakdown of society. We’ll figure it out, we’re tough SOBs.

Look, I’m not saying these things aren’t happening, I’m just saying that for every bad thing that floods the airways and the internet, there is some degree of reaction. We’re not laying down and taking it. And while it’s certainly depressing and disheartening to see so many bad things happening, they can help to galvanize people against it, and not fall into complacency.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed too, which is why it’s not a bad idea to take the time to limit and filter exposure to this stuff. You know about it, you’ve looked into it, you’ve made a (hopefully educated) decision, you know what you’re going to do. It’s not healthy for you to come back and keep looking at the problem over and over again.

There’s also the issue of being exposed to serious problems that you can’t affect in a meaningful way. I’m not American, what the hell am I supposed to do about their presidential election? No reason for me to look at it all the time. When the time comes, I’ll vote for someone on my end who says they’re going to handle the situation in the way that I think is best.

Take a step back, consider your situation. Which things affect you? Which things affect the people in your life? Which things can you affect? What can you do, that matters? Focus your energy on that. You don’t have to make a big change, you can start by clearing your head.

Nothing’s going to collapse. Prior generations had their own share of problems and so do we and we will find some way to get through it all just like they did.

Which “society?” America, for instance, seems to be on a downward trend as countries in the Global South start pushing against its exploitation, and thus the domestic proletariat is increasingly exploited and pushed further into radicalization. It won’t be a quick process until it is.

Societies may collapse but pockets of humanity will survive. We saw how quickly nature started to rebound when we slowed down during the pandemic. I have hope that we’ll either sort our shit out soon or most of us will die and then the natural world can begin to heal again. This is like the sixth mass extinction event so it’s not the first time this has happened. Life finds a way…

Define “collapse”

I’m kinda thinking sooner the better but I’m very fond of games like fallout.

We’ll make it. I have high hopes for the future!

About five years

I’d give it about another thousand years.

It always has.

Some time this century most likely. Climate change along with China/Russia’s pursuit of empire along with their global campaign to seed and normalize autocracy will result in collapse eventually.