Intention

I’ve been lucky to come across this information before most will (if they ever will); to possess a stubbornly inquisitive, analytical mind; and to have had spare time and energy for deep reflection. My goal is to provide a comprehensive yet concise introduction that has the potential to:

• promote more informed, articulate conversation

• support others to move through and beyond dread and grief, expediting their arrival at a Post-Doom perspective, so that they can access its benefits (along with the next-order benefits for other species on Earth)

The writing process, as an occasion to allow my thoughts to coalesce, has already made this exercise worthwhile.

My Road to Collapse-Awareness

2020 -

• During the COVID lockdowns, it dawned on me how interdependent the cogs of civilization are and how dependent we are on that composite.

2021 -

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group 1 Assessment Report 6 was the first time I registered that our environmental situation is not great and bound to get worse.

• My friend tipped me off to the existence of r/collapse.

2022 -

• I happened to check r/collapse and see a post about an episode of the podcast Breaking Down: Collapse. The first four episodes, and specifically the concepts of Peak Oil and the Limits to Growth, left me absolutely devastated.

• For weeks, I felt dead inside and hardly ate or slept. When I did sleep, each dawn felt like “waking up into a nightmare”. I felt the not-uncommon impulse to flee to an isolated homestead, but quickly realized that complete self-sufficiency is an intimidating project and no fun alone.

• Halfway through an MBA at NYU Stern, I withdrew because the top-ranking program suddenly seemed pointless.

• Over the summer, I flyered with Extinction Rebellion NYC and shared articles with coworkers about degrowth. This led me to realize that most people are unable/unwilling to contemplate the issues that we face or the direction that we’re headed, let alone reorient their lives in light of it.

2023 -

• I moved from NYC to an “ecovillage”, where I’ve discovered that even among those who enjoy nature and feel distress about climate change, few have encountered the overshoot/predicament framework or feel inclined to engage with its implications

I still feel scared and sad sometimes.

Logo design

This substack’s logo combines three images:

• the symbol from Reddit’s “Collapse of Civilization” page - to emphasize the 21st century shift from unprecedented expansion to contraction

• Kate Raworth’s Doughnut - to illustrate a range of resource consumption where human and non-human life are consuming resources at a rate that can continue indefinitely and meets their requirements to survive and even thrive

• the adaptive cycle - to convey that we’re repeating a pattern and cannot escape its consequences