Rx #3: Upgrade the End-Times
The Intention
In Rx #1, I wrote about adaptation as a matter of integration and adjustment, rather than as a means to some vague notion of “survival”. You can’t prevent your death; you can only delay it. And that doesn’t strike me as an appealing goal per se. Moreover, extinctions happen and eventually the Sun will roast Earth, so the total preservation of some state on this planet can’t be what it’s all about.
Instead of that, or of some ultimate victory, I think a better thing to strive for is "graceful deterioration.” In Joanna Macy’s words: collapse well. In Olivia Machado de Oliveira’s: die well. She uses terms like “harm reduction” and “palliative care” for the work that’s due. We can be improving upon the worst-case scenario and making the best of bad situations.
Since you might not reach any destination, pay at least as much attention to the journey. Have a goal in mind but don’t be too attached to results. Nothing is guaranteed to deliver the desired outcome.
I think this post effectively captures what it’s like to want to brace for threats and realize (and accept) how little control any of us has: “Nobody Really Knows How to Survive What’s Coming”
Anyway, here are some efforts that (to me) seem like fruitful investments.
Ways to increase the possibility that your (& your neighbors’) experience of civilization’s collapse will be less-bad
1. Nix the optional life elements and future plans that no longer seem appropriate
One way to free up time and energy for efforts and activities that are more appropriate to the moment in which we find ourselves is by clearing away the ones that are less appropriate (and optional). This goes back to my Rx #1 tip about allowing yourself to feel “depressed” (i.e. just less ambitious about modernity’s imperatives).
Parenthood is a big one that folks might take for granted, and which might fall under this category. Whether or not you have kids (or additional kids) will influence how much time and energy you have for other commitments, and how you experience the years ahead. Maybe you’ve changed your mind about wanting (additional) kids “in the picture”, given that “the picture” ahead has vastly different from what advertisements led us to believe it would look like.
Maybe you have some hobbies that you no longer feel thrilled about, now that you understand that our familiar world is temporary. Maybe you don’t enjoy binging Netflix as much as you used to .
Adjustment is as much about not-doing as doing.
💀 Caveat: As a member of an empire, you might already be stretched thin, working overtime just to afford food and shelter. You might be working three jobs just to pay the bills, and not have any obligations that you can ditch to create spare capacity.
2. Maintain, improve, or at least be aware of your health/fitness as a factor
Electricity, liquid fuel and a range of products have smoothed over the differences between our experiences of being embodied. As these become scarce and unreliable, strength, speed, stamina, flexibility and agility will become more salient as influences on individual experience. So will afflictions like cavities. I expect that healthier habits around sleep, nutrition and exercise will correspond to a slightly more positive life experience as the world unravels.
💀 Caveat: That being said, if fitness were so easy, no one would smoke and everyone would demonstrate Olympic-caliber athleticism. Plenty of factors prevent people from adopting healthier lifestyles. So maybe the advice here is to augment your regimen AND/OR be aware that mobility and medical concerns might be more consequential in the future than they are now when technological advancement is peaking.
3. Relocate
Nowhere is perfect, but some places are better than others. As of 2025, (some) Americans seem to be aware of two dimensions: climate and politics. They understand that Arizona will bake, Florida will flood and certain states will offer them medical services that others won’t. I’ve noticed that they often miss a third dimension: decent local carrying capacity - flowing fresh water and viable soil (or the potential for some kind of plant life) - which would lead to the conclusion that you probably don’t want to find yourself in a concrete jungle.
Jason Bradford urges Planet Critical listeners: “Do you have friends or family that are in small towns in the countryside? ... Can you find a way to keep your current work but work somewhere else that’s more rural and start to get integrated into that community, and then on the side start learning some stuff, helping people out?”
Guidance:
Maps of various factors from Alice Friedemann
ProPublica’s maps of predicted climate impacts across US
A cute article about mutual aid, “Where Should I Live?” by Bill McKibben
💀 Caveat: If you’re too far from a major city, you won’t be able to enjoy modern services while they last. Isolation and culture shock aren’t fun. In the next decade or so, cities might still receive more aid than less-developed/populated areas. A natural disaster might wipe out your new home. A military conflict might force you to leave the area. And ultimately, our core vulnerability is our state of domestication, and you can’t run away from that.
4. Merge households
Ditch the American Dream of a single-family household. Move back in with your parents. Buy a house with a few friends. (Is that legal? idk. I went with the first option.)
The benefits that I now enjoy, having moved back in with my parents in 2022 (upon becoming collapse-aware):
$$: Many people are shelling out a load of money, just to live on their own, because otherwise society loses respect for you as an adult. It’s a scam. Now that I don’t need to pay rent, I don’t have to participate in the career rat race. I can devote more time to fulfilling activities.
Proximity for support: When I lived separately from my parents, a dead iPhone battery or canceled train could prevent me from reaching them. Now, whether I’m seeking practical guidance during a natural disaster, or checking that they’re okay, or venting about a headline, they’re right there.
💀 Caveat: Maybe you have a bad relationship with your family or they live in a doomed location or none of your friends are down to share a home.
“Collapse now and beat the rush”
– John Michael Greer
5. Know your neighbors
You’ll eventually need to cooperate with them rather intimately, so figure out who’s reliable (meaning they possess both the desire and the capacity to contribute) and who’s more reclusive or well-intentioned but flaky.
💀 Caveat: While U-Hauls are still running, neighbors can still move away. Also, are you the reclusive or well-intentioned but flaky one? Finally, don’t expect that you’ll be able to organize a Neighborhood Resilience Task Force. As expressed in Rx #2, most people are going to stick with “normal” routines until they become impossible. A great parody of this notion (from here):
“Start hosting grillouts now. Throw parties for your neighbors every weekend. Over a series of weeks and months, calmly, gently, patiently ease them into your worldview. Start out by talking about the latest natural disasters. Ask them very innocuously whether they’d like to come up with some kind of plan in case your local government responds to floods with thoughts and prayers. By 2030, maybe you’ll convince some of them to start growing tomatoes in their yard.”
6. Learn to articulate your understanding of our predicament
Vanessa Machado de Oliveira likens our communication about collapse to constipation and diarrhea. Either we censor ourselves or we ramble incoherently. For the sake of at least feeling more satisfied with your own ability to express yourself, find the words for what you’ve been thinking and feeling.
💀 Caveat: Don’t expect to be able to persuade anyone who doesn’t already see things your way, to change their mind.
“There is something to be said for not being alone with the things that are keeping you awake at night.” - Dougald Hine in this talk
7. “Find the others”
It isn’t fun to feel like you’re inhabiting a different story than everyone else, yet occupying the same point in time and space. I’ve found that it’s really sanity-supporting to find others who are willing to face and able to grasp the depth of the trouble we’re in. The right friends for you will also depend on who you want to be during all this, since the individuals with whom you interact the most tend to rub off on you.
💀 Caveat: When it comes to finding collapse-aware friends in-person, I don’t have a well-refined strategy for identifying candidates. What has worked for me is dropping hints about my perspective. But, depending on where you live, it might be too much to ask, to find people who recognize modernity’s inherent impermanence and have personalities that click well with yours.
"This is my best guess for how we can start to feel better. We have to divest from the places that make us feel incomplete, overwhelmed, and empty. We have to invest in the places, and most importantly, the people, which make us feel whole."
-”Sad in the Bread Aisle” by Lauren Zitney
8. Experiment with Practices/Technologies that might have a future
The (linear, high-metabolism) way that we do things will not continue to be viable. The needs that we’ll need to meet differentiate include: staying hydrated and fed (water collection and purification, growing and preserving food, foraging and hunting), safe bio-nutrient management (composting food scraps, humanure and our mortal remains), and maintaining homeostasis (low/no-tech methods for heating/cooling your body).
Jason Bradford urges Planet Critical listeners: “If you’re in the tertiary economy, flee that. Go secondary. Go primary. Get into those other sectors where you are useful when there is not that super-high energy subsidy.”
I don’t think it’s necessarily advisable to abandon your day job. Working a job that pays well, is enjoyable and doesn’t consume all of your time has its advantages. You don’t have to be a full-time homesteader to pick up some new skills and try out new systems.
The idea is that whatever you’re dabbling in might help to improve your situation in the future. A second purpose could be that (as the quotes in Rx #2 describe) most people will stick with the default mode until it becomes unavailable, but then they’ll look around for substitutes, and if you’ve discovered something that functions past the failure of other options, others will embrace it too.
If you aren’t interesting in preemptive skill-building and challenge-tackling, I wouldn’t advise that you force yourself to engage in these activities in advance - you might not find the motivation to keep it up. But be ready to pitch in when the time is right and your community is needing to scale the practices that others have retro-pioneered.
Soft skills and traits to develop include: critical thinking, systems thinking, judging character, conflict avoidance/resolution, active listening, creative problem-solving, discipline and openness to changing one’s mind.
💀 Caveat: We might find ourselves facing conditions that are so absolutely devastating that no skills could possibly reduce our suffering.
9. To decarb or not to decarb?
Yes, the “green”-industrial complex is environmentally and ethically terrible and won’t last. But abstinence from purchasing solar panels would put you at a disadvantage (grid reliance), without achieving anything positive for the planet. Off-grid panels would diversify your energy source portfolio and an electric vehicle can serve as a battery.
💀 Caveat:
Of the 1.4 billion cars currently on the road, only 1% are electric. Diesel availability will likely decline, which means vehicle manufacturing will likely decline, before EVs come to represent a significant percent of cars and before charging stations are widely established. (Plus, infuriated citizens can destroy charging stations.)
Without a government that is robust enough to oversee road and grid maintenance, asphalt will start deteriorating and electricity will become unreliable.
Fossil fuels’ falling EROEI mainly eats into diesel, so we’ll like see a decline in manufacturing before a decline in gasoline. It’s possible that your car’s parts will begin to fail, and you’ll be unable to afford a repair or acquire replacements, before gasoline/electricity itself becomes scarce and pricier.
A Tesla Powerwall requires a minimum of 2.5 peak hours/day to recharge. Under overcast conditions (i.e. if it doesn’t get a chance to fully recharge), it can support essential household electricity use for up to 3 days. If the grid-down and cloudiness extend beyond 3 days, then what? Procure multiple Powerwalls, for yourself and everyone in your region? If the grid-down forces the larger technosphere to shut down, what can’t a bunch of Powerwalls do for a community?
A powered refrigerator is only as helpful as you have food to put in it.
Having electricity when other people don’t might make you a target.
Your panels’ performance will eventually wane (e.g. after 20 years for solar panels), at which point repair/replacement might be difficult, so don’t be complacent about learning pre-industrial skills.
10. Emergency Preparedness
Google it.
11. Volunteer to help fellow empire-dependent humans whom it’s already betraying
It feels good and does a little something! (The world is still ending, though.)
Be a Good Loser
The civilization/empire superorganism seeks to metabolize all available material and remake the world in its image. It converts wild diversity to a world of sameness, domesticating lifeforms (“civilized” humans and livestock) and reducing (supposedly) inanimate “resources” to stuff. I think that a significant line exists not between the human and more-than-human, but between technosphere-dependent and technosphere-independent beings. There’s a good chance that oncoming conditions will snuff out the former category. If anyone can survive civilization’s deterioration, it’s those who already are at least somewhat unattached to it.
Block Extraction and Erasure
In a presentation on “Strategy: For Grassroots People’s Movements Against Ecocide”, Max Wilbert explains that sabotage is likely more common that we realize (partly because it’s under-reported for fear of encouraging copycats) and that it’s bound to proliferate.
This can flip the superorganism from “growing” to “ailing”. My friend summarized this well:
“It may be true that the neoliberal* system will extract the maximum resources it can, but it's also true that it takes energy to extract energy and individual/collective action can divert how energy gets spent and influence the tipping point at which continued extraction becomes ‘unprofitable’, thus reducing the number of resources which ultimately get accessed before the system undergoes an irreversible collapse, protecting those resources moving forwards”
[*I’d say - not only modern neoliberalism, but also any complex society that emerges from ultrasociality and behaves as a superorganism]
I do think that efforts would need to fairly directly target and prevent extraction, instead of relying heavily on protests. (Here, Shaun Chamberlin sums up my feelings about protest, at 18:40-22:10.) (And here is a video about activism that Max Wilber shared.)
Promote Abundance and Diversity of Life, and Circularity
Certain species and human communities still maintain the knowledge and skills to meet their needs within their bioregion’s carrying capacity and even be a net-positive presence. They’re already living in a way that reflects the lessons that our culture has yet to learn. Civilization’s insatiable appetite is erasing them.
The logging industry threatens Peru’s Mashco Piro and nickel mines are driving Indonesia’s O'Hongana Manyawa from their homes. One entity that counters this is Survival International. It engages in "lobbying, advocacy and public campaigns targeting powerful interests … to prevent the annihilation of Indigenous peoples and secure their land rights." So check them out, donate or contribute in some way.
It’s also really rewarding to promote diversity and abundance when it comes to other beings who haven’t fallen into the domestication trap. Compost to enrich the soil biome. Create pollinator gardens and bee boxes and brush piles as habitat, etc.
💀 Caveat: Spent nuclear fuel rods might eventually cause widespread contamination, eliminating even those who survived modern techno-industrial civilization’s collapse. I’m unsure. Here’s Wikipedia, here’s Reddit, here’s the US Department of Energy and here’s Max Wilbert on nuclear waste.
Be Stumped
There is no easy answer to “What should I do about this?” or “What’s a reasonable form of ‘not giving up’?”
To demonstrate what a difficult situation this is to navigate, here are the “Crazy Town” podcast hosts (PCI staffers Rob Dietz, Asher Miller and Jason Bradford) on Alex Leff’s “Human Nature Odyssey” as well as the final video of Tom Murphy’s “Metastatic Modernity” series:
hey. thanks. you're amazing.
Thank you for your hard work!!!!