We absolutely need it. We can bury our heads in the sand or commit philosophical suicide to avoid dealing with collapse, but it's the dominant theme of our lives regardless of our preferences. Climate change is the metabolic rift at its breaking point. It's the principal contradiction of human society. It's the material conditions you have to organise in and against and most importantly it's the thing driving the social conditions from here on out. Whatever socialist arguments we can formulate about it and doomerism, a headspace that any rational person should and will find themselves in with increasing frequency, those translate to r/collapse's non-socialist audience. They'll be things we can coherently express to non-socialist friends, family, and coworkers because we're engaging with them like we do national politics. Fascists love collapse because it fuels their power fantasies and the most convenient answer to it is "do nothing and the government will solve things". The only things r/collapse readers will hear without our well-organised input are lifeboat theory, techno cults, carbon taxation, renewable energy fetishisation, and Elizabeth Warren's plan for that. It's an extremely potent driver to any of those narratives but ours is the only one understanding and addressing it at its roots. As far as I know there isn't a space online or even a good podcast where I can get that regular ideological perspective on these issues. It's a footnote or people jumping on discussions about it as fueling reactionaries like they do anti-natalism, not simultaneously understanding that a massive chunk of people are dealing with questions of deep material/social deprivation which we can agitate around as architects just as readily as fascists will as arsonists. We just write off the dominant themes and psychological pressures of our time because it sucks to confront them. Even if someone in r/collapse is radicalised today, where are they going to go to better understand the ideas they initially agree with? Certainly not here if they're feeling the doom hopefully all of us at least understand viscerally but reject as Debbie Downer shit.
We absolutely need it. We can bury our heads in the sand or commit philosophical suicide to avoid dealing with collapse, but it's the dominant theme of our lives regardless of our preferences. Climate change is the metabolic rift at its breaking point. It's the principal contradiction of human society. It's the material conditions you have to organise in and against and most importantly it's the thing driving the social conditions from here on out. Whatever socialist arguments we can formulate about it and doomerism, a headspace that any rational person should and will find themselves in with increasing frequency, those translate to r/collapse's non-socialist audience. They'll be things we can coherently express to non-socialist friends, family, and coworkers because we're engaging with them like we do national politics. Fascists love collapse because it fuels their power fantasies and the most convenient answer to it is "do nothing and the government will solve things". The only things r/collapse readers will hear without our well-organised input are lifeboat theory, techno cults, carbon taxation, renewable energy fetishisation, and Elizabeth Warren's plan for that. It's an extremely potent driver to any of those narratives but ours is the only one understanding and addressing it at its roots. As far as I know there isn't a space online or even a good podcast where I can get that regular ideological perspective on these issues. It's a footnote or people jumping on discussions about it as fueling reactionaries like they do anti-natalism, not simultaneously understanding that a massive chunk of people are dealing with questions of deep material/social deprivation which we can agitate around as architects just as readily as fascists will as arsonists. We just write off the dominant themes and psychological pressures of our time because it sucks to confront them. Even if someone in r/collapse is radicalised today, where are they going to go to better understand the ideas they initially agree with? Certainly not here if they're feeling the doom hopefully all of us at least understand viscerally but reject as Debbie Downer shit.