Paths of Collapse Ft. Andrew

the previous discussion. One thing I didn't touch on last time was the various levels of awareness that people have about collapse, because, as with most things in this life, it exists on more of a spectrum than anything. We're all on this learning journey, and some people are further along, if you could even really relate it's that way than others. Some discuss of collapse are informed by author Paul Shafferka's

Stages of Collapse. There are five stages in total, and the fust stage is dead asleep, which is where you're really just vibing. You know, you can see some issues in the world here and there, but that could be fixed. Right. All we had to do is organize a bit better, change our behaviors, slightly, tweak the rules, and we'll be fine. But then you move on to the next stage, which

is the awareness of one fundamental problem. Is when you realize, oh, there's something structurally wrong, but you only see in one part of that structural flow, so it seems everything is not you know, cash money. You know, maybe you found about the depths of systemic racism or imperialism, or overfission or mass extinction or fracking, and you know, as one does,

you start to freak out a little bit. You know, maybe you mobilize to bring some awareness of this issue, just so people know that you know something is wrong, let's fix it, and that one problem can even consume you entirely. And then consuming all that knowledge about that one problem, you keep learning, and if you really do keep learning and are open to learn more and more about the issue, eventually reach an awareness of many problems. The next stage, the more you learn, the more you worry.

You take in all sorts of information and begin to see how complex and multifaceted the world's problems are. Now it's hard for you to even prioritize, which is so need to be tell first, In fact, it's so overwhelmed you do have be reluctant to acknowledge new problems because you already have so much on your plate. Alas you cannot ignore the other problems forever, not unless you want

to keep running in circles. So you get to the stage of awareness of the interconnections between the many problems, it starts to dawn on you that there are no easy solutions. Shutting down factory farms mainly off millions and leave perhaps hundreds of millions for the complete meal, or efforts to raise the standard of living in the developing world. Industrialization in the footsteps of the developed world just might accelerate the Earth's demise and profit a select few at

least you thinking on the systems level. Now beyond the symptoms towards the source. Perhaps there is no one solution, Perhaps the gravity of such a solution maybe too much

to beare So. Finally, at the last stage, you get to awareness that the predicament encompasses all aspects of life, so much so you might even pine after ignorance as you realize that this series of problems, or rather this all encompassing capital p predicament includes everything we do, how we do, what we do, how we relate, and how

we affect the entire planet. The predicaments is so massive you might even reach a point where you're just like, there is no capital S solution to this capital P predicament, no easy answer, no quick fix, and you can't do

it alone. And so now what now? In the last episode, I would have spoken about a couple of different responses that people have had to collapse, slumber, denial, apathy, preoccupation, hedonism of weelment, blind hope, individual change, progress, worship, leader worship, apocalypse, worship, despair. But as promised for this episode, I want to be a bit more constructive in focus and so to answer

the question, really is there any way out? But before I get to that garrison, do you think there are any stages am I have missed in that progression of understanding? Or what have you observed in your experience?

points never really ever reach. It's it's it's just it's just this this forever kind of crumbling and then rebuilding, and then crumbling and rebuilding, and you get to like a ship a theseus situation where eventually, at one point the thing is completely different from what it used to be, but there was never like a full moment of quote unquote collapse. It was just this this continual like crumbling and then becoming into the next thing.

they have all these big pictures. Yeah, so I remember seeing those in one of those books, like this huge like mountain of trash and seeing like this this floating garbage patch in the ocean, and I was just like wow. And then later on, so the first thing wasn't even climate change, it was pollution. And then later on I started doing about climate change, and then that really became

like my nature thing. And then later on I as I got older and I learned about learned history and that sort of thing, I came to economics and all that stuff. I came to realize that just how big the situation was. And now I'm here. So, as I said in the previous episode, we really don't need blind hope, and I should be upondly clear, we definitely don't need hopeless despair. It's a little rhyme there. So how do we respond to this predicament? The short answer is that

I don't know. The long answer is this whole podcast episode. I mean, I could give some platitudes. You know, we need sobriety, clarity, lucidity. I mean. Paul Shafuka points out in his article that those in stage five awareness who see that the predictament encompasses all aspects of life look to one of two paths. And I mean I've since adapted into Britain and remixed the two paths, so not one to one with what he had in mind, but

you should get the gist. The first path of response to the predictaments of collapse is the inner path of self healing. It's a manifestation of that fake can the quote be the change you want to see in the world, sort of retreating into oneself, taking deep and poosonal developing your self awareness. I mean, some people take this to mean some sort of hyper individual thing, and it low key is if you tilt and twist your head slightly,

you can maybe see it in a different line. I don't think it has to mean becoming a monk or an aesthetic. I don't think it means denying systems or ignoring the painful truth. I think it involves taken in the gravity of what we're dealing with, such a grand scale issue, and putting it in a personal context, unabstracting

it and understanding it through a more managical lens. I'm not one to fall back on evolutionary terminism or anything like that, but I do think often about how we kind of weren't meant to be processing this entire planet, this entire population, you know. I think we're very good at dealing with immediate problems, very good at looking at situations that are before us, that are directly impacting us,

and looking at how we can solve that. And of course, no local solution necessarily is going to by itself solve a global cris but medley of local solutions can. But we're not even talking here with this inner path of local solutions. Yet we're talking even at the smaller scale, in the local, at the base unit of society, which

is the self. So you might continue pursuing knowledge of the issues, start developing your practical skills and people's skills, trying to minimalize your lifestyle and preparation for the economic and social shocks of collapse. Perhaps seeking to settle somewhere you've determined it's best suited to whether the coming storms, which I believe I saw a video like some years ago where this guy was saying the Midwest might be the best place environmentally to settle. I don't know if

you'll cover that in the first or second season. That could happen, yet.

That process has already started. But yes, there's gonna like be this this slow rising level of like industrial farming, which first of all, isn't isn't actually great for the land itself. Like once all of the land that's abandoned in the Southern States, like after it's been tapped for so long, it's really just like dust, like it's it's not actually useful dirt anymore. But it's all of that stuff's going to start moving farther and farther north as

the as the conditions for growth start changing. And I mean it's the same thing for a lot of a lot of things that are grown and like more like jungly forest mountain areas where every year, like coffee and chocolate, they have to start they have they have to start moving the crops or they're up the mountain. And again that's that doesn't that's obviously not a great long term solution because the mountain is only so high that it costs and it costs a lot of money to constantly

be moving your crops higher and higher up a mountain. Indeed, but that is the sort of like agricultural and like economic drive. It's going to start getting more and more common to supply the amount of food that Americans are used to eating. And it won't like in the case of coffee, like it's not like actual coffee beans are not going to be as common as they were today or twenty years ago. It's going to become more of

like a higher priced luxury item. And I'm sure, I'm sure Americans will get their caffeine fixed some other way. But yeah, it's like that those those sorts of changes are going to become more and more and more commonplace.

a care area or maybe parochial in their focus. But I think that as we talk about the degradation of soils, we talk about the failures in the long term of monocultural large scale farm and the only way that we're really going to see that sort of land restored again is through the sort of acro forestry, pulmaculture, you know, small scale practices that involve rebuilding that relationship between the people and the land itself. Regardden outside of the US,

I don't know what my game plan would be. The dry seasons are certainly dry, and I think last year actually was one of our driest wet seasons, So I don't really plan on leaving, but I do think about I do find myself thinking about, Okay, where am I gonna like, but where am I gonna settle? You know, like where am I gonna be able to like safeguard myself and stay connected with people and live? You know.

So in a sense, I am on that inner path, educating myself as much as possible, trying to develop my practical skills, focusing on what I could do as an individual to make changes in my own life and partially in my surroundings in a way that is manageables. Do you see yourself in this path as well? Though?

I have I have risk. I have some form of hesitancy to like seed territory or just like like right off places as just being like not worth it, like especially especially like the south, the American southeast, just like that there's kind of a there's kind of a nocean, just to like write off large swaths of areas, whether like agriculturally, like climate wise, or like even like politically being like, oh, this is just where all of the fascists are going to live, and like that's not that's

not true. This this has this area of the country is actually is one of the most diverse parts of the country, and to write it off all is like just like Republican Land is. I think it is grossly misguided.

as I'm a realist, you know. But truthfully, I think taking the outer path of balance realism means shaken off the burdens and blinders are both pessimism and optimism and alarmism and denihialism and fatalism and hedonism and all these other setbacks and obstacles, all the others except aism trying to keep watching andwism. Please, but you're really loosening yourself from your own hopes and fears. Really, I think the way I try to see it is I have no idea.

No one can really know what outcome there will be. You know, up to now, I haven't met a profit. I have meta sayer, I have meta fortune teller. I don't think any of us really know what the outcome will be, and there's so many factors that we can't

even calculate and take into account. Yeah, I mean, for all we know, I mean, it will be very disruptive of our reality, right, And personally, I'm not really a believer in like there be an interspeller alien species, but you know, imagine just out of the blue, like on a random Thursday afternoon, there was an actual alien invasion. I don't think any of us could really predict that.

Of course, there are things that we do have the be aible to predict and work with and stuff like that, but really, of course that's an ex saggary to the example. But I want to be able to wrack, organize, and accept any number of possible outcomes in the face of such a grand predicament. I think maintaining realism is difficult, especially with so much information too have been around in the ether, and you don't know what's true and what's not.

But I think it's necessary. You know, you agitate, your fight, your build for the best, but you also prepare and defend for the worst. Prefecide by the way on optimism, I see really two sides of collapse optimism, both I think are well placed, but both unfortunately misled. There's the optimism that collapse absolutely will not take place, which I think is a sort of optimism that doesn't really quite

understand where collapse, what forms collapse can take. And then it's a sort of optimism that collapse will take place, but will overcome it. I mean, the house of collapse might not line up fully with our predictions, but there is a very clear trajectory that we are on. The idea that collapse is just not in the at all really feels like wishful thinking. Humanity I don't think has the plot armor that we tend to think it does.

And that lack of plot armor also means that there's really no guarantee that we will overcome collapse if it does occur. There are no show outcomes, to be sure, But that doesn't mean to be destined to come out of this unscathed. But what do you think of optimism considering what you do for work?

of just like static optim I think. I think hope is a is a is a useful thing to have in your brain, but but not not have it be as like this just like umbrella that you apply to every single aspect of your life, and the way like optimism is but in terms of like like when you're

mentioning like the alien thing. I think one way that people do think about collapse trying to cope with it a lot is like it's kind of some form of like disx makana, like like this this something will happen, whether that's some other like catastrophic event or like apocalyptic event, or it's like some new found scientific advancement that one day will pop into existence and then we'll solve all

of these problems. I think both of those are kind of a form of a Dix machana, and both of those are actually ways of coping, even though one is more apocalyptic and one's more utopian.

story of the world. But I mean that is I think that's that's the thing that I think a lot of people try to find some so it kind of allows you to not be in denial about the current predicament but still envision a future that is pretty similar to what we currently have, just with this like magical invention or this or this like or this like apocalyptic event that forces people to like actually solve some some degree of problems.

reminded me of something that that shook me. Yesterday. I was watching shown on YouTube Sean's video on Palestine, and he shared the story of this young person and boy who had filmed the video celebrating himself win a gat in a thousand subscribe, and he was sharing his goals of you know, you may get in ten thousand and one hundred thousand, maybe even a million, and he was killed last year by the idea. So I think, I mean,

it's connected, but not entirely related. We're talking more long lines of ecological collapse and systems collapse and this sort

of thing. And while it's true that for much of the world, collapse is not going to look like a singular event, I think it is also important to recognize that and remember that there are people for whom collapse, or rather their subjective collapse, the collapse of their world, their way of life, their existence, is tearing them in the face absolutely right now, you know, I don't want

to compare misfortunes. But you know, there is that reality that you know, some people are facing like cataclysm right in their face, and for others it's like a slower boon, but ultimately similar feats. You know.

to the point of the delusion, I suppose. And I think this is this is the value of the outer path as well. And I think this outer path is fueled by a bit of in a grace and peace, you know, you let go of some level of naivety

and passivity. You're moving, acting, doing, adapting. And here, of course I'm thinking of like the Puma culture movement, the Transition Towns Network, or the other ongoing movements and projects, none of which are Perfick mind you, none of which are going to say the whole world or anything, but they Sidney Try. And I'm as thinking of like the movement for the MST in Brazil, and you know the Leavia Campecina who we would have interviewed in people about recently.

These groups, these movements, these struggles are thinking, are looking local, thinking global and actually really making a difference. I think that outlook is necessary. I think we need more political movements it could be honest about reality that aren't waiting for a safere or politician that aren't wait sensor it's too late to act, that aren't removing power from the hands of people and placement elsewhere. Move on instead, are

far less reactive and more proactive. And maybe I'll never see a global shift to the growth or a steady state economy in all lifetimes without a major disruption and shifting the efforts of grounds roots movements. We can definitely see small scale, local resilient systems springing up and spreading that are better able to endure the coming economic, socio ecological shocks. I am as pro social revolution as they come, but I think we need a more expansive understanding of

what that entails. I was reading actually this morning, Anarchy, a graphic guide by Clifford Harper, and he spoke about how sixty five years of persistent agitation and organization culminated in the largest, most far reaching revolutionary movement of the modern times. I think when we discuss the Spanish Civil War and the cnt FAI will get caught up from

what was happening during the Civil War. But I think I don't think there's not focused on the fact that, you know, these organizations were moving and shaken in their communities and in their regions for decades prior to any major you know pop off. You know, like a general strike does not happen overnight, and insurrection does not happen overnight, esp actually not without the level of broad scale support they will be necessary to sustain those efforts. On the

topic of the Transition movement, in particular. That movement was officially started in two thousand and six in the UK, but had some routes before then. In two thousand and four, Prima culture designer Rob Hopkins task students at Kinsale for their education college with applying permaculture principles to the concept of peak oil, lead into the creation of the Kinsale

and she Dissent Action Plan. Two students, Louis Rooney and Catherine Dune, developed the Transition Town's concept, presenting it to the Kinsale Town Council, which adopts the plan for energy independence. Then Hopkins later moved to Totney's, England, where he, along with Narishkian Gray Kian Grande, developed these concepts into the Transition model. Transition Town Totney's, founded in early two thousand and six, served as inspiration for other transition initiatives globally.

Early two thousand and seven, the Transition Network UK charity was co founded by Rob Hopkins, Peter Lippmann and Ben Brangwin to support and the seveny transition concepts worldwide. By two thousand and eight, project had expanded, with numerous communities becoming official transition towns. These are things you don't care about in the news. These are positive developments that have

happened under the radar for decades at this point. By May twenty ten, over four hundred community initiatives were recognized as official transition towns in various countries, reflecting a diverse range of communities involved, from villages and neah words to

cities and city boroughs. The initiatives who developed citizens cooperatives, renewable energy, local and sustainable food systems, new cooperative economic models, sustainable transport systems, energy to send, action plans, and even heart and soul groups built to respond to the emotional

components of collapse and transition. In the book How Everything Can Collapse, which I referenced in the previous episode, Paulo Savine and Raphael Steven's talk about the paradox of collapse, and I'll leave it in their words because I think it was really well put quote. From a philosophical point of view, transition is a strange and paradoxical thing. It's both catastrophists and optimistic, that is to say, both lucid and pragmatic. Lucid because the people involved in these movements

are not in denial about catastrophes. Most of them have given up the myth of eternal growth as well as the myth of the apocalypse. They know and believe in what awaits us. Generally receptive to catastrophised language because they already are committed to the search for real alternatives. Pragmatic because catastrophis political thinking is not apocalyptic in nature. It's not claim to worry about the end of the world, but more precisely about a sudden and potentially traumatic reorganization

of ecosystems and societies. Neither business as usual nor the end of the world, just a world to invent together here and now and good. The Transition movement is vitally rooted in imagination, and I've spoken about the vitality of imagination in the past. In fact, my video on the subject was partially inspired by Rob Hopkins' book From What Is to What If? You imagine? You sketch out the details, and then you roll up your sleeves and you make

it real. During the development of the Transition Networks project, Rob Hopkins, along with others, published the Transition Handbook, which is structured in three parts, the first ahead, which are the facts of the situation. Then you have the heart, which are the emotional consequences and desire futures, and then you have the hands, which is how you get from imagination to action. And I just thought that was a really great approach, even though the handbook is dated in

some ways. Of course, guiding people through the process of even accepting transition and getting them on the outer path works well on the small and personal scale, but there is a challenge of scale. Savine and Steven's point out that you can't exactly announce on a large platform Listen up, everybody, prepare for the end of the world. As you can imagine, it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. It's kind of like telling people not to rush out and buy

upoly toilet. People. Transition on larger scales is difficult. Not to say it's not difficult to build the local communities resilience from disruptions and food, energy, climate, etc. But on the macro scale is even more difficult, at least if you did to take on a top down approach. You get what I'm saying. It is because this isn't exactly a problem that rulers are capable of solving. The debt

system is not going to go away by decree. The energy system that fills their coffers won't shift until it profits them either. And in Seeing like a States, the anthropologist James's Scott spends a lot of time discussing just how that top down perspective of the world is inherently limited and incapable of effecting those sorts of changes. But

thankfully the people able to act where rulers won't. As being the Stevens put it transitioners to that wait for governments, they already invent in ways of living through through this collapse in a non tragic way. They are not waiting for the worst, but building for the best. Ultimately, I'm trying to get on the level of the transition town rutists on the outer path that are building networks, building

community and building sustainability. Highly suggests that if you're looking for ways to help out in your local situation, check out the transition down network and see how you can tap in or start your own initiative and your own area. That's all I have for now or power to older people. This is it could happen here. I am Andrew, this is Garason.