[Essay] What to Do As the World Falls Apart: A Framework for Action

What to Do as the World Falls Apart: A Framework for Action | Frankly 132

Podcast Episode · The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens · March 20 · 53m

The Return of the Cutting-Off Way

Structural changes are driving us towards a more chaotic world, defined by "neither peace nor war, but conflict."

The Joy of Becoming Worthless…except to each other — Douglas Rushkoff

My last piece, The Intentional Collapse, seems to have agitated a few people. I know it came off a bit dark. I talked about how the Uber wealthy believe the world as we know it is ending and that there won’t be enough essential resources to go around, so they need to take control of as much money and stuff and land as possible in order to position themselves for the end of days.

Collapse — Oakland Public Library

Collapse — Dallett, Cassandra, — <p>COLLAPSE is a doomed love, temporary, free on bond, haunted by rage and regret, fueled by Hip-Hop beats, and clinging like the remains of the Ghost Ship fire--with the world burning around us, it is time and place, politics and anarchy, connection for the broken.</p><p>Poetry. California Interest.</p>

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse

An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

John Vervaeke: “The Meaning Crisis: Wisdom, Purpose, and the Search for Coherence” - The Great Simplification

The crises that our world is facing seem to be constantly growing, leading to enormous and devastating systemic effects across the globe.

Ecocivilization: making a world that works for all

""One of the greatest thinkers of our age" (The Guardian) presents a new way of living-one modeled on nature's design instead of capitalism's-for fans of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Doughnut Economics It has often been said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism-and yet that is what the historical moment urgently calls for. Climate change has reached an emergency state, inequality continues to grow, and, for many, the future has never seemed more bleak. Incremental policy improvements are no longer enough-we need a deep transformation of our current civilization to continue to survive. In Ecocivilization, leading thinker Jeremy Lent reimagines the basis of our civilization, and argues for a new global system of living, one based on life-affirming principles modeled after nature's own design. What enfolds is a robust framework incorporating Lent's own expertise, and the lived experiences of those on the ground already putting ecological civilization's core tenants into practice-justice, mutuality, diversity, and symbiosis. From the global economy to universal housing and income, from infrastructure to agriculture, every major aspect of our society could be redesigned to work together as a coherent whole, setting the conditions for all people to flourish. Ecocivilization shows how this future on a regenerated Earth is not only desirable, but entirely feasible"--

Pluralistic: Model collapse (12 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

One of my favorite rhetorical and analytical moves is joining things together (showing that two different, seemingly unrelated ideas are aspects of the same phenomenon) and taking them apart (resolving a paradox by demonstrating that what appears to be one, contradictory thing is actually two different things that have been lumped together).

Everything is In-Between — Douglas Rushkoff

I’ve begun this piece maybe twenty times in the past three weeks. By the time I’ve finished the first paragraph, some new thing happens that obsolesces whatever event I’m writing about. And I’m not even writing about the news, so much as using one shared moment as a “peg” for a piece about some larger phenomenon or strategy.

Interdependent Thoughts – by Ton Zijlstra

Still, many questions have global aspects. Our information networks, our trade routes, our dependencies are truly global. Because of it many of our issues, including climate emergencies, are global in both their roots and consequences. We all suffer from small earth syndrome these days, as I phrased it in 2010 at the SHiFT Conference, where everything anyone of us does reverberates around the world because we are continuously bumping into real global limits, Club of Rome style.

Radical Respect: How to Work Together Better by Kim Scott

What moves us in the wrong direction? Kim Scott offers a "toxonomy" that breaks down a problem th...

Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come

Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come

Humanity’s Endgame

A new history of societal collapse by an expert in existential risk argues that our globalized society is edging toward the precipice.

Arundhati Roy: The dismantling of democracy in India will affect the whole world

The text of the writer’s speech as she received the 45th European Essay Prize on September 12.