Edge of Collapse

Becoming collapse aware in the age of the permanent polycrisis.

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A Practical Approach to Navigating the Collapsing World Order

14 min readFeb 20, 2025

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Americans have seen a lot of shit in the past 20-some years. I’m an elder millennial, graduating high school in 1999. About a month before I got my diploma, I watched the Columbine school shooting unfold on the news. And it’s been a downward spiral ever since.

The Dot Com bubble burst, vaporizing wealth and dreams overnight. Then came 9/11, shaking us to our core, followed by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq — two wars that never seemed to end. The Great Recession hit, gutting people’s savings and careers. Along the way we saw hundreds of mass shootings, among them Virginia Tech, the Aurora theater, Sandy Hook, and the Charleston AME church. Now schools have active shooter drills as routine as fire alarms.

Then Trump was elected, and the nation watched, slack-jawed, as the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville brought neo-Nazis back into the mainstream. And as if the universe wanted to outdo itself, the COVID pandemic hit, followed by the COVID recession, then the vaccination backlash. And somehow, like a bad sequel, Trump got elected again. It’s enough to make your head spin.

I remember my family struggling, paralyzed by uncertainty. Should we stockpile toilet…

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Edge of Collapse
Edge of Collapse

Published in Edge of Collapse

Becoming collapse aware in the age of the permanent polycrisis.

Angus Peterson
Angus Peterson

Written by Angus Peterson

Becoming collapse aware in the age of the permanent polycrisis. Follow to get all the new stories: https://anguspeterson.medium.com/subscribe

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