Daily Episode 237 - Is there a point to it all?

0:00Hey, Cory here. We've had an influx of new listeners, and so I just want to make sure that if you are new to the podcast, you don't just jump in and start listening to these daily episodes which we've been doing. Please go back and listen to the first at least eight episodes. So you have an idea of what collapses, what it is that Cory is talking about. Also if you've been with us for a while and you're enjoying the content, please join us on Patreon. We would love to see you there. There's a link, as always, in the description. I know it was England, I first heard the ban go. Ooh! Yeah! Ha! Saduke! Ha! Stevie Wonder's songs and the key of life performances celebrating 50 years of one of music's most iconic albums for an incredible night in New York, Chicago, Washington, New York City, and Los Angeles, ticket stores at LiveNation.com.

1:26This message is brought to you by today's sponsor, Walden University, set a course for change. Now is the time to make a real change in your life, career, and community. At Walden University, we give you the support and flexibility to get the W. Walden's online programs are designed for working professionals like you. You'll gain hands-on skills to take on real-world challenges and succeed. Your future is waiting and Walden is here to help you achieve it. Take the first step to make your impact. Visit WaldenU.edu. Walden University, set a course for change. Certified to operate by chef. Alright, this has been an interesting week on the podcast so far. I've actually really enjoyed it. It's a little bit outside the norm of what we've been doing the last year, and it's fun and refreshing to get back to a little bit more of the, I don't know, philosophizing and theoretical, the sort of the thought side of collapse, right, rather than just the

2:29cold, hard news of what's going on around us. I've had some interesting thoughts, I guess, some wake-ups over the last couple of weeks and months that I thought I'd share here. The episodes yesterday and Monday were mostly about sort of the inevitability of collapse. Harkening back to the early days of the podcast, and that's really what we talked about, was that this isn't an if, this is a when, and a how severe will it be. I am admittedly cynical. I don't want to say pessimistic. I don't believe I'm a pessimistic person, but I have a cynical view on our ability as a people to make the changes necessary because I watch and I see what we are doing, what we have done, and what's required to do to make changes necessary. It doesn't seem likely that that's the direction that we're headed, right? Beyond that, we talk about how not only am I cynical about the changes that need to be made, but that essentially collapse in and of itself is unavoidable because you either collapse voluntarily to get back to a sustainable place through degrowth or you collapse involuntarily.

3:36Either way, would be a collapse, would require struggle, would require difficulty. It brings up this question of if one truly believes that collapse is inevitable, and you can ask yourself that question whether or not you believe that, just because I say it here and it's my belief, doesn't mean that it's one that you have to believe. But if one believes that, is there any value, any merit, to fight for a better world? You know, it brings up this question of what is dumerism, what is fatalism, what is nihilism, are they the same things? Which no, they're not. And are they harmful in and of themselves? If you were to get onto forums like, for example, the climate change subreddit, oh, they hate dumerism over there. They hate hearing people talk about that things are going to get worse. It's not even fatalism. It's just the idea that the trajectory were on and having a belief that humanity is not going to make the changes that it needs to and that we're most likely on this trajectory

4:36that is catastrophic, they hate that, right? And they call it counterproductive. We've talked a lot on this podcast about whether or not it is, right? And maybe the correct mindset to have about the future and the way we talk about climate change or collapse in general. My thought on that topic is that being overly optimistic about something, assuming that it will simply be fixed is what leads to inaction, saying, oh, we've got time. Oh, someone's got their eye on it. Oh, someone will figure it out. Oh, I'm sure humanity will find a way. It puts the onus on somebody else. And if everyone does that, then no one does it. It allows us to bear head in the sand or turn a blind eye instead of admitting the reality of what's coming. It's like that stockdale paradox, right? Which maybe isn't a true paradox, but we've talked about that lots of times here. You have to be able to face the brutal reality of your situation without losing hope that you'll prevail in the end. And I think the real question comes down to what does it mean to prevail in the end?

5:41And what does it mean to have hope for that? Even if you may believe that collapse itself is inevitable. Man, so many questions here, right? As I start the episode, I kind of invite you to take stock of your own mental space on this topic. What do you find yourself believing here? I sure hope you don't just listen to me talk and, you know, take on my cynicism necessarily or, you know, I hope you're getting a diverse set of opinions. And I hope that you are taking the time to put yourself through, you know, your own mental calibration and making sure that you are viewing the future and your feelings about it based on how you function best. I have recently discovered that I love musicals growing up. That was never a part of my life. It wasn't something that my family engaged in. I did not know that I liked musicals. It wasn't until my early 20s, I would say that I discovered basically my first musical, which was Les Mizz, a girlfriend at the time introduced me to it.

6:44This was before the Hollywood version came out. I just went to like a local high school rendition and I was hooked. After Les Mizz came Hamilton, I've since explored many others. And there's many of the classics that I've missed and I'm excited to look into. What I've noticed is the ones that call my attention most are the ones with a heavy societal impact, right? A look at the way society functions, of the way politics function. And for that reason, Les Mizz, Hamilton, Hades Town have all been very high impact. You could say obsessions of mine. Each one of those explores ways that people deal with oppressive systems, highly complex, negative situations, right? Similar to or akin to collapse. In Les Mizz, we get a man who suffers the oppression of a system that is overly aggressive in his punishment through his discovery of his place in society,

7:45of the changes that he can make of fulfillment in his own life, and of overall a people who are fighting to free themselves from an oppressive government. In Hamilton, we've got a people who are fighting again, an oppressive government, overtaxing them of draconian laws and of fighting for a better future. And with Hades Town, which by the way, I feel like Hades Town is one that is maybe lesser known. It hasn't been as big in the spotlight. Maybe until recently, they did come out with the pro shot where you can actually now watch it on Apple or other streaming services. So I highly recommend you do that if you haven't seen it. But in Hades Town, it's using the old story, right, within Greek mythology. And this is the one where the real question that I'm trying to ask in this episode comes up, which is what is the value of fighting when you already know the end of the story? And Hades Town makes that question abundantly clear, I would maybe call it the main theme of the entire show.

8:45If you're familiar with Greek mythology, you know the story of Orpheus and Euridysi. You know the way that that story ends. And at the beginning of this musical, Hermes, our narrator who takes us through the story, tells us as an old song, it's a sad song, an old tale. But we sing it anyway because maybe this time it'll end up different. They take a modern approach, a more modern approach, I should say, kind of depression era, oppression. It is an incredible look at society from a capitalism, from a class structure. It explores the way propaganda works, it explores how the working class or society as a whole might be tricked into believing that, giving up certain freedoms in exchange for a modicum of security is worth it only to find out that's absolutely not the case. Anyway, there is so much that I love about the way that Hades Town looks at society. But the main point and the relevance to this episode is the fact that the story doesn't change.

9:48It doesn't end differently. Even though at the beginning Hermes tells us that it might and that maybe we should hold out hope that it will and when it doesn't and the tragedy unfolds, the way that we should all have known it was going to, it's still a bit of a shock, it still hurts, it's still painful, it's just as tragic as you would have imagined that it would be. And Hermes ends the musical by saying essentially, it's the same sad story, it's the same tragedy that you knew all along, that we all knew all along and yet we tell it anyway. And we're going to tell it again and again and again and again and you're going to keep watching it and you're going to keep hoping for a different outcome and it begs this question of if we know the ending, why do we go through the journey anyway? And this can be asked about so many different things. We know that life ends in death. So what's the point of living? We know that entropy exists on pretty much every level. So what's the point of there being any existence to start with? This is a heavily

10:53subjective question and it's one that each person has to answer on their own. I can't answer that question for you, I can really only answer it for myself and it's one that I've come to a bit of a reckoning with in the last month or so in my personal life. You may remember I took some time off just over a month ago, I mentioned that someone in my personal life was going through some medical issues. That person was my father. It was actually a fairly dramatic week, a fairly dramatic time. He was having some issues that resulted in him going unconscious and we ended up in the ER, him, my mother and I and a brother and we were there as the doctor basically diagnosed him with stage four early stage four colon cancer. He spent a week in the hospital between the initial diagnosis and some surgery. This took place on the week of his birthday, his 60th birthday, and the week of his retirement. He spent his life working towards a retirement and even an early retirement to now spend the very beginning of it in doctor's appointments and chemo and all

11:55the things that come with that. They are treating it as curative, at least according to the oncologist with it, which is hugely an uplift especially from that first week that wasn't necessarily expected. And so we remain positive and optimistic about his response to the chemo and so far it hasn't been you know the chemo itself as brutal as as what we might have worried it would be. Anyway, the idea isn't to get too personal into that or into my dad's life or anything like that, but I have to admit that prior to this I've been extremely disconnected from or naive to mortality and that I haven't had anyone in my close family pass away. Cancer has always been a thing that happens to someone else. You hear about it happening to another family. My grandma just passed away to 100. Her husband lived to 96. My other grandparents lived well into their 80s, late 80s. I had one grandpa who died in his early 70s and so you can imagine the questions that this brings up from a

12:56mortality perspective. For me, you know, a blunt waking up to the fact that life is short. I am extremely privileged in that I've made it this far in my life before I've really had to wake up to that fact. I've always been cognizant of course to the fact that life ends in death and that disease exists and accidents occur and people die in their youth and that and that I could die any time, but the reality of that situation hits you when a loved one is diagnosed with a disease like this. And so I've spent time confronting that life for so many is suffering. Suffering is a part of virtually every existence and just like we are born, we live through life and there are good moments and bad moments. There is pleasure and pain and eventually there is death. So too in society, civilizations are created, they experience ups and downs and so too do civilizations collapse.

13:56Those collapses and on an individual basis, death are guaranteed. It's inevitable and yet this story is one that we keep telling time and time again. We keep doing it anyway and we work to find a meaning in it. And so when I think about that, when I think about the story that Hades Town tells and what I've gleaned from that on my personal level, if failure is inevitable, then hope does not have any merit as a prediction. I don't keep living in order to prevent death. People in societies don't exist, though some certainly try to ensure that society or humanity, whatever it is, continues on forever. I think the actual question that we answer by living is whether or not knowing that something ends necessarily makes striving towards it meaningless. Hello, I'm Monica Reinagle, host of the Nutrition Diva podcast. Summer is here and with it,

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15:59Get started at noom.com. Not all customers will clinically qualify for medications. Individual results may vary. If you zoom out far enough, most human endeavors are going to result in inevitable failure. Relationships with other people, end by separation, or by death, things that we build, decay, civilizations do disappear. Life individually ends. And so do you believe that something can matter because of what it creates while it exists rather than because it has to last forever? In the three plays or musicals that I've just talked about, the people involved have hope for a better future. They have an imagination of what the future could be like, and they strive for that. If they had only resisted the injustice or the oppression because that they knew they would win, they wouldn't have done what they did. Entrenched systems would exist forever in that case.

17:00Now you could say, okay, well, these are musicals, they're fiction. But they're also not. Hamilton tells the story of the American Revolution. Les Mis tells a tale which, yes, creates a fictional story around a real event, which was the French Revolution. Hades Town uses a fictional Greek mythology background to tell our current story, one of oppression in a working class, ownership class relationship. And it imagines what it might require to get out of that relationship. Hades Town also shows that hope hurts, that the act of striving or just being in general hurts. Like I mentioned, life involves suffering to some degree. My dad is suffering cancer, and we as a family are suffering with him as we watch. And much of that suffering comes from empathy. And for there to be a lack of suffering there, for the way that I feel towards my father, it would have to necessitate that I didn't feel that empathy, which meant that I didn't feel that love. But I think of all of the positives that come from the love and that relationship that I have. And I

18:04wouldn't give up the love or the memories, the time spent, the relationship to remove that suffering. Right. That's a non starter for me in Hamilton and in Les Mis. A certain amount of sacrifice is required to bring about the change that they're fighting for. Right. They are risking their lives, for example, to fight. How many countless lives were lost in each one of those revolutions, risks being taken by the main characters in these stories, who start with an idea and a thought, a desire for change. They carry out those thoughts, their imaginations, they fight physically, but also emotionally they fight with their time, with their attention, with the way they speak to other people, with the message that they spread, to imagine a world that is different than the one that they lived in. And they succeed it. And it was messy, both in the fictional story and in real life. If you look at actual history of the French and American revolutions, it was messy. Many didn't make it, but they fought anyway. In Les Mis, they fought seemingly for nothing. Epinine and

19:07Holras and Lecoufaraq and all these fought and died with pretty much the only one making it out, Marius, right. They fought just for the French military to like destroy them. It wasn't even a tough battle. They imagined the people rising up and helping them. They didn't, they were all killed. The revolution was quashed. Eventually, the people did rise up and real change was made. But striving doesn't always have to mean sacrificing everything. It just means not giving up, not letting yourself stop hoping for a better world and living a life that resembles that. That's where my mind sits today. Having hoped for a better future doesn't necessarily mean that we give up everything that we have to obtain it. I think everyone has a part to play in simply imagining a better world and telling others the story of what it could look like. As a society, when we look at the inevitability of collapse, this is not black or white. It's not one outcome. It is a massive spectrum of outcomes, some of which have the potential to lead to a better future. Collapse is not

20:12all doom and gloom as much as it might seem. I say collapse is inevitable, but much of that collapse, certain aspects of that collapse or certain types of collapse, will lead to a better future for humanity, along with the rest of the natural world. D-growth, a plan in which humanity consciously says we need to make some changes, we need to reassess what success looks like, we need to take a look at why we value growth so much. And if we can change the definitions of success, then we can create a planet that is habitable, moving forward, potentially infinitely, that progress is good, but what does progress mean? This still necessitates collapse. There's a reduction in living standards, there's a reduction in population, there's a reduction in energy and consumption. This would be painful, this would include suffering. It is perhaps highly unlikely to happen, but if there is a lack of people being imaginative and trying to tell that story, if there is a lack of

21:15people willing to imagine that world and bring other people along with them on the journey of discovering or playing out what that world could look like, imagining the next steps for what would be required to get there, then it will never happen. If we refuse to talk about or imagine that world, then of course it's not going to come. A lot of people involved in collapse are mis-entropic, meaning they hate humanity. They despise humans. I feel like I can despise what humanity has done without hating humans. Individually, yeah, there are a lot of mean, rude, dumb, evil people that exist in the world, but I think the average human is good, and it may even be great. As a group, we make poor decisions. As a group, we've given power to those humans who are on the bad side of the spectrum. The ones who are willing to extort, to extract, to take without giving back, to hoard, we have allowed a few to gain an unnatural amount of power, and they use that power to defend and

22:20secure that power for themselves. If the average person is good, and maybe in today's world a little misguided, but if they genuinely, for the most part, want what is best for themselves, for those that they love for everyone, from a political perspective because of the control of those few who control everything, the propaganda, the narratives being spewed by politicians, of tribalism, lead people to accuse others, sure, yes, people can be misguided. Humans have the capacity to do so much good, and given enough power, they do have the capacity to do evil. I do truly believe the ones that want to do evil are few. There's a line in Hades Town from a song called Is It True, and it's where Orpheus, who is a naive, idealistic person, he wakes up to the reality of oppressive systems. Some of the lines from that song, he says, if it's true what they say, I'll be on my way, but who are they to say what the truth is anyway? Because the ones who tell the lies are the

23:23solmness to swear, and the ones who load the dice always say the toss is fair, and the ones who deal the cards are the ones who take the tricks, with their hands over their hearts while we play the game they fix, and the ones who speak the words always say it is the last, and no answer will be heard to the question no one asks. So I'm asking if it's true, I'm asking me and you, I believe our answer matters more than anything they say. I believe if there is still a will, then there is still a way. I believe that with each other we're stronger than we know. I believe that we are many, I believe that they are few, and it isn't for the few to tell the many what is true. So I ask you if it's true what they say, I'll be on my way, is it true what they say? So while collapse is inevitable, what that collapse looks like, the amount of human suffering, the outcome, and where things end up afterwards are all still in the air, it can sit anywhere on a scale from at the worst

24:26extinction, the end of all life on the planet, all the way to on the bright side, a situation in which humanity is less, and nature is more, and the humanity that does exist and carries on is one that is more in tune with nature that lives sustainably, that after all of the suffering of those through collapse came out of it a world that is much better off. That may involve humanity still on a relatively large scale and it may not, but it goes back to the idea that that suffering can have meaning, and the more people that fight for that, that work towards a future in which the suffering can lead to a better tomorrow, for other people, for other living things, for nature as a whole, to me that is a life well lived. I am grappling with the fact in my own life that I have not lived that way up till now, that I am perhaps not living that way currently. I am a middle-aged white male living in the United States of America. I don't live the values of degrowth. In reality, the extent of

25:33my fighting for this future, my being imaginative for this future is this podcast, and that's not nothing. It's the part that I play and I'm grateful for it, and I hope to continue it, and I hope to expand its impact and its reach. I hope, and I'll consider this more in the future and figure out what this means, but to expand what I do with this podcast beyond just telling the story of collapse and its inevitability, but how can we build towards this better future? Even though it may defuteile to me that does not take away the merit of trying as hard as I can. In the coming years, I hope to bring my life more in harmony with the ideas of degrowth. Like I mentioned earlier, imagining a better world doesn't have to include sacrifice. It doesn't mean that every one of us needs to sell all our possessions and become homeless and no, that's not what I'm saying at all, and we shouldn't feel guilty for not doing that. But being a part of the story that is telling a better story of the future, that could be exploring and promoting the ideas of degrowth. It could be

26:39fighting fascism. It could be simply standing up for someone who's having a racist insult hurled at them on the street. It could be promoting love and kindness. It could be standing up for the political beliefs and being vocal about those which you feel give us the best chance at a better future. It could be showing up at the protest. It could be fighting flock. It could be helping your friend understand why worshipping billionaires isn't cool. It doesn't have to be a life dedicated to any of these things. But when I think about life and I think about the shortness of life and I think about the number of hours that I spend in a day sitting at a desk working a corporate job, when I think about the inevitability of my own death, maybe I will have a forewarning that it's come. Maybe I will be diagnosed with something that gives me time to consider my life. If so, will I look back and say, I fought for a better world? I was neutral or did I actively work against a

27:42better world? What did I do? I do believe that it has meaning. I do believe that individuals working together in mass have the ability to make large changes. And reaching whatever that desired end goal is, let's say the very far end, the very best case scenario on the spectrum of collapse and future suffering, being able to reduce that the very most possible, even if we don't reach that, any amount of suffering reduced by our actions, even if it is just giving the homeless person on the corner a little bit of food, right? Or even a smile and a wave and a how are you? Harm reduction by an individual means something. And harm reduction by a group of individuals can become contagious until it becomes a movement and then a movement becomes change. And I'm choosing to believe that my own personal minuscule impact is not meaningless even if the outcome is inevitable.

28:43Thank you for joining me today. I know this was a different episode. I'm sorry if it didn't vibe with you. This is one of those things that's highly subjective. Everyone is going to have their own opinions and everyone is entitled to that. This is mine. We'll see you tomorrow. I'm Hannah. I've lost 75 pounds in 20 months with GLP ones plus diet and exercise. On Roe, I've gone from struggling to run a mile to running farther every day. You can access FD approved GLP ones online. Get the support you need to reach your weight loss goals. Go to Roe.co-slash-weight

29:46to see if you qualify. I'm a paid row partner. 20% average weight loss in one year in non-diabatics with obesity or overweight with a weight-related medical condition versus 3.1% in placebo arm. Our ex only. To stay informed about serious side effects, go to Roe.co-slash-safety. Still waiting in line? Again? That's time you'll never get back. Save time and money with stamps.com. Over 4 million businesses have skipped the line with stamps.com. Join them to save up to 90% off-carrier rates from your computer or phone right now. Print postage for certified mail, register mail, and packages in seconds. Then schedule a pickup right from your home or office. For a limited time, go to stamps.com and use code podcast for a free welcome gift. Taxes and fees apply. Hey, Corey here. If you are listening to the back catalog of breaking down collapse, thank you. Those episodes are so vital. They're so important. I also wanted to let you know that I am now doing daily episodes. Yes, that's right. Here on the podcast, daily episodes. So

30:48if you are enjoying the back catalog, great. Please also feel free to zoom forward to the most recent episodes. Catch us daily. They are quick little episodes and I think you'll enjoy them. Thanks.