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On the Fear of the Future (extracts from the upcoming book: #1) by Tadzio Mueller

!Epic Tomorrows

Republished with permission from the blog of Tadzio Mueller, Peaceful Sabotage

On the fear of the future

Everywhere you look, fear is rampant. Fear of war and climate catastrophe, fear of reptilians and migrants, fear of job loss, rent increases, and all-powerful billionaires (sic!). The rich are building bunkers, the European Union is adopting asylum procedures where no one in Europe actually has to see the asylum seekers, global military spending is reaching new record highs, and politicians are driven by the fear of the coming fossil fuel revolt, which is as inevitable after the Iran war and the global energy crisis as the sausage porn photo on Markus Söder’s Instagram account.

But can this really be true: that fear is something that “we all”, or at least many of us, “share”? The statement doesn’t seem entirely coherent, even counterintuitive, when we look at the political discourses of our time. With the exception of the political discourse of the AfD and other right-wing extremist forces (more on that later), we find very few stories about fear. Even in the 2025 federal election campaign, the Greens plastered their posters with the slogan “Confidence!”, and while the narratives told by the current federal government do contain some references to complex crises, major dangers, and difficult challenges, (as I write this, a massive “reform package” is being negotiated within the coalition) nothing about it should cause fear; it’s all solvable, they claim, if only the right reforms, tax cuts, and gifts to capital were implemented. Sure, it’s a crisis, but crises have been ongoing ever since the global financial crisis of 2007, then the Euro crisis, then the “migration crisis,” then the Corona crisis, then the first energy crisis (2022) and the second… So, crises are constant anyway, and so far, we’ve always managed to get through them somehow. Why, then, be afraid, or at least, why admit to it?

The middle class’s fear of division

The search for “fear” in political discourse must therefore necessarily be indirect, because fear of collapse is rarely articulated; it is repressed, hidden behind other issues, anxieties, and accusations. It is a bit like a solar eclipse, an event that produces so many extreme effects that looking at it directly would be too dangerous, too confusing, too destabilizing. Or like dark matter in space, which we cannot see directly because it does not interact with light (in our analogy: rational reflection), but which has all sorts of gravitational effects in the real world from which we can draw conclusions about its existence.

One example of this is the discussion about a possible “division” or “polarization” of German society, and how this could be prevented or, if it truly existed, reversed. For example, the well-known sociologist Steffen Mau, the author of *Trigger Points of Time* says that “division (is) a fear scenario,” then explains to the German upper middle class in its courtly Pravda that the deep fear of society falling apart is unfounded, that “most people” still “group themselves in the broad middle.” What appears to be a narrative about sociological facts is actually, on the far more powerful level of emotional communication, a kind of paternal “no, dear child, you don’t need to worry, things are still as you know them, as you like them to be.” This is at least as much therapy as sociology, because when we feel fear, we seek out discourses, choosing from the various political discourse products offered to us in the highly mediated world we live in precisely those that make us feel the least bad.

When “the center” discusses polarization or division, it is expressing its deep, fundamental fear of losing control over society, of heading towards a future with likely far fewer, or at least far more contested, privileges. The narrative of the center, that one must combat “societal division,” is primarily the fear that there is no longer enough “common ground” to hold society together and maintain the center in its rather comfortable position of power. And since, from the perspective of bourgeois society, “division” can best be combated with “reason” and “communication,” which are then contrasted with the perpetual “culture war” from the right and “identity politics” from the left—communication that thus distinguishes the center from “the extremes”—we ultimately arrive at a discourse that simply says: no matter what the problem is, we just need to do more of what we already considered right, and then we’ll solve it. Yes, we are afraid that the world is changing, but if we simply don’t change anything and just remain as we are now, then we no longer need to be afraid.

My favorite and cautionary example of such discourse comes from the intellectual doyen of the black-green wing of the taz newspaper, Peter Unfried: the asserted. Not too long ago, he claimed that “without a functioning democracy, a market economy, and a strong center… there can be no climate policy,” that global warming doesn’t fit into the concept of “either the far right or the far left,” and from this he concluded that it was finally time for some reasonable (i.e., centrist) adults to sit down and find a rational compromise: “’compromise is the new progressive.’” This is quite clever: the potential division of society is identified as a problem—the fear of it is real and cannot simply be ignored by producers of political discourse—but then it’s immediately rolled back into the paternalistic reassurance that the adults will now sit down together again and solve things the way they’ve always been solved up there: through the ideology-free, reasonable, universally Habermasian discourse of societal elites. Here, too, the mode of dealing with fear in the democratic political discourse of our time becomes apparent: the problems are briefly acknowledged, there is a brief nod towards acceptance, only to then return to a narrative in which things do not have to change fundamentally, will not change fundamentally, in which, as is usual in fairy tales, everything turns out all right in the end.

The affective surplus

The problem with these pragmatic, fatherly political discourses, in which every problem can be solved by a little more of what we’ve always considered right anyway—leftists, for example, believe that a little redistribution would solve the climate problem, pragmatic Greens believe that building, buying, and driving a few more electric cars would solve the climate problem, precisely what has been demanded for decades—is that they fundamentally go against the emotional impulse of those they are meant to convince. Yes, we seek discourses that alleviate our fears, but when these discourses almost obsessively assume that problems can be solved, they easily give listeners the impression that it’s not about their feelings at all, not about them, but rather about communicating to them that their feelings are unnecessary, exaggerated, or even part of the problem itself. This leads to people turning away from these narratives because those experiencing strong emotions usually don’t want their feelings (fear) to be reversed (reassured) in communication – they want their feelings reflected and validated; they aren’t initially looking for a solution. When a good friend constantly told me about her boy troubles , she didn’t want to hear how she could overcome them; she simply wanted to be heard and seen, and not put under pressure to find a solution.

The collective emotional states—or affects — that underlie politics produce an “affective surplus” in relation to the political discourses that articulate them; they cannot be fully captured by these discourses, especially not by those whose stated goal is to deprive people of precisely the feeling that currently shapes their perception. If the everyday perception of many people is increasingly dominated by fear—I mean, why are more and more people, even full-time political professionals I know, increasingly engaging in news avoidance ? Because the world is increasingly filled with fear and negativity – and because the political narratives of our time only superficially acknowledge, reflect, and validate this feeling – the sense remains that the unreflected feeling is somehow shameful: that having “fear” is a sign of one’s own “defeatism”, that “fear” is an emotion that is primarily exploited “by the right”, and which we therefore shouldn’t feel all the time, that fear is, in a certain sense, an infantile turning away from the world, while the enlightened person (preferably a man for the sake of simplicity) faces the certainly solvable problems of our time without fear and with a great deal of rationality.

And as every good sex worker knows: the simplest way to manipulate people, to build a relationship with them in which they feel accepted and comfortable—more comfortable than in other contexts—is to acknowledge and validate their real but hidden feelings and desires. Someone who constantly has to suppress a strong feeling and then finds a place where that feeling is “accepted” will always gladly return to that place. At that point, it doesn’t really matter whether a remotely realistic solution is proposed for the problem that triggers the feeling, because, as already mentioned, for people, their feelings aren’t primarily about resolution, but rather about their acknowledgment. And since global ecological collapse triggers strong negative feelings, political discourses that cannot truly acknowledge the collapse, its insolubility, or the resulting fear leave behind an easily manipulated affective surplus that can now be articulated by political entrepreneurs and steered in a desired political direction…

Donald Trump, or: how does political communication work?

…from political entrepreneurs, such as… Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is without question the greatest political communication genius of the postmodern era. Seriously , the fact that this repulsive orange-skinned baby man was elected twice to the most powerful political office in the world—the second time as a convicted coup plotter with significant health problems, and after announcing his intention to rule as a dictator right at the start of his term (but “only for a day”), and still with a respectable majority—has by no means been sufficiently reflected upon in terms of what it means for our understanding of effective (and affective) political communication.

Of course, one could simply say that politicians always lie, people fall for these lies, and Trump’s lies cater to the reactionary views of his supporters. That may be true for part of his base, but it certainly doesn’t apply to all Trump voters. And it ignores a fact already described in 2016, during his first presidential run : “Many of his supporters don’t believe Trump’s wild claims—but they don’t care,” as the Washington Post wrote. They support him not because of, but in spite of, his positions. They aren’t concerned with ‘substance,’ which in turn explains why it never hurts Trump to be “exposed” in a lie (although, frankly, the very category of “lie” seems somewhat anachronistic when discussing and trying to understand Trump).

This is about much more than a lying politician. Trump’s political discourse is a prime example of what is called post-factual politics in Germany. The English term ” post-truth politics” goes further, however, because truths are more than just facts. While the German term gives the impression that only certain facts are being questioned, and the bourgeois-Enlightenment context in which they exist remains intact, the English term indicates that the entire conceptual framework within which facts make sense is being shaken. Trump’s political statements no longer articulate classical claims to truth. Therefore, they cannot be combated with the traditional weapons of ideological critique. For a situation in which Trump can say whatever he wants, only to claim the opposite in the next breath—and in which this doesn’t harm him— the comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term “Trumpiness” on his satirical show “The Late Show.”

Trump’s supporters don’t follow a candidate who rationally justifies his political program, who appeals to their economic interests. They follow someone who feels what they feel: the anger and the disappointment, but above all, and more importantly, the yearning for recognition, for belonging again, for being someone—for having agency. “Make America(ns) feel great again.” For Colbert, Donald Trump is therefore the politician of our time: “an emotional megaphone for voters full of anger.” His actions create affective resonance. His supporters don’t cheer the content of his words, but the fact that there is someone standing there who gives them a sense of strength and relevance they haven’t felt for decades.

This means that political communication, contrary to what hegemonic West German Habermasianism suggests, does not function through substantive agreement, or even as a Popperian process of constantly falsifying hypotheses. Instead, it functions through the construction of emotional resonances, sympathetic vibrations between subjects. Of course, this analysis is not particularly new; Spinoza already argued in his Tractatus Politicus that people are “led more by passion than by reason,” and the most effective form of communication of our time, capitalist advertising, has long since internalized it. But we still seem to have largely failed to understand this fundamental fact of political communication, to have not yet integrated it into our strategies. For the only political actor with mass appeal who seems to take seriously how much fear people in this country have of an increasingly bleak future is, unfortunately, the AfD.

Ecology of the absurd, South Korea

The Threshold of the Monsoon

!Epic Tomorrows

by YOON JAEMIN

A temporary but urgent call to action! Centre of the Web partner Versy Talks is kindly running a free public online debate about the publishing industry from 21st to 31st May 2026. It does not take long to take part in the debate and state your opinion, and everyone is welcome! Sharing your voice will help boost both COTW and Versy Talks. Please help us grow, so that we can platform diverse and underrepresented voices from around the world. More information can be found here.

There is a certain “myth” about Korean geography and climate, passed down among those born and raised in Korea, though one senses its meaning gradually fading with age. “A peninsula surrounded by seas on three sides.” “A climate with four distinct seasons.” These are deeply familiar notions of the homeland’s nature and landscape for those born and educated in the south of the Korean Peninsula in the latter half of the twentieth century and after. From early childhood, Koreans were taught to recognize the Korean Peninsula and its surrounding islands—the constitutional territory of the Republic of Korea— as “our country,” likened to the shape of a rising tiger. We believed that the 365 days of this fierce tiger-shaped land, roaring toward northeastern China with the Taebaek Mountains as its spine, were painted in the ever-shifting colors of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The “distinct four seasons of the complete Korean nation-state,” stretching from Mount Paektu to Mount Halla, formed one of the foundational images of nation and landscape in the minds of Korean children.

To a certain extent, this was grounded in reality. For more than eighty years, the two governments on the Korean Peninsula have regarded each other with hostility while each claims the tiger-shaped peninsula facing the continent as its homeland. The climate, too, is severe and mercurial. In the central region of the peninsula where I was born and have lived for nearly forty years, every year brings heavy snow and bitter cold during the year’s end and beginning, followed by summer heat soaring well above 30 degrees Celsius from June through August. Such cycles have long shaped the rhythms and lifeworlds of ordinary Koreans like myself. Spring and autumn—the transitional periods between winter and summer—were relatively mild seasons, moments of temporary recovery for bodies and minds exhausted by the brutality of the extremes.

Yet Koreans, myself included, also know that this “myth” is slowly collapsing. Our actual lived experience as Koreans educated and raised in Korea increasingly compels us to doubt it. As is well known, the practical territory of Korea for most Koreans is limited to the land south of the Military Demarcation Line, which stretches in a wavering curve from Baengnyeong Island in the west to Goseong County in Gangwon Province in the east. We were taught to regard Mount Paektu, rising 2,744 meters along the Yalu River bordering China, as “the sacred mountain of our people” and “the highest mountain in our country.” Yet from South Korea there is no way to visit “our territory” on Mount Paektu directly. The only possible route is through China, and even then one may only stand on the land outside the territory effectively controlled by North Korea. For this reason, many South Koreans, myself included, tend in practice to think of Mount Halla on Jeju Island, standing 1,947 meters above sea level, as the nation’s highest peak. The collective imaginary geography of a fierce tiger peninsula divided by the Military Demarcation Line often diverges from the actual geographical sensibilities of Koreans like myself. For South Koreans, whose human and material exchanges with North Korea are completely severed, the Republic of Korea is effectively an island.

There is equally much to say about the climate. “Four distinct seasons”? Controversial though it may sound, I increasingly feel that spring and autumn are disappearing from Korea. The 365 days of the year seem to be collapsing into the two brutal extremes of summer and winter. This is not merely a personal impression. According to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the average annual temperature of the Korean Peninsula rose by 1.6 degrees Celsius over roughly a century, from 1912 to 2020. The rate of warming, moreover, continues to accelerate. Over the past thirty years (1991–2020), summer has lengthened by an average of twenty days, and the trend is expected to intensify further. Rising temperatures have caused spring and autumn to converge into summer. As a result, unlike in the past, we now experience the year as though we pass abruptly from summer into winter, having lost the buffer zones once provided by spring and autumn.

What was it like in the past? Consider Monsoon (1935), a work by the celebrated modernist writer Yi Tae-jun (1904–1978) from colonial-era Korea. The story unfolds at the threshold of summer after spring has passed, during the humid and sweltering season Koreans call the ‘Jangma,’ the East Asian monsoon rains. Traditionally, the monsoon season has been difficult for Koreans to endure. Premodern living spaces on the peninsula, designed primarily to survive the harshest period of the year—the winter—were ill-suited to withstand a hot, humid climate that brought nearly thirty percent of the annual rainfall. The narrator, “I” (effectively Yi Tae-jun himself), feels the same. For a man drifting through colonial Korea under Japanese rule without any real occupation, passing his days idly, the monsoon season is unbearable in every sense. Each morning he must wake to the damp smell of mold clinging to the bedroom, bedding, and bookshelves. His wife suffers as well. The oppressive humidity filling the house aggravates her already frayed nerves over their meager household finances. It is hardly surprising that arguments erupt between them. Irritated by his wife’s nagging, “I” has little choice but to leave the house and wander the streets.

Yet he has nowhere in particular to go. He merely drifts endlessly through the humid, sweltering boulevards of colonial Seoul. Thus “I,” as an anonymous urban subject, surrenders himself to the fluid dynamism of metropolitan space, wandering aimlessly in thought. He hopes to run into friends such as Yi Sang and Gubo—modernist writers of colonial Korea, much like Yi Tae-jun himself—men who share his circumstances. But the city does not permit such encounters. There is no special reason for it. His small gamble of going out that day simply fails. Nothing changes. It is only an ordinary afternoon during the monsoon season, much like all our urban walks.

The reality of Korea in the mid-1930s was deeply complex. The Great Depression had made ordinary life even more difficult. Meaningful employment for Korean intellectuals—second-class citizens within the imperial order—was extremely scarce. The narrator’s wandering through the city captures the unremarkable everydayness of that era. His groundless optimism that he might accidentally meet fellow Korean writers in similar circumstances forms the other side of the same coin as his powerlessness before reality. In Gyeongseong, the colonial capital of Korea and a forward base for the Japanese military’s invasion of China, Koreans endured each day under intensifying ideological repression and growing intellectual humiliation.
And yet, the worst had not yet arrived. The people of colonial Korea were unknowingly waiting for the total-war era of the 1940s that would soon descend upon them. Of course, neither the narrator nor anyone else knew the fate awaiting them. But while strolling through a colonial Seoul outwardly more glamorous and bustling than ever before, “I” suddenly voices a reflection that seems almost prophetic of the catastrophe to come:

“I transferred to the streetcar at Anguk-dong. It may be Anguk-machi now, but it still feels right to call it Anguk-dong. I cannot help but resent how every dong and ri has been entirely transformed into machi. To regulate culture solely according to the efficiency of business is a misguided importation of Nazism. (…) At this rate, in a few years they may even decide that names like Lee, Kim, Park, and Jeong are too disorderly, and find some way to control citizens’ personal names as well.”

Remarkably, this did in fact come to pass only a few years later. Under the military regime’s radical expansionist policies and in the name of Pan-Asianism, the people of colonial Korea were mobilized into the total-war system and forced to adopt Japanese names in place of their Korean ones. Seen in this light, the narrator’s insight is astonishing. Yet he did not seriously predict the future. It was merely a passing thought during an idle urban stroll.

Now, nearly a century later, in the year 2026, I often walk through the old downtown districts of Seoul where Monsoon was set whenever I feel restless. A brutal winter during which I suffered badly from influenza has finally passed, and I am writing this essay at the threshold of a summer that seems to grow shorter every year. Korea will soon enter the monsoon season again. The monsoon is not the harshest season for Koreans. It is unpleasant and melancholy, but it is not the worst. The worst is yet to come. That is what I feel now. Nor is it merely a premonition about the climate. Like Yi Tae-jun before me, I stand at the threshold of the monsoon and sense keenly that the world’s worst days have not yet arrived. What will become of the world ahead? I pray for everyone’s well-being.

COTW journey & strategy

Versy Talks—Centre of the Web sponsored debate: Did the internet really democratize publishing?

!Epic Tomorrows

Introduction

Centre of the Web (COTW), a new alternative online literary platform, is thrilled to announce a booster event in collaboration with Versy Talks, a complete online debating platform, with community participation, professional debate coaching and tons of debate drills. 

This debate is titled Did the internet really democratize publishing? It started on 21st May and will finish on 31st May, and Versy is generously sponsoring the debate, offering a $25 prize, divided between 5 debaters with the most votes on their arguments. You can take part for free. 

COTW enthusiastically encourages all its contributing writers, subscribers and readers to take part in the debate during the debate period. This will help with COTW`s mission to contribute to a global revitalization of human literature during this crisis-ridden but epic period of human history, encouraging diverse and underrepresented voices from around the world to share their thoughts and stories all in one place, on a dynamic and globally interconnected platform. This aligns with the purpose of Versy Talks to promote structured debates and insightful discussions, where debaters can explore their commonalities and points of difference, to contribute to a more harmonious online culture.

More on the debate

It has been argued that the internet has democratized publishing so that these days, almost anyone in the world has the opportunity to get heard and read. However, inequalities remain, including who really makes it as a writer, who is widely read, and who is really likely to be picked up by the big publishers. In the sponsored Versy debate we ask: Did the internet really democratize publishing?! We invite debaters to consider how far the internet-led democratization of publishing is an illusion, and how far the same old inequalities that existed in the traditional print publishing of the 20th Century, still exist now. Also, how much is the best or most interesting writing published, compared with what sells, and do authors who are already well-connected still have a massive advantage, as well as those who have internet publishing skills? (Not everyone understands how to manage a blog, for example). All printed media and publishing should be considered within this debate, from newspapers, through blogs, to e-books and physical books and everything else.

COTW call for submissions

COTW would also like to announce that they are actively looking for written contributions from around the world. We currently only publish in English, but eventually we intend to publish in several languages. Contributors are welcome to submit writing in their native language, where we can negotiate translation using AI tools. This is not yet a paying market, but it is a chance for you to get your voice heard, and to receive free editing advice. The bigger you can help COTW grow, the quicker we can get to the point where we can start paying contributors! Flash fiction is encouraged, as are diary pieces, giving insights into the daily lives of diverse human beings, especially (but not necessarily) those living in difficult conditions or going through interesting times. Other types of creative writing are also encouraged, but please note: we are not accepting poetry at this time. Short essays, articles, blog-style posts, journalistic pieces and arts reviews will also be considered. For more ideas, please browse the different post categories by navigating from the WRITING tab in the menu at the top of the COTW frontpage. All submissions should be sent to the editors at the email address: epictomorrows@gmail.com Thanks!

Ecology of the absurd

World War Three / WWIII (Part 1: Venezuela)

!Epic Tomorrows

This series of posts is written in association with the Epic Tomorrows project. Epic Tomorrows is due to relaunch in the middle of 2026. Watch this space.

I hold the following to be true:

  1. Modern civilization is undergoing Collapse. For more on this, I recommend that you start here: https://www.collapsologie.fr/en/
  2. Countries and governments realise that the climate crisis, and underlying ecological overshoot, are not globally solvable within capitalism in any meaningful way that does not end GDP growth, and that the so-called green transition is not ultimately workable within capitalism. Rather than implementing globally coordinated socialism and massive economic / energetic-industrial degrowth (which would be necessary to mitigate the Collapse that is currently unfolding due to the climate crisis, ecological overshoot and the associated debt-based infinitely growing fantastical global economic system) many countries and governments are preferring, consciously or in a self-deceiving way, to pursue a last-man standing approach to global resources and the climate crisis. Countries / governments are therefore grabbing what global oil reserves remain and foolishly assuming adaptation to, rather than mitigation of, extreme climate collapse.
  3. It is assumed by most countries that capitalism will / must continue, still based on fossil fuels for the time being, and whether consciously or in a self-deceiving way, it is assumed that a pathway of war —ideally a total all-consuming world war— could help mitigate global Collapse and allow capitalism to continue, by stimulating a global war economy and simultaneously depopulating the world to a significant degree, and crippling some major economies, with the sum result of a lower ecological footprint of humanity on the planet, thus mitigating the climate crisis and ecological overshoot to some extent (and advancing some so-called national interests at the expense of some other national interests). This disgusting plan / pathway does not however specifically account for global GHG emissions produced by the military sector, and associated destruction of ecosystems and food systems even within the so-called victorious countries.
  4. Civilizational Collapse may indeed be relatively subverted / delayed by a global war, but ultimately such a war is likely to lock in an acceleration of Collapse, as war and Collapse scenarios share common points which feed off each other, such as infrastructure and supply chain disruption and degradation, the break down of law and order, massive pollution and destruction of ecosystems, the reliance on fossil fuel energy / weapons systems etc. Apart from the energetic-ecological, industrial, and geopolitical impact of a global war, of course it cannot be morally justified.
  5. The US administration of Donald Trump has been quite open that control of Venezuela`s oil industry is a central motivation for the recent invasion. Control will be given to American oil companies, it has been announced. This fits with the narratives presented above. (This is despite other lesser motivations, such as distracting from the Epstein files, and curbing immigration from Venezuela; the claim of attacking Venezuela to stop the flow of drugs is of course false, as the US DEA has itself stated that the vast majority of cocaine and fentanyl do not enter the US from Venezuela. Of course, attacking Venezuela is seen as more socially acceptable than attacking Mexico, from where more drugs enter the US, as president Maduro is / was a dictatorial leader in some respects, but using the drugs argument has some symbolic value amongst the American people). Many citizens of Venezuela are happy that Maduro has been arrested, but this does not justify the true motivations of the Trump administration.
  6. Within the context of all of the above, the global knock-on effects of the US invasion of Venezuela and the lack of intervention from other NATO / UN members could include: greater confidence of other NATO / UN members in invading other countries without recourse, whether for arbitrary reasons, especially to secure oil and other resources, or for apparently more logical reasons, such as the reunification of China; a further acceleration in the disintegration of the so-called international rules based order established after WWII, including NATO, the UN and economic bodies like the IMF —a disintegration which includes a decline in the global hegemony / purchasing power of the US dollar; an increased impetus for movements for global social justice, but also for terrorist activities against the US and US allies.
  7. The Trump administration`s neocolonialism as exemplified by the recent invasion, alongside its policy of global tariffs aimed partly at trying to avoid the increasing insecurity of global infrastructures and supply chains in times of Collapse, could be seen as a last desperate attempt to maintain America`s global energy dominance and economic hegemony. This could be the beginning of the end (within a decade or two) for a prosperous America and by implication a prosperous West in general. The so-called collapse of the West is only a subtrend or precursor to a more comprehensive / global Collapse of modern civilization.
  8. I do not see the invasion of Venezuela as the beginning of World War Three / WWIII, like many sensationalist YouTube videos claim to, for example. However, such events as this could certainly help destabilise international relations to prepare the ground for a potential global war. I perceive such a war to be likely but not certain, as opposed to Collapse in general, which I see as certain / already underway. (Note, the current level of armed conflict around the world has not been this high since WWII.)
  9. Collapse is a process and not an event, and likewise global war. There will always be room for pockets of humanity to live in peaceful, inspiring and internationally cooperative ways, however difficult this may be to achieve. And some countries will fare better than others. It is the mission of Epic Tomorrows (to be relaunched this year) to help facilitate such islands of coherence, even amidst war and Collapse.