We live during interesting times. The global political climate is worsening, social media has warped our understanding of empathy and community, and all capital will soon be in the hands of the same five people.

Sounds gloomy, but many people agree. When it comes to the planet, 42% people from 33 countries believe that parts of their countries will become uninhabitable because of extreme weather. In other bad news, almost half of those living in the U.S. and Western Europe fear that a third world war is likely to start in the next five to 10 years.

But there also are some niche things that most us don’t know. Threats to certain ecosystems, old infrastructure, and complex processes in our oceans are just some of the things people have shared in an online thread under the question “What is currently on the brink of collapse but no one is talking about it?”

#1

Honestly, I’d say the internet. Everything requires an account, everything collects your information, you can’t own anything cause you can only get subscriptions to services. There are way too many social media platforms, which are somehow all owned by the same few mega corporations (Meta, Google, Microsoft etc.) AI is slowly taking over everything and spewing out misinformation left and right.

The appealing thing about the internet used to be how “free” it felt, it wasn’t governed by corporations or governments, and it truly felt like a place where humans could have their own thing in peace. Now it’s treated more like a shopping mall/homeland security checkpoint that also somehow gives you social anxiety and is dangerously addictive because corporations have found the psychological tactics to hook you.

ole-oak:

While the AI makes art and likes it with their own bots, the rest of us can go out to the park and have picnics together 🙂

Image credits: dresscode_trenchcoat

#2

The orca pod known as J-pod, that are residents of the Pudget Sound, are starving as the salmon population is collapsing.

arubablueshoes:

J pod is actually doing better than the others. K pod is down to 14 individuals with the most recent member born in 2022 as of the latest census back in April of this year. The whole SRKW pod is basically screwed. It’s sad.

matt_minderbinder:

Fisheries here in the great lakes are collapsing too. Invasive species and warning waters from climate change completely change the ecosystem. Food patterns are changing as is habitat. It’s a smaller model of what’s happening in our oceans and people are treating it all as if any of this is normal.

Image credits: Inkqueen12

#3

Here in the UK – the water table. Already seen massive drought in the north with unprecedented lack of rainfall this year. Reservoirs and rivers lower than they’ve been in decades. On top of leaking pipes that date back to WW2, and we could honestly be talking about real drinking water shortages in 5-10 years.

TDA_Liamo:

But then we get very wet years like last year. The UK isn’t going to become a desert, but we will see swings from drought to floods, with possible water shortages if a drought goes on for a long time.

AttemptingToBeGood:

The droughty conditions wouldn’t necessarily be a problem usually. The bigger issue is probably the fact our population has grown by 20% officially (the real number is likely higher) since we built our last reservoir, which was in 1992. We have one desalination plant but that has been shuttered for years.
If we have water shortage issues, it will primarily be on the state, not the climate.

Image credits: Overall-Habit5284

#4

Lots of collectively owned private, professional businesses:
Private equity has been relentlessly buying up veterinarian practices, CPA firms, and – I’m sure – all kinds of other businesses so that they can egregiously increase prices, sell everything that isn’t nailed down, cut staff to nothing, then sell the little bit that’s left to some naive future buyer at a hugely inflated cost.

That whole last part isn’t any kind of a secret, either. That’s just how their unconscionable business model operates. Make no mistake though because they’ll get richer, and all the rest of us will pay for it. (Same as it ever was.).

km_amateurphoto:

I work at a Veterinary Hospital and this is 100% happening to us right now. We got bought out about a year and a half ago, our prices have gone up 45%, corporate cut full time hours back to 30-32 hours per week and every shift is a skeleton crew. It really sucks.

Image credits: ChangeForAParadigm

#5

Teachers, not teaching itself, but the whole system around it. So many teachers are underpaid, overworked, and just done. A lot are quitting quietly, or switching careers, and schools are struggling to replace them. It’s kind of scary how fast it’s unraveling but no one’s really screaming about it yet.

brapo68:

As a teacher ill say this. If you ever considered becoming a teacher, now is a great time. Due to the shortage we have all kinds of alt programs to license.
I love my job but I do understand why others dont. School administration, and school culture make the job.
I appreciate someone noticing us by the way.

Image credits: gespog123

#6

A bunch of small ecosystems around the world

We’ve already seen reef habitats collapse. A lot of people don’t seem to understand that the coral isn’t the only thing affected; all of the fish, invertebrates, and reptiles that may live in that area will abandon it when it dies.

Peat swamps are being overharvested and destroyed by the peat moss business. Kelp forests are being destroyed by invasive urchins, certain waterways are being drained for irrigation/commercial use (like the Aral inland sea), wetlands are suffering due to pollution and deforestation is driving out keystone species that are necessary for life in those areas.

And almost all of it is being either directly or indirectly caused by us.

Thinks_22_Much:

Coral reefs also protect huge swaths of the American coastline from storm surge flooding during hurricanes. The collapse of this coral is part of what has contributed to the record flood damage we’ve seen from these storms in recent decades.

Image credits: Icefirewolflord

#7

Bridges, railroad lines, power grids, water pipes – some of them decades old and unstable. (Germany).

JediOrDie:

America is waaaay worse. Somethings you listed are from the 1800’s held together with duct tape.

JustTheBeerLight:

The US has this unique problem that everything was built during the New Deal (30s-40s), so the expiration dates on bridges, dams, roads all run out at the same time.

Image credits: DURAKSTARSde

#8

Critical thinking – humanity is over-reliant on devices and AI to do their thinking for them instead of using tech to enhance their own thinking.

jaylotw:

This is very noticeable in the younger people now. They just can’t figure s**t out with their own brains. They just ask their phone, and accept the easiest answer to deal with.
It’s pretty easy to see here on Reddit, too, in certain subs, and the questions that younger people ask. The questions are generally stuff that they could just…try for themselves…but it’s almost as though they have to ask permission from the internet before possibly making a mistake and having to figure out what went wrong.

Image credits: Rumpleshite

#9

Maybe not on the brink but may be approaching – The AMOC, or Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, is a large system of ocean currents that acts like a conveyor belt, circulating warm and cold water throughout the Atlantic Ocean. This circulation plays a crucial role in regulating global and regional climates by distributing heat and influencing weather patterns. Recent research suggests the AMOC may be slowing down, and there’s a concern about a potential collapse, which could lead to significant climate shifts.

TeacherRecovering:

When the Canadian ice sheets melt, they will input a huge amount of cold water that will cool northern Europe.

Image credits: whoknows370

#10

The Cascadia Subduction Zone.

Altril2010:

There was a really interesting article published a month or so ago about the subduction zone. It turns out that not all the faults are connected. So even when the “big one” hits the way the plates react is going to be slightly different than originally projected. Some areas will be much worse off and a few others may not see as much as an impact. It also means that if one area of the fault slips it doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole zone will.
No evidence for an active margin-spanning megasplay fault at the Cascadia Subduction Zone

Image credits: FangAndBoard

#11

Civilisations decline/collapse over generations – I’d suggest that there is a strong possibility that “the free liberal west” is in the early stages of a multi-generational decline, not unlike that of the Roman empire. Facebook and Netflix are our bread and circuses while around us cultures that are not compatible with our (democratic, egalitarian, progressive, liberal) values are rising to challenge and eventually displace us (think BRICS + ME). It won’t happen in my lifetime, but it is happening.

crazyclue:

Along those lines, I think the democratic political system has gotten so gridlocked, corporatized, social media-centric, bot driven, echo chambered, and machined that it is starting a multigenerational decline itself. The next great civilization will probably come out of some new system, whatever it is, that either totally rejects or uber perfects the current trends in a novel way.
This sort of coincides with the concepts in the book Bowling Alone (at least in my mind), but I don’t think it’s entirely predictive or correct on where the future lies. We haven’t seen big enough quakes in the bedrock yet.

Image credits: jannw

#12

The working class. Hopefully the collapse will wake some folks up but I don’t have a lot of hope when they seem perfectly happy in their caves staring at the shadows.

splendiferousgg:

I truly believe we’re already in indentured servitude leading to full-on labor sl*very for all but the 1%

panaceaXgrace:

That doesn’t seem unrealistic at all. After all they do this already in many countries and I know they are saying us Poors are getting too used to our ‘freebies” like health care and affordable housing.

Image credits: panaceaXgrace

#13

Overly complex appliances, cars, TVs, etc.

I want a toaster that toasts bread without Bluetooth. I want an analog k**b on my and a sliding button that lowers the bread carriage and locks into place. I don’t need LEDs telling me how toasty my toast will be. The only light the toaster should emit is the soft red-orange glow from the heating elements. That’s how I know it works. In fact, I shouldn’t be able to know it’s actually working for at least 3 seconds after the bread carriage has locked into place while I wait for those wires to begin glowing. I don’t need an artificial beep, or ding, or cheesy tune… When my toast is done, I want it to let me know by disengaging the spring loaded bread carriage and sending my toast flying. I want that bread carriage to slam into its original state ready for another set of bread slices so loudly that it wakes my teenage daughters and it pisses them off… “What? Do you not want toast? Thought so.”.

bencciarati:

This is the crazy one to me. Nothing is about retaining customers anymore; the entire economy is about cranking your investment up as high as you can get it by jamming useless shit into your products and software.
Every product needs a new innovation, everything needs to be smart, AI-assisted, with a screen, settings, internet capabilities, a personal assistant, and smartphone controlled. My grandmother recently built a new house and purchased a GE oven that won’t let you turn it on until you connect it to the internet.
Canva, Google, Amazon: these can’t just be useful platforms excelling at one thing, they have to be everything platforms. I don’t want to ask Rufus what material this stainless steel pizza cutter is made out of. I don’t want Google to tell me that I should eat rocks every day bc it’s modeling its data on reddit comments.
I don’t need my washer to sing to me or text me when the spin cycle starts. I don’t want my television to blast my eyes with unskippable ads for the new season of Yellowstone every time I turn it on. I’d rather my car not have a massive iPad in the middle of the dash that leaves no room for analog buttons, causing me to almost be responsible for a fatal 50 car pileup every time I want to change the temp.
“Late stage capitalism” is an overused phrase but money is smoke and something soon will cause it to disappear. Every dollar needs to be profited on and not doing so is seen simply as a catastrophic failure. Every fan needs an app, everything needs to be smart, and every toaster needs an AI assistant, not because it’s useful, but because artificially inflating investment value is the best way for the wealthy to line their already-thick pockets.

Image credits: 1dolla2dolla

#14

The movie industry feels that way in Hollywood right now.

theducks:

Agreed. I used to see several movies per year.. literally the only thing I’ve been slightly interested in seeing was Nicolas Cage’s The Surfer, which sickens me to be honest.

Image credits: THE_TRIP_KEEPER

#15

The Anthropocene.

Anthropocene is a term that has been used to refer to the period of time during which humanity has become a planetary force of change. It appears in scientific and social discourse, especially with respect to accelerating geophysical and biochemical changes that characterize the 20th and 21st centuries on Earth.

Image credits: EatsAlotOfBread

#16

I think our civilization’s ability to write without Generative AI. I believe writing is thinking, and it provides clarity to our thoughts. A vast majority of university students are now relying on services like chat gpt which I believe will eventually affect us in a long run. I don’t have research backing up my claim, and I hope I’m wrong. Regardless, I’m worried.

Image credits: Loose-Web9138

#17

Surprised I didn’t see many posts about insects. We are in a mass extinction event of something like 60% of their population.

EmotionalJellyfish31:

When I mention where have all the bugs gone on the windscreen to people, that’s when they stop and think and realise the same. We have Christmas beetles that used to be everywhere at night at Christmas. I remember playing night tennis with my family and I used to run around saving all the Xmas beetles off the court as a kid and not actually play tennis. Now I have not seen 1 in years. It’s so sad.

Image credits: Senrakdaemon

#18

Chinook salmon. Chinook are their main food source because of the fat content, and they’re on the brink of collapse. I mean, it’s not looking good for all salmon species, but when/if the Chinook go extinct, that’s the first big domino to fall in the Salish Sea ecosystem.

Everchangingbeetroot:

The fact that I know this and people have already been typing this terrifies me. I wish news reported more important matters such as this.

HotGarbage (OP):

I hear you. I’ve been fishing my entire life and used to catch salmon every summer in the PNW and have just watched the runs dwindle down to a trickle. It’s super sad. The news doesn’t really report on it because the US doesn’t really have news anymore, just platforms to spin narratives to make the most money possible. Unfortunately, a story like this wouldn’t make enough people angry to get enough clicks, therefor, not making enough money.

Image credits: HotGarbage

#19

The ‘enrollment cliff’ is starting. This year, the lack of kids born during and after the 2008 recession are starting to graduate high school. In this population pyramid, you can see that starting at the 15-19 age group, birth rates went down and kept going down. Now, it was already going down on average, but right before the recession there was a small uptick that could have been a turnaround.

Any institution that works with high school grads have been panicking for the last few years knowing that this demographic shift is going to happen. Smaller universities have already been closing or merging into the state system. The US military has already been having issues with recruitment (for multiple reasons, not just population). There literally are less kids available to recruit (university, military, trade school, internships, entry level jobs that don’t require college) than the year before. Then, starting in ~4 years, there is going to be difficulty recruiting college grads, for the same reason. Kids and adults going to the trades just compounds this issue.

CynthiaChames:

I also think a large part of it is Gen Z apathy. I’m sure they see their millennial siblings struggling to find secure work with their expensive degrees and wonder why they should invest in college too. 

Image credits: tekalon

#20

*gestures around in general.*

ShoddyInitiative2637:

Everyone wants a better world, except for the few as*holes at the top who are in charge and are hellbent on making sure that we don’t get what we want so they can keep their profits.
They learned long ago that if they can manage to keep people distracted fighting with each other, they can do whatever they want.
This is why the news is a 24/7 broadcast of the most sensational but irrelevant bullsh*t, and politics is a two party mud throwing contest . They’ll never tell you or let you vote on the truly important things.
The US political system is completely rigged to keep it that way. Congress repealed the secret ballot in 1970, and fed you some bullshit about needing to know how your congressmen vote. The problem with that is, that without the secret ballot, you completely enable the rich to buy, intimidate or coerce every single important vote. They’ve have 55 years now to rig politics in their favor, and they have done so with unfathomable success.
I’d even go so far as to say that there is no chance anymore of a fair election or good politician ever being able to completely fix things. It’s so utterly broken that the only way to ever fix the US political system, and the same goes for many other countries, is a violent uprising where the entire thing is scrapped in one go and we start over.

Image credits: Negative_Win3898

#21

Private Equity is full on bubble. They are buying into every market and leveraging it to the hilt. I’m talking debt priced at SOFR plus 6. If this economy takes a turn, this s**t will burst and take down plenty of businesses/employees.

Count2Zer:

I work for a PE-owned company.
This is happening. They sold the real estate – the company campus and buildings – to another company in their portfolio. So, the company now has to pay rent for buildings that it used to own. It’s all about “increasing the multiplier” and “maximizing EBITDA” … and everything is based on short-term (quarterly) reporting.
Our ERP system is going end-of-life in about 6 years. We KNOW that we have to start a project to select, design, build, and migrate all processes and data into a new ERP system. But, this is an 8-digit project (I’d estimate about 25 to 30 million Euros) with no ROI. It’s all about risk reduction, not profit generation.
The shareholders and board of directors have made it clear that the project will not be approved – it’s clearly seen as “2030? We’ll be long gone by then, so it’s not our problem!”
At this point, it’s becoming my attitude as well. I’ll be retiring in 2031 latest. It won’t be my problem to solve, but I do feel sorry for my younger colleagues…

Image credits: thebengy66

#22

Food prices are about to skyrocket in the US. Due to certain outside factors, farms are reporting 80% of their workers arent showing up. They don’t have the manpower to harvest the crops, some of which need to be harvested wiithin a one day window. Farmers fear they may spoil on the plant. There is the possibility of food shortages, and may have a major ripple effect throughout the world due to the US role as a major food exporter.

Image credits: Miserable_Smoke

#23

The US.

Blenderhead36:

The imminent collapse of the US is possibly the most-talked-about thing in the world. I’ve had to stop listening to multiple podcasts that are not about current events because of how much time they were devoting to the imminent collapse of the US.

Image credits: Visual-Try4051

#24

Pretty much the entire US. But if you want to cite one specific thing, the civil infrastructure: roads, dams, bridges, sewers, etc. It’s all little more than painted-over rust. We are headed for some major disasters in the country, and it won’t be because illegal aliens are picking lettuce or because the library has a gay book in it.

Picture this: it’s 2029, and The Big Quake finally hits LA. Now mainly due to the state’s super-strict earthquake building codes (or as Republicans call them, “job-killing regulations”), the surface damage and deaths are relatively light. But underground, it’s a different story. Hundreds of miles of aging sewer lines collapse into rubble, and for months–maybe years–nobody in downtown LA can flush a toilet. Think people might get interested in the topic THEN?

Image credits: DrColdReality

#25

The internet. It’s getting slower, more ads, more paywalls… And somehow we’re okay with it.

Scorpiodancer123:

It’s also just more sh*t. I click on a story, it’s written by AI, shoddy spelling, grammar and sentence construction, such that some “articles” barely make sense. Assuming I can even read them amongst the adverts and still assuming the entire article isn’t just an advert in itself.
And then I get to have a dozen other articles about the same content, “written” in almost the same words by another organisation.
Even reputable agencies are getting worse. Never thought I’d turn off “BBC Breaking News” – once a national tragedy or global crisis of major importance now any old bit of news they haven’t reported yet or some “celebrity” bollocks.
Google has gone beyond shit for finding information and searching fucking Gmail for an email is an absolute sh*t show.
Needing an account or even an app for absolutely fucking everything while we hand over our information to companies “who value our privacy and promise to look after our data” who then get a “data breach” which is basically code for “sold off”.

Image credits: resinvietart

#26

Firehouse Subs, the other day they sent a 50% off your order by ordering online, within 20 minutes of ordering the 50% off order they sent a free sub with any purchase coupon in an email. I walked out of that place with an additional sub for the price of a cookie. They got to be going belly up, with all the coupons they send out.

Image credits: biologic6

#27

Colleges.

CynthiaChames:

My dad works at an admission office for a community college and they’re having a hard time filling classes. I also worked at a high school-to-college transition program and we had to pivot our curriculum because an increasing number students were more interested in trades. We all got laid off because, amongst other things, we couldn’t fill our quota for college acceptances. There was just so little interest. 

Image credits: Setthescene

#28

The worlds natural ecosystems.

#29

Produce. Immigrant farm workers are either in ICE detention and being processed for deportation, or they’re justifiably too scared to be available. Nobody else has the intestinal fortitude to do the work. Fruit and veg aren’t showing up on store shelves — they’re all out rotting in fields and orchards.

#30

Between climate change (frequency & severity of storms) and inflation/tariffs (cost to repair), the insurance industry is taking a huge hit.

Premiums are on the rise to try to offset it, which as a consumer I’m not happy about either, but a few more major catastrophes and even the largest, most stable carriers could belly up.

#31

Everything.

Bottom half of the entire u.s. population only own 2.5% of wealth. Wages have stagnated for decades, costs have soared.

Guess what? Consumer spending is finally so low that Mcdonalds is begging people to come back. Small businesses are dropping like flies.

Theres about to be a whole lot of people homeless in a decade.

The people living paycheck to paycheck a few years ago are now homeless. Cycle repeats.

Then you have rampant corruption, all the U.S. media is owned by 6 companies.

Few countries are much better in terms of income/spending.

#32

All economies are speeding toward techno feudalism at 500 mph. The greed may k**l us all.

#33

Society. We are living through unprecedented technological and econonomical upheaval and I think almost everyone can feel it. The fabric that holds our communities and societies together is slowly unraveling.

#34

Bees. They are basically gone. I seen two this summer so far and I have extensive gardens planted with native species.

#35

The AMOC currents.

#36

I mean, human civilization truthfully but people are talking about it. Especially the United States. It’s being discussed but people are convinced something like that can’t happen. Ya know because powerful countries and civilizations have NEVER collapsed before.

#37

NASA.

#38

Us constitution.

#39

The Gulf Stream.

#40

Restaurant industry. What use to be a once a week treat or every payday is now every few months. Night out now cost a week’s worth of groceries.

#41

Western civilization. Crumbling infrastructure, regulatory capture, increasingly authoritarian governments with autocratic aspirations, idiocracy of the masses. It’s all lining up.

#42

Humanity.

#43

The world.

#44

Hope. Desire to live.

#45

Democracy.

#46

Fireflies.

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