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The original was posted on /r/collapse by /u/Ok_Main3273 on 2024-07-14 09:02:37+00:00.

Asking clever Redditors for a likeness to help explain what we are experiencing now.

Often used are similitudes with the Titanic, a runaway train, or a free falling plane. However, these analogies are flawed because everybody on board were affected the same way at the same time, e.g. all the Titanic passengers had to suddenly escape drowning in frigid waters (even if those reaching lifeboats had better chances to survive than others). A plummeting plane will end up with everybody screaming and hitting earth at supersonic speed in a mighty crash (while some might still be enjoying a last glass of champagne in first class).

Our current Collapse, however, is better seen as ‘death by a 1000 cuts’ (each crisis amplifying each other in a polycrisis bigger than their sum), mixed with ‘the boiling frog’ experiment (where it is hard for many people to realize the condition they are in) and offering a wide range of local issues (seawater ingress in Florida vs. forest fires in Siberia vs. fisheries extinction in Cambodia) including different timelines (New Zealand passport, anyone?)

So is there a well known scenario, taken from real life or popular culture, that could capture all of the above to illustrate what we are experiencing? I can’t come up with anything.

SS: This is relevant to the r/collapse subreddit as we need to find an easy-to-understand way to convey the gravity but also the complexity of the situation to those around us.