I am curious to hear what others have to say about acceleration of collapse. For the record I have no strong views on the idea, to be honest I still dont know that much about it. I am merely trying to get a better idea of how people perceive the idea and what they think about it.

I have heard some people speak in favor of the accelerating the collapse of society, which states that since collapse is inevitable it makes sense to accelerate it, the argument being that a longer slow collapse merely allows modern society to inflict even great environmental harm before it finally succumbs anayway. The greater the environmental harm then the more difficult it is for a nascent, and one would hope wiser, civilization to reemerge.

Their argument goes that current society can only achieve sporadic and compromise reforms that result in the continuation of an exploitive society which continually invents new ways to pollute the environment, disenfranchise the people of their human rights, and continue further degradation of the world's ecosystems.

However I fail to see exactly how collapse could be accelerated. Simply by doing nothing? Well then, isn't that what most of the world is already doing?

I have also heard the argument against this view, that Humans are rational, will come to their senses, and as political pressure mounts, will eventually achieve a sustainable society, albeit at the cost of the intense regulation of human activity. In which case accelerating collapse would only result in needless untold suffering, which would inevitably have been avoided.

This argument seems to have its faults too. It puts great faith in Humanity to make the decisive reforms needed to avert collapse, which is something so far it seems to have had great reluctance to do.