I No Longer Have Hope: Living Fully in a Collapsing World

Journalist, activist, and bestselling author, Sarah Wilson, spent three years researching civilisational collapse and wrote her way through it on Substack with 65,000 readers, and ended up with a Penguin bestseller being translated into six languages. Working through her own grief, sadness, and frustration, we got a book that reads like a hand-held journey into the reality many of us have been avoiding.

In this episode, Rufus and Sarah discuss why no one is really to blame — and why that realisation, far from being a cop-out, is the beginning of something. Drawing on the game theory of Moloch, Sarah explains how we all ended up trapped in a system that serves no one, not even the tech bros building bunkers inside it. And she shares about her realisation that the truth, however heavy, brings a cognitive relief that false hope never could.

“No one is to blame and yet we’re all to blame. And once that hit me, I developed this huge compassion for humans.”

Sarah Wilson spent three years writing this book, going where most people wouldn’t, intellectually, but also bodily, running through forests, crying it through, learning to bear it. What comes out the other side is different to the forced hope the climate movement failed to deliver. It’s steadier. What does it actually mean to be human at this particular moment in history? For Sarah, it’s an unexpected appetite for the life that’s still possible inside it.

Chapters

• 01:56I Eat the Stars: Living Fully in a Collapsing World
• 07:23Why Write this Book
• 14:41Childhood, Curiosity, and an Unconventional Path
• 20:31Illness, Recovery, and Redefining Success
• 27:44Climate Activism and a Shift in Perspective
• 33:12“I No Longer Have Hope”
• 36:21Understanding Complex Systems Collapse
• 47:29Grief, Acceptance, and Learning to Bear Uncertainty
• 55:00Post-Blame, Accountability, and the Moloch Trap
• 1:01:26Islands of Sanity: Simplify and Build Community
• 1:06:13Homecoming, Meaning, and Sustainable Wellbeing
• 1:12:06Feminine Leadership and “Black Belt Aunties”
• 1:16:32What Comes Next: Being Available
• 1:20:07Love and Learn

Speakers

Notes and links