Taking The Easy Way Out Is Killing People. Literally

A Comfort-Seeking Society Approaching a Brick Wall

The overriding theme of this era with respect to the "three Es" - energy, environment, and economy is to delay and defer as long as possible. To allow these disasters to accumulate by all means possible, and then push them onto the children and grandchildren.

I know a lot of people who have died of cancer recently for much the same reason - deferred responsibility towards their own polluted bodies. People my parents' age (mid-70s) and younger, who thought nothing of treating their own bodies like a toxic waste dump. Anyone who will desecrate themselves is not going to think twice about desecrating this planet or even their own children. 

Soft and Disease-Prone

This drive to "simplify" everything is at the root cause of all ignored human-led disaster. It's reaching a brick wall. It turns out that taking the easy way out is not the secret to human happiness and health. Some amount of adversity, hard (real) work, and real sustenance is necessary in order to condition the mind and body for long-term survival. Constant comfort-seeking taken to its natural limit in combination with Soylent Frankenfood, has left people soft and disease-prone.

The consumption-oriented lifestyle is self-imploding
At this late stage, having sought the easiest way out of every situation for years and decades, most people are no longer capable of contemplating a more sustainable path forward. Now, merely pretending and keeping up appearances takes up all remnants of their massively depleted energy. To them, any "reset" is wholly unthinkable, which is what makes it inevitable.

Collapse is only possible if enough people assume it's not possible