Why some want collapse: from Mad Max to Spain's DANA floods

Why some people want total collapse to arrive

There is a current of opinion that no longer calls for reforms: it calls for the entire system to fall. They call it Mad Max. And it is not a forum metaphor: it is a mood that runs through 103 replies over 678 days and mixes economic weariness, contempt for the political class and an almost religious faith in purifying fire. The question that opens the thread is direct: why would someone want everything to blow up. The answers range from psychological analysis to the confessed desire for destruction.

Exhaustion as the engine of apocalyptic desire

The first block of arguments is materialistic. There is no epic: there is exhaustion. It describes a life of precarious work, rents that eat up wages and a feeling that effort leads nowhere. «The life of the oar is undignified,» summarises one intervention that calls for the country to burn. The underlying idea is that collapse would level everyone downwards and give a second chance to those who today have nothing to lose.

That reasoning has a generational variant. Several messages place the turning point in 2008 and 2020. Before the financial crisis, they say, there was naivety; afterwards, disillusionment. The pandemic would have finished the job: whoever saw what was done in the name of the emergency stopped believing in the system. The result is a desire for «mass deaths» and not wanting to know anything about anyone.

There is a more psychological than political explanation. There is talk of «thanatos», of addiction to the cheap dopamine of the imaginary survivor and of a chronic deficiency of stimuli that the apocalypse would compensate for. The fantasy of watching the world burn from the sofa is comforting. As long as it doesn't come close, of course.

The DANA as a dress rehearsal for Mad Max

The debate is anchored in a specific episode: the DANA that hit Valencia. For some participants, that was a «micro Mad Max»: overwhelmed state, gangs taking advantage of chaos, looting and politicians at each other's throats. The conclusion they draw is that the system cannot withstand a serious blow and that solidarity worked only because of volunteers. «What would have peine if not a single volunteer had turned up?» asks a message that calls for monuments for the spontaneous helpers and accountability for the managers.

The comparison extends to other recent international episodes: North Carolina and Maui. The pattern described is the same: catastrophe, slow institutional response and a population left to fend for itself. From there the thesis emerges that collapse is not a hypothesis, but a practice already tested on a local scale.

Not everyone buys the story. Some warn that a real Mad Max would not be an adventure, but a nightmare from which one would want to return to the past. What peine in the Balkans is recalled and it is warned that whoever idealises chaos probably would not be among the survivors. The warning is sensible and in the minority.

From the desire for purge to social revenge

In the final stretch of the thread a component appears that is no longer economic, but cultural. There is talk of a «definitive proletarian revolution»: when the system falls, manual labour will be worth a lot and the office worker with remote work and cryptocurrencies will be worth little. The fracture is not only rich against poor: it is countryside against city, calloused hands against clean hands.

That narrative mixes with a critique of the Spain built since the Transition. Some argue that everything current is «based on lies and nepotism», that democracy has paved the country while sinking future generations and that only by hitting rock bottom can something authentic be rebuilt. The word «purge» appears without complexes.

The desire for collapse is also formulated as revenge. «Someone has to pay for what they've done to us,» one reads in an everyday scene: two women walking, one with dogs, another with a child, and the realisation that the desire for everything to blow up is not abstract. It is an outstanding bill.

What those who warn they are not prepared say

Against the destructive enthusiasm, there is a practical counterpoint. Several messages admit they do not want Mad Max to arrive because they are not prepared. Vulnerable loved ones are mentioned, the relative peace that is enjoyed and how little it is valued until it is lost. The conclusion is uncomfortable: whoever desires chaos probably has not measured the cost.

There are also those who point out the underlying contradiction. Mad Max would already be here, only distributed: not being able to start a family, not accessing housing, watching corruption run rampant and effort diluted in inflation. The dystopia would not come later: it would be the present, only without television to tell it.

The closing of the thread resolves nothing. Some call for mass abstention and an indefinite general strike. Others trust that collapse will come through historical cycles, without needing to desire it. And a few, with irony, recall that whoever wants to live the experience can grab a shovel and go to Valencia. The most honest prediction is that this will not explode tomorrow, but it will not fix itself either.