I wrote this in another comment above but I think people really romanticize the concept of “simple living”. Like all of their worries of the future and the past will go away and they can live off the land and become expert horticulturalists and farmers and hunters immediately, and all will be well and harmonious. Except it’ll be more like what you described — less harmony, more chaos
Delusion? I once read Walden by Thoreau and went through a phase where all I wanted was for the world to revert to its “natural state”. Then I aged out of teenagehood and realized that would not be the beautiful utopia that I fantasized about, it would just be absolute chaos
My theory is that a lot of their stress is existential — they live in a first-world nation where they have boring jobs, not enough money, they have hobbies they want to do but no time or energy, etc. so they dream of a world where all of those existential crises are eradicated and they just get to focus on the here and now. It’s simpler, in their minds, to live like pre-historic humans did. Little do they know, a week of that life and they’ll be crying for the luxury of being bored again
Can someone define “societal collapse” for me?