I also struggle with this framing.

I agree with the point of this article that only radical change (i.e., abolition of the current systems) can save us and the planet. Incrementalism isn't doing it. And I agree that this will involve mental paradigm shifts, so we may as well look forward to how we'll grow as individuals, even as we de-grow the economy.

But I can't cheer things getting worse as some supposedly necessary step toward things getting better. It would feel like cheering a person with addiction on continuing to find their "bottom" so they can eventually decide to sober up. We're probably not done social-collapsing yet, and I'd like to think that someday it will get better, but that doesn't mean I can cheer on the death and destruction that's in the down-swing. I don't want to instrumentalize everyone's suffering, which also means I have to avoid thinking of everyone's suffering as a necessary step toward something else.