Brooklyn
Lightning Society
245 Varet St · Bushwick
Monthly — Metacrisis Salons
~65 people. Two speakers. Breakout groups. Food included. $15.
01Where this happens
We meet in real rooms. In this city.
Dear Crisis lives in three places. Two are addresses you can walk to. The third is wherever the community decides to gather next.
East Village
Caravan of Dreams
405 E 6th St · Manhattan
Sundays — The Creationship
Pitch an idea, find your team, make something real by sundown. Free.
Across NYC
Wherever members host
Dinners · Walks · Workshops · Screenings
Ongoing — Community-led
Gatherings proposed and run by the people who actually show up.
02Why we gather
The first move is to find the others.
In The Great Simplification, Nate Hagens makes a simple case: before any grand plan, the most useful thing most of us can do right now is find the others— build real relationships and a shared language with the people near us who see what's happening and want to respond.
That's the whole idea behind Dear Crisis. We're a find-the-othersproject, but specifically for New York City. The work isn't to predict the future or win the argument about it. It's to build the trust and capacity now, while there's still room to, so a community can bend instead of break later.
It asks something of us personally, too — what Hagens calls staying human: the equanimity “to act without needing certainty, to grieve without collapsing.”
01
Gather
Get in the same room as people who feel the weight of it too.
02
Cohere
Build trust, relationships, and a shared way of seeing.
03
Sensemake
Face hard questions honestly — no flinching, no doomscrolling.
04
Act
Turn understanding into projects, support, and real action.
03Who shows up
A surprisingly wide room.
You don't need credentials, a doom forecast, or a fully-formed opinion to belong here. You just need to feel called. We're not here to agree on everything — we're here to face the hard stuff in good company.
- everyday people
- scientists
- philanthropists
- bestselling authors
- AI-safety engineers
- climate-grief therapists
- movement organizers
- urban gardeners
- founders
- artists
- + a guy who performed on an iceberg in the Arctic
04Metacrisis Salons
A monthly room to think out loud.
The Metacrisis Salons are the heartbeat of Dear Crisis. Once a month in Brooklyn, we pick a single thread of the polycrisis — climate stabilization, polarization, empire, capitalism, artificial intelligence, democracy — and pull on it together.
Two speakers bring the spark; small breakout groups bring the depth. We poll the room before and after, so you can watch how a hundred minds actually move on a hard question. People leave with new thinking, new friends, and a little more nerve.
- Where
- Brooklyn, NYC
- Cadence
- Monthly
- Room
- ~65 people
- Cost
- $15 · food included
- Format
- 2 speakers + breakouts
- Vibe
- Sensemaking, not doomscrolling
Next salonGet tickets →
How we build an Ecocivilization - Metacrisis Salon #11
June 6, 2026 · 245 Varet St, Brooklyn
Recent recaps
#10
May 16, 2026
Is Climate Stabilization Still Possible?
Kelly Erhart · Kelly Erhart
#9
Apr 18, 2026
Is Empire Collapsing?
Luke Kemp · Samantha Sweetwater
#8
Feb 21, 2026
Disconnection & Polarization
Emily Graham · Shia Levitt
↑ The newest recaps with speakers, key ideas, and the before-and-after poll shifts. Earlier salons live in the past-events archive.
05Beyond the salons
Sensemaking is the start. Building is the point.
The Creationship · East Village
Build the next world by sundown.
A Sunday creative incubator for people who'd rather make something than doomscroll. Pitch an idea, find your team, and ship something real before the day ends. Free, team-based building sprints at Caravan of Dreams.
Community · Across NYC
Gatherings, dreamed up by us.
Between salons, the community keeps moving — dinners, walks, workshops, and screenings proposed and hosted by members. Two WhatsApp groups keep everyone connected between rooms.
06Where this is going
An island of coherence, growing one room at a time.
Right now there's still room to build trust and shared understanding without crisis breathing down our necks. That window won't stay open forever — so we're using it.
Dear Crisis started as one recurring salon. It's becoming a connected web of gatherings across New York — salons to make sense of things, creative incubators to build them, and the early shape of mutual support. Sturdy enough to hold its people through whatever comes.
Now
Build the connective tissue.
Relationships, trust, and a shared language — laid down now, while there's still stability to build on. This is the part already humming.
As it shifts
Bend, don't break.
A community that can hold steady and support each other when shocks land — instead of fracturing or freezing.
The aim
Resilience that actually holds.
A human-scale community, rooted in this city, resilient enough in the face of collapse to matter to the people inside it.