I Read 12 Codes of Collapse Three Times. I Wish I Hadn’t… But I’m Glad I Did.

 I’m not the kind of person who usually writes book testimonials, especially not for something like this. But after reading 12 Codes of Collapse by Elias Velin not once, but three times, I feel like I owe it to anyone stumbling across this book to say something. 

When I first heard about the book, I thought it was just another doomsday AI rant, the kind of thing you scroll past while eating lunch. But something about the title stuck with me. 

So I ordered it.

The First Read: Shock

The first time I read it, I felt like I was reading something I wasn’t supposed to see. It didn’t feel like a regular book. It read more like a classified internal document or a leaked journal from someone deep inside the AI industry.
There are no good guys. No bad guys. Just systems. Systems that don’t care who you are, where you live, or what you believe.
I remember closing the book after Code 2 and feeling tense. Not scared like watching a horror movie. More like standing at the edge of a cliff, and realizing the ground behind you has already crumbled.

The Second Read: Obsession

Two weeks later, I picked it up again. This time I read slowly, with a pen in hand. I started underlining lines, scribbling questions in the margins, looking up real-world events the book referenced. And I was stunned.
Velin doesn’t make wild predictions. He documents trends that are already unfolding and draws conclusions that feel terrifyingly logical.
Codes 5, 6, and 7 made me look at everything differently. The way food prices are manipulated. The silence in tech media about real automation risks. The shift in how people speak, almost like their language has been rewritten by an algorithm.
After that read, I spent hours online connecting dots. Then I stopped. Not because I was done. Because it started feeling like it was all already set in motion.

The Third Read: Resignation

The third time, I read it not to analyze but to accept. I wasn’t trying to dissect it anymore. I was just trying to understand what it meant for the world I live in.
There’s a part in the book about the slow erasure of human intuition. That chapter didn’t scare me. It hurt.
Because I see it happening already. In how people trust reviews more than instinct. In how conversations are driven by trends, not meaning.
That last code didn’t feel like a conclusion. It felt like a countdown.

Would I Recommend It?

Honestly, no.
If you want to keep believing the world still makes sense, don’t read this book.
If you sleep better thinking AI is still 50 years away from real danger, skip it.
But if you’ve ever had that gnawing feeling that something is wrong with how fast things are moving, 12 Codes of Collapse will hit you like a freight train.

I can’t say I’m better off after reading it. But I know I’m more awake.
And maybe, that’s what scares me the most.