How bad do things have to get for there to be an actual shift to making things better?

That is kind of inherent in the question. If things get worse then they aren’t getting better yet.

Things are getting worse. I’m not at all an accelerationist, but I think it goes without saying that things are getting worse and will continue to do so.

Maybe I’m an optimist, but I do think things will get better eventually, and it seems like a good question what that would look like.