"Is It Thunderdome Yet?" A Rolling Looming Apocalypse Thread

there won't be any apocalypse, just mass death

TOMBOT SATISFIED @ LAST

ive been listening to this in preparation:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ENK8PF0DL._AA240_.jpg

it will lead to a scenario that eventually gets made into a very bad Kevin Costner movie....

^^^ For that reason alone, it's worth avoiding. I don't want to see that urine recycling scene from Waterworld again.

The Postman is another uniquely terrible post-apocalyptic Costner film.

Kevin Costner in...

"Montana Showdown"

Mel Gibson IS

Dakota: Gun Runner

In like really dark moments I feel like the best reason to keep going despite the shit is that we need hospice nurses for the death throes of civilization.

But fuck me and my melodrama.

ick you just reminded me of that scene from The Day After....

If it bleeds, it leads...

we are fast approaching 2012 people

as my father will tell you the bibles says the world will end in a war w/the yellow race

http://www.cyber-cinema.com/british/SimpsonsThe_BRT.jpg

my favorite movies of the last 18 or so months are: children of men, cloverfield, 28 weeks later, i am legend and war of the worlds

i am legend was really properly unsettling in that respect, def.

I don't think anything's fucking up our nation more than millenarian thinking. It's a big part of the problem, peeps like Bush srsly avoiding change bcz it's "the end times" so why worry anyway. Well, the end times are never, ever coming, folks!

Not them end times anyhow.

No, NONE of them.

I mean if you act like they are it's way more of a self-fulfilling prophecy I think.

Put it this way: I try not to act/think like the sky is falling tomorrow, and nothing would make me happier than dying an old man in a futuristic society happily humming along. But just in case, I'm trying to focus on making people (in my personal life and in small ways at work) happy and comfortable.

I'm also preparing to teach. Assuming some shit goes down in the near future (pre-22nd Century), worst case scenario is that I'll have passed along some of the best work human civilization has produced to one of the last generations. For me, that's a worthy goal.

i hope a super intelligent alien race intervenes before things get too bad

if shit really gets heavy i'm going underground to live w/the mole people

yeah i'm kinda holding out hope for these dudes to save the day

http://transhumanlaw.org/images/singinst.jpg

guys i was an extra in The Postman

/braggin' 08

also we need a 2012 thread

btw i am not entirely joking re: singularity institute.

only mostly

Well that is well smart and kind, and laudable, but I srsly doubt any of us will have to become 'books' ala F. 451.

People, I think, will mostly keep barely getting by and some will get by comfortably, such as it has been. There will be all the same psychological clouds raining on every generation that have been since the '60s or before – basic Maslow's pyramid shit, nuclear weapons aplenty, war, environment going to shit, what if we run out of resources, 'red queen' race of bacteria/parasites and our cures for them, new diseases & epidemics, fear that people are getting dumber and more boorish, shit economy, $$$ in general. These aren't new worries by any means and it's unlikely they'll ever become old ones (nice as that would be), but just reincarnate themselves into new, exciting variations on: 'shit, me and my family/generation/progeny may be anywhere from uncomfortable to stupid to dead.' But basically, I think, you and I and everyone on this board are okay and will never face any "The Stand" or (hopefully) even "Children of Men" type shit.

It's easy to feel like shit in the face of all this stuff we have no control over, but that's just the thing. The thought of getting nuked makes me as queasy as anyone else, but can I do anything about it? No. Is it going to happen? The odds are way fucking slim. So whould I fret? No, serenity prayer shit, man.

Are we facing a horrible energy crunch? Well, yeah. Is this my fault? No, not really. Is there anything I can do about it? I am doing the small things I can, okay, check that one off the list. Has my life been impossible or helpless because this shit has been going on before I was born and will continue? No, actually, this stuff is impacting me very little. Okay. etc etc etc 'til every little niggling worry can be conceived of. I really doubt anyone is doomed here!

thanks for breakin it down

b-b-b-b-break it down

The whole thing is just red queen stuff, both humans and all the things that scare humans matching one another at the same rate, but no one's really the worse for it, It's all scary bcz it is new and in the news constantly.

abott otm

Also do you guys like that these two competing evolutionary hypotheses are called 'Red Queen' and 'Vicar of Bray'? I do.

there is no reason there couldn't be a bubonic plague or asteroid or magnetic field shift whatever in the next 50 years that would totally change human civilization.

not saying there will be

Yeah but change ≠ destroy.

I don't think anything's fucking up our nation more than millenarian thinking.

Yeah, exactly. I said this elsewhere the other day:

"...I have long been intrigued by/aware of the sense of apocalypse in American sociocultural/political life and rhetoric. There's always a sense of 'all is vanity, we're going down' somewhere, over the centuries -- consider the talk a few years back with the Y2K bug as a recent instance, specifically from those doommongers who essentially made their living at it and used the bug as a new framework for such stuff. But the full list of examples, drawing on any number of political and religious and other stances, goes on forever. So the use of that kind of language in any form has to be recognized as the rhetorical move it is -- the question is, is it justified?"

On various points I think some of it can be, but you have to keep this in mind, this sense of "OMG THE END!" and its grip on the American psyche.

the question is, is it justified?

this is my concern: it seems to be.

when it comes to climate change at least.

One of my favorite examples of said thinking at work -- the Millerites.

We just need all the robots to fart at one. I learned this from the TV.

xp

HOOS it is zero degrees in Green Bay today-- i can see it on NFL coverage. There's is no way global warming is real.

bahahahahahahahahahaha

http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/images/final-images/g-pop-growth-chart-map-sm.gif

I think it is actually great and beautiful that without humans, the exponential population growth model would be purely a theoretical idea. (Tho obv it will level off eventually!) (Is this graph not pretty & nicely designed?)

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/human_pop/worldpop.jpg

That tiny dip before it zooms up = the black plague.

BP = before present, 'present' being 1950, the year they discovered radiocarbon dating! HAHAHAHahahahaha

Beginning in 1954, metrologists established 1950 as the origin year for the BP scale for use with radiocarbon dating using a 1950-based reference sample of oxalic acid.

When faced with these sorts of depressing global possibilities it is important to emphasize which kinds of positive steps an individual can take to strengthen their own future prospects. I've already participated in enough doomster discussions (think Y2K) to have formed my own thoughts on this sort of hell-in-a-handbasket scenario.

First off, it is important to realize that you shouldn't dismiss doom-laden scenarios out of hand, just because they are drastic and hypothesize futures that do not resemble the present. Similarly, just because there are so many flimsy, unbelievably stupid conspiracy theories doesn't mean there are no successful conspiracies. You have to sift through them and decide what is plausible and what is not. Luckily, the crazy-stupid ones don't require much thought before you can reject them.

I would rate certain kinds of doomsday projections that are kicked around presently as worth serious consideration: the twinned trends of climate change and species extinction are extremely serious imo. The peak oil scenario would seem to be a mathematical certainty. Lastly, the notion that the global economy could enter a seriously unstable period of correction, with a contraction of wealth in the USA and Europe, seems very plausible to me.

All these scenarios have either a large stack of persuasive evidence, major historic precedents, or an undeniable basis in physical reality. It does no good to just cross your fingers and hope they will go away.

So what do you do?

First, you accept the idea that you can't control anything outside of your own actions. You can't play King Knut and turn back the tide. Instead, you make yourself a stronger person. You evaluate your skills and abilities, your tool set, your habits, your resources to meet adversity. As you do this, you identify your weaknesses and strengths.

Then, you address the weaknesses. It might be as simple as acquiring a few hand tools, paying down debt, or learning to sew. It might be getting to know your neighbors better, so you live in a stronger community. It could be seeking out a leader who understands what needs to be done, or becoming a leader yourself. Or, for many people, it may include limiting your excessive and self-harmful desires.

The good thing about this generalized approach is that it works across all kinds of problems. It makes you a better person, parent, neighbor and citizen. And it shows others the right way, too. By example.

So, don't give in to despair. It is a demon that eats your heart. Become wise and life will be good, no matter what else it is.

^^^ flowing straight from the survival scroll

I like the way Stan Goff put it: "Women. Community. Improving your skills. Every day, from here forward."

Don't worry about guns, worry about water.

this is the best advice i've heard about the future tbh

All collapse scenarios are borderline 'whatever, we're dead anyway' to me, given the nuclear arsenal. If we hit Visigoths sacking Rome levels of collapse and decay, I assume the planet will be obliterated by ICBMs.

no way, i'm confident that every single one of the 10,000+ active nuclear warheads worldwide will be safely disarmed and disposed of in an environmentally friendly way without ever being used, nothing to worry about

eyeroll.jpg

you're rolling your eyes at a guy who has at least 6 months of food (canned, dried, or freeze-dried), about 150 gallons of stored water, plus 6 water filters on hand at all times. We have a cord and a half of wood, a kerosene heater, lots of tents and other camping gear, etc. We have mainly aimed at getting through the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake (predicted at ~9.1 richter) with the minimum achievable travail and dislocation, but we started discussing major societal risks back during Y2K. One irony is that preparing for the earthquake has probably required more planning and expense than our Y2K preparations, which were maybe a third of what we now maintain.

But the idea of "prepping" in the general population is widely contaminated by the belief that it only pertains to the survivalist contingent, the types who wear camouflage to the grocery store. Getting them to a more reasonable sense of the fragility of the consumer machinery that keeps them comfortable, without sounding like a wingnut, is a worthwhile and strategic approach.

I hope to die right away in any kind of major disaster scenario. In the event of a slower, broader societal collapse I hope to go swiftly in an anti-Jewish pogrom and it looks like that's getting going so I really have no incentive to prep for anything.

xp -btw, a fair bit of our supplies are intended for our neighbors, should they need them.

silby, you can't rely on some convenient falling brick or obliging bigot to do a competent job. if you do plan to check out, I suggest you do some research and prepare to do the job yourself, in a pinch.

I’m not planning on it per se I just have no interest in surviving any such thing, too much work

Aimless: you miss the point again, the eyeroll was w/r/t your pedantry as to the proper thread for this discussion.

I also learned a lot during the Y2K dry run, your setup sounds pretty solid, and I agree with your overall take aside from your usual air of detached omniscience.

Perhaps it would be helpful to delineate some preparedness levels:

1. grab-and-go kit or "bugout bag", something you can take with you that's all in a bag or backpack. Food, water purifier, toilet paper, etc.

2. weathering an extended period of supply disruption or power outage, a.k.a. earthquake prep as per Aimless's setup and what I aspire to be prepared for.

3. trying to survive the end times, which as Sanpaku notes probably has more to do with overall water access than anything else.

I'm mainly interested in the first two, the 3rd is largely speculative at this point aside from, like, thinking about where you live and why.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/03/so-much-land-under-so-much-water-extreme-flooding-is-drowning-parts-of-the-midwest

I see these stories (or those about farmers suffering under the trade war) and immediately think, which candidate did they vote for, did their elected reps support disaster relief after Sandy, etc. This political era is costing me my humanity.

Same here. Part of me is glad the people who've helped this all happen are actually starting to feel the consequences, rather than it all happening to Bangladeshis, etc.

https://voiceofaction.org/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/

climate scientists otm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/07/vietnam-records-highest-ever-temperature-of-441c

we've reached the beginning of Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry For The Future cool cool
(I am not as hopeful as KSR about how that turns out)

Yeah iirc he has a lot of faith in India really coming through politically which, lol

https://kval.com/news/offbeat/sriracha-bottles-selling-as-high-as-80-on-ebay-amazon-amid-shortage-crazy-prices-sauce-hot-huy-fong-food-ridiculous-07-13-2023#

that link might seem flippant but imho this is just the tip of the iceberg re: shortages and unavailability

yeah, people who want to sneer at it 'just being sriracha bottles' now will have a rude awakening in a few years

My understanding is they tried to defraud a supplier and that led to their current problems, this isn't a polycrisis story.

Just make your own chili garlic sauce, fresh is best.

I thought I'd read that the sriracha people not only got into a conflict with distributors, but attempted to grow their own supply of peppers and failed, or at least fell short. Anyway, this isn't the first sriracha shortage in the last few years, iirc, and reportedly no other hot sauces or pepper sauces are facing the same supply issues, so I suspect this is indeed something internal.

good to know!

otoh this doesn't sound so great

Tornado damages Pfizer plant in North Carolina, will likely lead to long-term shortages of medicine

Drought affecting Panama Canal threatens 40% of world's cargo ship traffic