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

at this point it's hard not to think that the earth itself is trying to kill us all

self defense

I’ve watched enough science television to know that the earth is in the universe and the universe is nothing if not a giant engine of destruction that wants to blow itself up again and again so actually our death drive as a species is even deeper than our genes, it’s in our elements, man

you can't fight entropy dude

that's why i don't go to the gym

"When next the poles change places" will be the opening number of Hair 2

something something screen doors

If the earth ever talks with the other planets they probably say “why you still got that life all over you, dude?” And Earth goes “I know I know it just happened by accident” And Mars is like “...OK, lady”

Jupiter constantly giving its moons the eye to make sure they aren’t even thinking about having some life

Fun to think of the biosphere as basically like a bad case of athlete's foot that the earth has allowed to get wildly out of control.

at least any life which might be hanging in there under the ice on europa has had the good sense to keep it basic and sustainable so far, let's hope they don't get too ambitious

Mars gonna feel pretty stupid when one of our probes turns out to not have been sterilized correctly

mars, the bringer of war and the forgetter of condoms

Japan heatwave declared natural disaster as death toll mounts

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/23/rising-temperatures-linked-to-increased-suicide-rates

Brazil museum fire: ‘incalculable’ loss as 200-year-old Rio institution gutted

War, Famine, Death and badly maintained public buildings with dodgy wiring.

Someone connected with the museum completely broke down into sobbing anguish on bbc WS earlier. Some talk that it could be related to underfunding - shock horror - Building with priceless cultural/historic/archaeological treasures, rather than poor ethnic minorities burns to the ground because of austerity.

I'm gonna bet the meteorite is probably the only recoverable thing from that infographic

The least they deserve for what they're doing to their rainforests tbh

Where are the crowds of weeping citizens at illegal logging sites?

how does that take measure up against the core temp of the building atm

xp That's equivalent of US conservatives constantly asking why muslims aren't denouncing terrorists on a 24-hour a day basis. why don't you go weep at illegal logging sites, imago?

there is a maybe real possibility some previously unseen nazi archives just got reduced to dust, again. But it was a free museum apparently, so perhaps lots of poor kids from Rio De Janeiro occasionally had a good day out there before returning to their lives of standard grinding inequity.

seems unlikely

look obviously this is terrible but...i mean, on this thread? really?

did you read the article, though

A key element of any worthwhile dystopia is the destruction of a society's history.

If it happens in large part because the government just stops giving a shit, even better.

That Brazil fire is a huge tragedy. Lives are spent collecting specimens, with only some researchers fortunate enough to find some of enduring interest. Somewhere in that Rio museum were the last relics of now extinct species, many with enough intact DNA that there was at least hope of resurrecting the species.

In the future, I hope important museums and libraries are well enough funded to look like this, impervious to fire or earthquake or sea-level rise or global thermonuclear war:

http://baseengr.com/images/uploads/02-portfolio-images/MILCON%200660-med.jpg

We're living near some sort of apex for humanity (albeit at a cost to all other life), but we shouldn't expect it to last. The heroes of this era will be the curators and librarians who preserve the biodiversity and knowledge and cultural product of recent eras for future, often distant generations.

yeah and it's a terrible loss but

“The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide. A crime against our past and future generations,”

the elephant in the room on this of all threads is too poignant for me to handle this talk

but i guess you guys are right

this thread is reserved for the actual apocalypse

let me know when jesus comes back on with a flaming sword to make me suffer

No need. He'll be in touch.

Just re-read the 2008 climate doom op-ed that originally inspired this thread and it's almost funny how normalized its existential despair has become for me

The meteorite survived

incredibly sad video from inside Brazil's gutted National Museum — only the meteorites withstood the fire pic.twitter.com/6BoTJqanSd

— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) September 4, 2018

called it

After surviving the long plunge through the earth's atmosphere and the landing afterward, a little thing like a fire wouldn't phase it.

the state of that wooden banister suggests that the fire perhaps wasn't so intense near the charred lumps of rock section, sods law.

feel like this belongs here, great piece from Douglas Rushkoff

https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

that is good, thanks for posting that here

That was an excellent essay and condenses a lot of excellence in a fairly few words. Rushkoff is completely correct in his assessment of the prevailing attitudes among the super-rich and his analysis of what is necessary to stave off the worst possible human future that capitalism and the super-rich seem to be driving us toward willy-nilly.

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13047

eyy

can't believe the earth is gonna fart us all to death smdh

shhhhh, don't tell anyone or nasa might lose their funding for this research! the trump administration is doing everything they can to increase methane emissions. they really frown upon research that says that's a bad thing

nice nice

https://www.adn.com/arctic/2018/09/24/across-the-arctic-lakes-are-leaking-dangerous-greenhouse-gases/

Steak-umm...OTM?

why are so many young people flocking to brands on social media for love, guidance, and attention? I'll tell you why. they're isolated from real communities, working service jobs they hate while barely making ends meat, and are living w/ unchecked personal/mental health problems

— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) September 26, 2018

waht

The whole thread is something.

lmao i appreciate you putting that in here ned

barely making ends meat

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/