June 18, 2008

• Ralph, you're always such a font of cheer in a dreary world. My fear is for my kids and grandkids. What kind of a world have we left them?
• Nothing became the Earth so much as the ending of it.
• Actually, Ralph's post made me realize how pointless my life is. GBCW. er, Ralph would it be too much to ask you to water my plants?- this is your fault after all.
• Piano boy, if you had any marketing savvy at all, you'd see this as an opportunity to cut the ultimate bland and tame CD that would be just the perfect audio enhancement to watching the world end. I would not suggest a waltz medley.
• Well, I didn't get to read the first chapter, or for that matter much of the book at all, so I'd consider the End of the World one gigantic spoiler.
• I'm sorry but Milliway's is all booked out.
• I'm with you Ralph. We could be witness to the singularly significant event in the life of man. Of course I am an old timer and have enjoyed a full life. I can assure you I did not feel the same way as a young man. I made the rounds with my father who was an air raid warden during the ww2 blackouts. I was more than a little concerned about nazi bombs falling on my head. This isn't really a godwin. Is it? Damn. I always said I would never do that.
• as an avid diaster-o-phile, I too have a morbid desire to see the "end of the story" although I realize I probably won't cause it doesn't really work that way...but I feel increasingly confident there will be plenty of fuel for the fear-mongering fire. levees broke in Ill. the Mississippi is flooding crucial farmland as we type... hang in there RTD!!
• I'm always excited when homonculus posts his next contribution to the "we're melting! we're melting" GW thread :D
• Cryogenics. We come out of suspended animation in a thousand years, in time for the Monkey/Asteroid meet-up of 3008. Set up lawn chairs to view the impact of Asteroid 3753!
• I've somehow always felt it would be in my life, as well, which I think might be a normal feeling. I have this recurring dream, where everything is going normally, and then there's this place. I can't look at it or think of it, because I know in my heart it's The End. And the whole dream is me trying to avoid it and winding up looking anyway, and bringing The End about. That doesn't make much sense, but it's so real in my mind that I guess I've always accepted it as real in our world, too.
• Lots of people have thought this since the beginning of time. It springs, I believe, from the immense sense of self-importance human beings have. In reality, nothing is going to change, only details.
• Is it the inevitability and utter loneliness of death, I wonder? Do we want The End of the World to come just so that we don't have to face the void alone?
• Even if some huge chunk of asteroid gets a bulls' eye on us, surely a few will survive, those hidden in secret caves, those farthest away from impact. For how long? That's another thing. The quality of their lives won't be pleasant, either. In a way it would be easier for that kind of exit. A bang, everybody's out, the end. But it's the long, lingering kind, the decay of the thin veneer of civilization we're living in right now what scares me and I feel the likeliest to come. You'l have to come and tuck me into bed and sing a lullabye so I can get some sleep tonight, Ralph.
• We've already had this. Early humans nearly died out 70,000 years ago, reduced to isolated groups in Africa. Probably only about 2,000 individuals. We know this from studies of mitochondrial DNA. Human beings are survivors. We are adaptable. That is what we do. Specialisation is for insects.
• I too imagine that the Apocalypse might turn out to be more of a gradual, messy production than a big, satisfying extravaganza where everything goes bang at the end and, even if we as a species don't make it to the end of the movie, the show will go on without us. With a bit of luck, it might even have a happier than expected ending, whether we're here to see it or not.
• Don't worry, Ralph. When you die, the whole world will die with you. All of us, we're all inside your head. This message isn't really here either. You just made it up. To let yourself know.
• Monkeyfilter: we're all inside your head
• "There's someone in my head but it's not me."
• Yer want sum readin' while yer waitin'?
• It might be useful to distinguish between the end of the world and the end of the world as we know it. The former is by REM and the latter by the Cure. The end of the world will come but not for a very very long time. As per Hank, I think it's very unlikely humankind will be wiped out as a species, even though I agree with BlueHorse that we're not leaving a very good living space for our descendants. Even given a cataclysm like a large asteroid hitting Earth or exploding inside the atmosphere, I'd wager that a large number of humans (in absolute terms) will survive the ensuing darkness. I think our solar system has another 800 million years to go? By which time I'd expect our descendants to have found some way to populate other systems. The end of the world as we know it, on the other hand, is happening all the time.
• > The former is by REM and the latter by the Cure. Former meaning latter and latter meaning former.
• Yeah, I think those ponderings are universal. I was a little kid during the last throes of the Cold War; we didn't duck and cover, but we did have The Day After. I remember seeing it on TV and crying in school the next day. They had me go to the school counselor, and I told him all about seeing the movie and being scared it would really happen. He said, "Now, who do you think would do something like that to you? Could it be...yourself? Are you your own worst enemy?" I muttered something like, "Er, yes, I guess so," and spent the rest of the half hour staring at his tie pin. I can pinpoint that as the exact moment it became clear to me that adult authority figures could be complete morons.
• Tell me, RTD, do you believe in an afterlife? Or do you ascribe to the oblivion theory, i.e. we return to our pre-birth state of simple non-existence, non-awareness? If so, the idea of "facing the void" becomes somewhat meaningless, unless every person who has ever perished has, in his/her own way, had to indeed face the void. Imagine dying in some great cataclysm, surely you'd go down believing that it was indeed "the end of the world." Everything that lives, dies; to what degree that means the end of consciousness is obviously mere theory as it is unknowable. Such happy thoughts, this mulling over mortality. All that aside, I agree with what several others have already said--you really have to define "the end of the world," since certainly the word I knew as a kid no longer exists, having ended long ago. I have a feeling that as time passes our so-called civilization will undergo massive changes, and may indeed "end," but humans will probably survive, though without cable television and satellite radio (now that transmission waves are being considered as a possible cause for the die-offs of bats and bees, this may be a very good thing). It's happened before. Consider the case of Easter Island, a cautionary, vivid preview of what may be in store for us all. I could really use a drink now.
• The world doesn't care about me; I don't care about the world.
• As far as I'm concerned, the world ended when the Expos moved. We're just playing out the dénouement. Srsly, though -- I find the term "end of the world" to be intensely subjective, so much so that it's a meaningless concept, since there's no corresponding objective element. If Heraclitus has taught us anything, it's that things will just keep on going, although in a different form. Of course, he died having covered himself in shit, so YMMV.
• What’s the point of living life’s great pageant if you don’t get to read the last chapter? Who's to say that we aren't going to have the opportunity to "read" the last chapter, irregardless of when that "time" comes? Personally, I think you're going to be disappointed. *bows to the roach overlords*
• Indeed, smt. When we pass over onto the other side, there's either nothing, in which case it doesn't really matter, just a pressing of the History Eraser Button, or there's something, in which case it's likely that there's more 'something' than what our consciousness is exposed to now. If there's a larger consciousness that our individualized consciousness is exposed to or joins, much of those 'answers' or 'mysteries' are going to be revealed in fairly short order (if indeed we still care about them at that point). At that revelation, it's hard not to think that instantanteously knowing who shot JFK or what happened to the Amber Room won't be a bit of a disappointment. It'd all be perfectly obvious, even a little silly to have been concerned at all about those trivialities. ("Yankees again?" *yawn*)
• Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don't they know it's the end of the world, `cause you don't love me anymore? Hard to tell if it will end with a bang or a whimper. Some say the world will end in fire; Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. Humans are like cockroaches--they'll be around till the earth freezes solid. I don't know about the end of the world in my lifetime, but I do know the world will end for me, as for all of us, eventually. Meanwhile, all we can do is ROCK ON!
• Y'all can die in a big apocalypse if you want to. I'm sticking around.
• I think I’ve told this story before, but I remember hearing on the ceeb about a professor from Berkeley who talked to rocks. He would drop some acid, and talk to rocks, so as to talk to Mother Earth / Gaia / Whatever. Anyway, he got himself on sabbatical, and went to the Yukon, where he could talk to rocks a couple billion years old, which gave the best reception or something. Anyway, he’s chatting away with Mother Earth, and finds out that the world will ‘end’ on December 21st, 2012 (but for some reason, I remember Dec. 16, 2013, but I seem to be wrong on that). And by the world ‘ending’, it didn’t mean ‘end’ as such, but that humans move onto the next stage of their development. Anyhoo, he’s doing the lecture circuit, and some student asks him if he knows the significance of that date, December 21st, 2012. The professor didn’t. Turns out that it’s the end of the Mayan calendar. Think that’s scary, kids? Aa-wroooooOOOOOooOOooOOOOooOOO!!! [WARNING: tinhattery ahead] Of course, the obvious question comes up of if he really was told by the Earth that this would happen, or if he just somehow recalled that date during his acid trip. Enh. And how true this story really is, I leave it to you to Google, 'cuz I can't be arsed.
• Regardless, reading about the Mayan Long Calendar is faskinatin' stuff.
• I no theenk the mayans need to worry about the end of their calendar
• I believe that roaches contain the "souls" of every previous-living creature on Earth. Please, think twice before you spray the 'lil sweet buggers!
• I contain the soul of every roach sprayed. It's a bit itchy.
• Easter Island, a cautionary, vivid preview of what may be in store for us all. I thought about them too, but needed to check the link for the full fear to strike. On a less somber note, the inhabitants of Iceland also stripped away their forest cover (for firewood), but somehow managed to avoid total collapse into cannibalism. Could it be that having a World Class religion on the upswing saved them from the fate meted out to the Easter Islanders? If so, it would be doubly sad for us now to degenerate into knocking the hats off the big stone totems of rival traditions. So picture the ultimate degeneration: zombie priests delivering brain surgery to massed and starving members of rival cults. As a cautionary tale, it could even have a nice box office ring to it, ka-ching!
• No wait! They EAT the brains.
• Two things. One: The Dutch. Excuse me, but I do not think that emergency rations will help much during an apocalypse. Second: Mr. Carlin nails it.
• Cyber Doom scenarios may be less likely to bring chaos, with breakdown of society, than formerly thought. The real threat, according to this study, is the coming of rigid social control and intrusive autocracy as a response to the overblown fear of Cyber Doom. *shivers*
• CYBER DOOM!! I read that whole thing in a deep bass voice with a muhhahahaha at the end.