The End Of The World

[Apone]

How will it happen?
When will it happen?
How long will it take?
Will it be a bang or a whimper?

For inspiration, here's a clip from my all-time favorite movie, THREADS:

[video=youtube;X9rh4CDj9SI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9rh4CDj9SI[/video]

 

[Cornerstone]

Hey, Threads! I have that on DVD! Cool!

It is a pretty grim film at points though...it gets dark quickly. Even for a nuclear holocaust flick...

I think it will surely be a whimper with no end now. We are probably past the threat of total destruction. If a nuclear attack were to happen it would probably be from a smaller device in a terrorist capacity than all out war between nation-states. A low level (but still horrible, of course) attack would not trigger the MAD scenario these days I wouldn't think...unless the Doomsday Device from Dr Strangelove is real!

But yes, a whimper...with no end. I don't think everyone need die out physically for the world to end. It feels like it has already begun. If I look at what society has become where money is ultimately the end of every discussion I'm not sure where we have left to go. The people with the most will continue to shape our shared reality and most people will continue to passively observe and more will join them until the majority is silent because they just don't know what they want anymore and before they can begin to think about it there is a new distraction placed in front of them. Spiritual extinction but with life ongoing. For those who don't know any better, the same arguments used today will probably suffice to maintain its momentum but for those who give a fuck it will get harder and harder and more and more watertight until this place becomes a hell for anyone who cannot conform and consume...

 

[Billy]

its a few billion years off, it will be when the sun exhausts all of its hydrogen and is made of heavier elements and bloats into a red giant, it will incinerate the earth. Kind of like throwing a mote of dust into a fireplace. Our atmosphere and oceans will boil and evaporate 1st though.

 

[Radiantshadow]

It already has! Over and over and over again, time erased and rewritten indefinitely. We are sleepers walking forward into the past.

In the words of Shakespeare:

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
to the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
and then is heard no more. It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
signifying nothing." — Macbeth (Act 5, scene 5, lines 19-28)