I rather like apocalypse novels; the great plague that leaves all but a few dead (Earth Abides); the nuclear war that kills everyone off (On The Beach); the nuclear war that sets the world back 2,000 years, after which the whole damn thing repeats itself (A Canticle for Leibowitz); or wipes most people out except for a small town in Florida which is untouched even by fallout (Alas Babylon).

A World Made By Hand (a serious work by James Howard Kunstler) and The Last Second take place in a world which has lost all of its current technology (pun) because of EMPs, small nuclear attacks, and/or plagues. Plagues can be natural but usually are cooked up in labs and escape, accidentally or deliberately.

The Madd Addam trilogy by Margaret Atwood is an excellent apocalypse trilogy with several novel (pun) features. I recommend all of the books I mentioned except Alas Babylon and The Last Second.

One of the themes of post-apocalyptic novels is that technology wound down can not be readily wound up again.

How do you feel about the species being doomed? — Bitter Crank

I have asked myself this question repeatedly for a very long time.

On one hand, there is a tremendous amount of suffering, naturally and inevitably occurring by life simply being here. And a lot of the suffering humans in particular endure is caused primarily by a moral decay of sorts, where people just don't care about other people (and animals!) and treat them horribly. The history of life is a story of conflict, with the strongest luckiest turning out on top, only to eventually die anyway. It's all very brutish, clunky and disappointing. From this perspective (admittedly nihilistic), I would welcome the end of the human race and life in general.

But from the other hand, there is great beauty in the world, and I have increasingly become more attuned and appreciable of it. I find that denying the beauty in the world is simply an affirmation of it, for I would not need to deny it if it did not exist.

So from an ethical perspective, I think the end of life would be good. From a purely aesthetic perspective, it might be a sad loss.

The best case scenario I can think of is one in which everyone decides to cease reproducing, which would halt worries of overpopulation, resource deprivation, etc, which would largely stop international conflict. With no fear of running out of fuel or food, we could focus all our efforts on artwork and play. The finale of the human race, its apex, would be right before it ends in a furious flurry of free artistic expression. We could leave the Earth painted and with a clear conscience.

Do you think that our species will be extinguished in the next 500 years? — Bitter Crank

We arose from a world without us, so if we all die, then chances are we'll arise again, on this planet, or other planets. Perhaps we already have cousins on other planets.

500 years is a long time. I think in the next half century there is an obvious chance of global catastrophe. I think if there was a hostile nuclear exchange involving Israel, Pakistan, Iran, or Korea, it could quite possibly trigger a financial collapse. The world's economies are floating on enormous amounts of debt, if those debts are called in and the banks close, then what? Public servants, police and army won't be paid, social order will break down extremely quickly.

I don't think that will mean the literal extinction of life on earth or even of h. sapiens, but I could easily foresee events culminating in hundreds of millions of deaths through the collapse of the economic order. Damn near happened on September 18th 2008, three days after Lehmann Bros went down.

Actually make it ten years.

Yeah. We will know one way or the other by 2050 - the global bottleneck represented by "peak everything". Population, fossil fuel, probably even medicine the way antibiotics are going (and pandemics still rating higher as a global existential risk than nuclear war).

So this is a great time to be alive if you are the curious type. It is the moment in history when we finally get to see how a lot of exponential growth trends must surely end. :)

One thing that nobody seems to comment on - well nobody outside 'alternative' circles, like Naomi Klein, and others of that ilk - is that capitalist economics, and the banking industry, seem to assume that 'growth lines always go upward'. 'Economic growth' is the barometer of everything - 'growth stalling' is code for recession, hard economic times, etc. BUT, we're already using more resources than Planet Earth can produce - every year, the day when we've used this year's resources moves forward. But who is talking about that? Our own politicians simply repeat the 'jobs, growth' mantra. And as a citizen of an advanced economy, I have to hope they're right, as the kind of lifestyle I live depends on it being right. But I can see the day, not too far off, when i cash in the equity in the property I have in the city and downsize drastically to a more self-suficient lifestyle, although I don't think it's going to be an easy thing to do. (Although now it's a least possible in terms of electrical power to live off the grid.)

If it started with a big bang I suppose it ought to end with a big whimper, one being opposed to the other.

The phrase just prior to this

For thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. T. S. Elliot The Hollow Men

Eliot left out Kingdom, Power, Glory, or maybe he didn't...perhaps each of these have a fair shot at "This is the way the world ends."

Not with a bang but a whimper

How an animal dies.

One thing that nobody seems to comment on - well nobody outside 'alternative' circles, like Naomi Klein, and others of that ilk - is that capitalist economics, and the banking industry, seem to assume that 'growth lines always go upward'. — Wayfarer

On the one hand, continual growth is necessary IF high-quality standards of living are going to be maintained, and IF low-quality standards of living are going to be raised. China, for instance, has had a high rate of growth for some time, and they need every bit of it to allow a growing percentage of Chinese to enjoy something better than meagre peasanthood.

On the other hand, there is almost certainly no technical fix that will yield enough fresh water, food, housing, transportation, medical care, education etc. for the present 7 billion people, let alone the next 1, 2, 3, or 4 billion, to enhance their quality of life significantly in material terms--and that's without figuring in global warming.

i cash in the equity in the property I have in the city and downsize drastically to a more self-suficient lifestyle, although I don't think it's going to be an easy thing to do. — Wayfarer

There is a sort of 'movement' called "Transition Town" where urban neighbors get together, fret about the present, and talk about cashing in their equity, moving to the country, and living happily ever after raising turnips, potatoes, and listening to the Moody Blues on their IPods powered by solar cells. You'd better start buying the equipment, land, and supplies you'll need. NOW. Don't forget defense devices (a double barreled shotgun with plenty of ammunition is quite persuasive) to defend yourself. And you'll need lots of skills you probably don't have, just yet.

An author you really should read, and he's a good writer, so I'm not suggesting bitter pills, is James Howard Kunstler. among his books are:

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
Too Much Magic is what Kunstler sees in the bright visions of a future world dreamed up by optimistic souls who believe technology will solve all our problems.

World Made by Hand (Vol 1 post apocalypse novel)
A History of the Future (Vol 2 post apocalypse novel)
The Harrows of Spring (Vol 3 post apocalypse novel)
... and others

The World Made by Hand series treats at length just what a world without petroleum products would be like -- not just gasoline, but everything that petroleum makes possible, directly and indirectly. Without petroleum, we are sent back to the world of 1875.

He also is author of the Clusterfuck Nation blog, also at this site, Clusterfuck Nation dot com



As an alternative to the back-to-the-land-movement, I'm planning to join the Death With Dignity, Right Now! Movement. If I'm still alive when the crunch comes, I'll deploy the double barreled shotgun and dispatch myself. But I really would like to live long enough to see how this all plays out. Another decade is probably all I can stand, which will makes me 80 in the year 2027, well short of the Main Act in the Center Ring.

When asked if he would write these (last) lines again, Eliot responded with a 'no':
One reason is that while the association of the H-bomb is irrelevant to it, it would today come to everyone's mind. Another is that he is not sure the world will end with either. People whose houses were bombed have told him they don't remember hearing anything.

Wikipedia, of course.

It does come to mind, of course. H bombs is what I think of for "bang".

I remember reading this in 12th grade English class, I was 17--gads, 53 years ago. I liked the poem (even if it was pretty much over my head). "Here we go round the prickly pear, prickly pear, prickly pear" is a variation of "here we go round the mulberry bush, mulberry bush, mulberry bush..." "This is the way the world ends" could stand in as a verse for the children's circle singing game, though it's 1 beat short, unless one makes "world" 2 syllables -- wor-uld.

Thanks, BC, I'll check it out. Also saw an interesting alternative title by John Michael Greer (a Druid) - 'Collapse Now, and Avoid the Rush'.

BUT, we're already using more resources than Planet Earth can produce — Wayfarer

I read in the paper the other day that we have passed peak sand. Peak sand? Well, we've mixed a lot of concrete over the years, and only certain sands are really good for making concrete. They have to have the right size, the right chemistry, and the right price. Ocean beach sand is salty, and the wrong size, for instance -- so that's out. Other sands are too large in particle size, have other undesirable components, are too fine, etc. Goldilocks sand is just not that easy to get, anymore.

We can’t use desert sand because it’s too round, polished by the wind, and doesn’t stick together. You need rough edges, so desert sand is worthless
Good sand is getting so rare there’s an enormous amount of illegal mining in over 70 countries. In India the Sand Mafia is one of the most powerful, will kill for sand. It’s easy to steal sand and sell there.
Australia is selling sand to nations that don’t have any more (like the United Arab Emirates, who used all of their ocean sand to make artificial islands)
Sand is a big business, sales are $70 Billion a year

A friend of mine has been quoting the Druid to me for years.

lol, another thing to worry about.

Yeah, I am pretty sure that a population and civilization collapse is imminent, most likely due to a confluence of factors. It may not be one of the commonly imagined apocalyptic scenarios where everything disintegrates over a few days or weeks, but even if it takes decades, it will still qualify as a crash, given our species' total lifespan (which, by the way, is still very brief compared to a typical mammalian species' lifespan of a few million years).

Will this be the end of our species? Hard to say. There will likely be a mass extinction of other species (by some measures, a mass extinction is already underway). We are at the top of the food ladder, which is bad, but we are also highly adaptable generalists, which is good. So, hard to say.

As an alternative to the back-to-the-land-movement, I'm planning to join the Death With Dignity, Right Now! Movement. If I'm still alive when the crunch comes, I'll deploy the double barreled shotgun and dispatch myself. — Bitter Crank

I really don't want to be the one to spoil the celebration, but I think that blowing oneself to bits with a shotgun is the exact opposite of "dignity".

I think we'll take off into outer space and become Lords of the Universe.

By the power of gray skull.

Very similar to that.

This is the way the world ends: — Bitter Crank

'The end is where we start from', Eliot says in 'Little Gidding', the last of the Four Quartets, where the despondency of the hollow men has given way to a calmer, more philosophical and structured melancholy.

One sense in which this feels to me to be so, that the end is where we start from, is that forecasts for 'time future' are usually commentaries on the mood of the present, with some right-sounding evidence attached. The future focuses our present mood. Me I think there'll be both bangs and whimpers, and that homo sapiens is a species that lacks the insight to control our dazzling intelligence and curiosity. We slash and burn, sure there'll be new places to plunder over the horizon. But there comes a moment where there aren't: hence the chimeras of life on Mars or half-man-half-a.i.biscuit.

I'm just back from the funeral of an old friend though, so may be more melancholy than usual, and I'm just re-reading Eliot because the late friend was an enthusiast and so was the celebrant at his funeral. Still I'm heartened to read a line I don't remember noticing before, 'Old men ought to be explorers' Eliot writes, and:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. — T S Eliot

That's lovely.

Anyone else worry that we may get another Solar Storm like the Carrington Event of 1859?

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. — T S Eliot

That small quatrain is one of the few snippets of Elliot I know, but I've always found it profoundly meaningful.

I read in the paper the other day that we have passed peak sand. — Bitter Crank

There was a Foreign Correspondent feature on illegal sand mining around Mumbai, for this very reason. People are routinely murdered over it. And that's sand.

Anyone else worry that we may get another Solar Storm like the Carrington Event of 1859? — anonymous66

Never heard of it before now, but can't see any reason why not.

Please tell me, just how would we become extinct in 500 years? We are talking about the most adaptive animal that ever has lived on this planet. 1517 was a short time ago.

What can happen is some form of collapse of the present globalized World, something remiscient of what happened when Antiquity turned into the Middle Ages, when during that time the "globalized" Network collapsed and such mega-cities as Rome and Constantinople ceased in size. Yet that wasn't an extinction event. Furthermore, eradicating povetry has been the best antidote for population growth. And "peak everything"? If the global population peaks with 9 to 13 billion or more, that will be a perilous time for our growth oriented economic system as population growth is the most basic reason for economic growth. We shouldn't forget that the majority of the planets surface hasn't been mined or even searched for raw materials. Peak Oil is the perfect example of this: what basically has happened is Peak conventional Oil. As the price has gone up, so has the means to make oil from various materials. People simply forget two important things in the equation: the price mechanism and the advances in technology.

What is a real possibility that not only there isn't growth or major advances in science and technology, but even backtracking. Some could argue that we aren't advancing at such a pace as we were in the 19th and 20th Centuries (as the years 2001 and 2010 weren't like the one's portrayed in the famous sci-fi books). Yet that still doesn't mean that the human race is facing extinction in a mere 500 years.

I'm just back from the funeral of an old friend though, so may be more melancholy than usual, and I'm just re-reading Eliot because the late friend was an enthusiast and so was the celebrant at his funeral. Still I'm heartened to read a line I don't remember noticing before, 'Old men ought to be explorers' Eliot writes, and:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T S Eliot — mcdoodle

Another favorite from Four Quartets:

"Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers."

Why the need for a bang or for a whimper? Why not voyage on without knowing? Not well, but forward none the less?

The context:

"Fare forward, travellers! Not escaping from the past
Into indifferent lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you;
And on the deck of the drumming liner
Watching the furrow that widens behind you,
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
At nightfall, in the rigging and the aerial,
Is a voice descanting (though not to the ear,
The murmuring shell of time, and not in any language)

Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
At the moment which is not of action or inaction
You can receive this: "on whatever sphere of being
The mind of man may be intent
At the time of death" - that is the one action
(And the time of death is every moment)
Which will fructify in the lives of others:
And do not think of the fruit of action.
Fare Forward.

O voyagers, O seamen,
You who came to port, and you whose bodies
Will suffer the trial and judgement of the sea,
Or whatever event, this is your real destination."
So Krishna, as when he admonished Arjuna
On the field of battle.
Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers." - The Dry Salvages, Four Quartets

We'll be gone long before the world has ended.

We'll be gone long before the world has ended. — Benkei

Nothing to worry about, eh?

Après nous, le déluge

I was being puerile. It's not the end of the world when it's the end of mankind. I'm still worried about the latter.

Some could argue that we aren't advancing at such a pace as we were in the 19th and 20th Centuries (as the years 2001 and 2010 weren't like the one's portrayed in the famous sci-fi books). — ssu

I have the impression that sci-fi predictions or depictions of the future have almost always overshot the mark in a lot of ways (flying cars, usually with no discernible means of flight or propulsion, are a staple of sci-fi depictions of "the future"). The TV show Lost in Space took place in 1997, for example.

Sometimes sci-fi has underestimated certain technological developments. For instance, the film Blade Runner had Atari signs in the background, and phone booths were still in use, with no sign of cell phones.