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We’re not afraid of the end of the world; we’re looking forward to it. Disaster movies make great blockbusters, the Second Coming fills the pews, and historical figures from Nostradamus to the Mayans become news again. But why? Why do we love the idea of The End?
When I was twelve, I dug a
hole in my backyard, tunneling underground to make a bomb shelter. In those
Cold War days, end of the world options were few. While other kids my age read
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comics, I depressed myself with non-fiction risk
assesments and fictional accounts of nuclear winter. While that was a much more
realistic threat than Mayan calendars, I was lucky not to die of suffocation when
my tunnel caved in.
In 1992, my best friend and I
sat on the steps of a church, eating popcorn, waiting for a predicted Second
Coming. The church lawn sported a statue of Jesus, illuminated, so we’d
recognize him. At midnight, the light went out. Spooky. Or a mechanical timer.
Though the predictions were
wrong, and the world hasn't ended, we have every reason to keep rooting for it.
Surviving an apocalypse, in
every form, represents our ability to cheat death. For all of us, death is the ultimate
end of the world. Fantasizing about survival, (you do secretly expect to
survive, right?) is really just a desire to survive death. This would also make
us unique, special, not like those other weak schmucks.
There are three reasons you deserve to survive an apocalypse:
1. You prepared. Survivalists
love this. They stock up on Tamiflu, iodine pills, biohazard suits, dried food,
and dozens of guns, ready for anything. A tip for the rest of you: make a map
of your friendly neighborhood survivalists. When they die, in their car, stuck
in traffic, you inherit all their stuff.
2. You are technologically
superior. Guys love gadgets. Prepping for an apocalypse isn't like collecting
fine watches - it has a purpose! Just like all those woodworking tools in the
garage, we might use them some day.
3. You are special. There are
over six billion people on the planet and counting. It's hard to know who's
smarter, faster, more resourceful - in short, worthy. An apocalypse narrows the
field to let you shine. Of course that's
you!
Every version of the
apocalypse has its own deep-seated psychological issues. They serve a purpose.
If I forgot any, let me know, but here are the big ones:
Zombie Apocalypse
Popular Stories: Day of the Dead, World War Z, I Am Legend, 28 Days
Later
What it Represents: Conquering death through base immortality and free
sanction to kill humanoids.
Positives:The ability to shoot other human beings in the head without guilt. The ability to survive death (in some form) even if you are unlucky
enough to die.
Negatives: Not very likely to happen in our lifetime.
Second Coming
Popular Stories: Left Behind
What it Represents: This
fantasy provides those who have faith in invisible things tangible proof that
they were right all along. (That's not really faith, though, is it?)
Positives: Jesus comes back and slaps the
other cheek.
Negatives: Bible thumpers and
televangelists, the very people first to go in other scenarios, survive.
Nuclear War
What It Represents: The
failure of rational thought
Positives: Vindicates anyone living in
rural areas, away from prime targets. Radiation might, just might,
create women with three breasts. Or men with breasts of their own.
Negatives: Country music immediately
bumps R&B off the Billboard charts.More likely to eliminate all
life on the planet. Kinda legitimately scary.
Alien invasion
Popular Stories: Independence
Day, War of the Worlds
What it Represents: A fear of
science. Alien invasion scenarios became popular when human science started to
take off. It is both a fear of our own technology (which is alien to
non-engineers) and a fear that we're not advanced enough. Science seems to
trump traditional common sense, so we like to see simple people win in the end.
Positives: Proves that we are not alone in
the universe. Ability to co-opt alien
technology for human good.
Negatives: Extinction level event means
no survivors at all.
Robot Invasion
Popular Stories: Terminator,
The Matrix
What it Represents: The fear
that humans become gods. We don't like the idea that we can create life, even
artificial. Only gods do that. Mortals who try must be punished.
Positives: Easy to tell the difference
between friend and foe. Eat my EMP!
Negatives: AI robots will be just like us
- intelligent, warmongering creatures that exterminate all lesser creatures. A
justifiable fear backed up by ten thousand years of history. And when they're done, they'll probably invent Dancing with the Robots.
Viral Plague
Popular Stories: Contagion,
The Hot Zone, Outbreak
What it Represents: Our
society supports the weak in our species. A plague kills them off. Balance
restored.
Positives: If you survive, the world is
your playground. Mostly good looking, strong,
young, healthy specimens left to repopulate the world
Negatives: Nasty, brutish death from an
invisible enemy that cannot be battled with guns
Asteroids
Popular Stories: Armagedon, Deep
Impact
What it Represents: Death by
an outside source, fear of that we cannot control.
Positives: It might not hit our side of
the Earth.
Negatives: Not very scary. Makes us say, “Meh”.
It killed the dinosaurs. Big whoop. If
we were actually threatened, we'd send Ben Affleck up in a space shuttle and
nuke it.
Arrival of a Supernatural World
Overlord
Popular Stories: Ghostbusters,
The Avengers
What it Represents: The triumph of sloth and ignorance
Positives: A world dictatorship takes
away the compromise of a democracy, making everything easier. We don’t have to make decisions
any more. Just do as the Man says, and you won’t get hurt.
Negatives: Bad architectural styles, poor
fashion sense
Despite the variety, this still doesn't explain why we WANT it to happen. Here
are the top five reasons:
1. WE’RE
BORED! Modern society gives us increasingly smaller tasks and significantly less
connection to the basics of life – food, shelter. Everything we worry about
daily is really not important at all. People lining up for the next iPhones,
people who vote for Dancing With the Stars, people who talk about what they’re
going to buy next – these people have no life. None of us do! The apocalypse
makes life meaningful – eat and stay alive. What could be more basic? What
could be more meaningful?
2. Free
Stuff. In the event that the world ends, all property, credit card bills,
paychecks, become a thing of the past. Most of the world’s population is dead!
You want that Ferrari? It’s yours! You want to live in that mansion? Yours!
Need food, go to the supermarket. It’s free! We have enough durable goods and
products to service the remaining lucky few for several generations. Once you
figure out what to eat and drink (which you will if you survive the first two
weeks), you’re golden. It’s like winning the lottery!
3. No
Work. That’s right, you can kiss that dreadful day job goodbye. No work = permanent
post-apocalyptic vacation. Nice. Of course, we don’t realize that subsistence
living sucks. If it were so great, we wouldn’t have progressed to our modern
level of convenience in the first place. But modern man forgets, and wishes
upon himself the worst.
4. No
more annoying people. Admit it. 90% of the people you encounter on a daily
basis drive you insane. Even your loved ones and family members. After the
apocalypse, you get a healthy dose of peace and quiet. And if anyone tries to
disturb that, you can shoot them.
5. Every
story has an ending, and we want to be there. This whole concept of the world
going on for generation after generation for millions of years implies that we,
now, are not the be all and end all of the universe. That’s just not right. It’s
far better to be the culmination of history than a blip somewhere in the middle.
Best of all, surviving the end automatically makes us the protagonists of the
next chapter!
The Perfect Apocalypse
Not all apocalypses are alike.
In fact, some are not desirable at all.
Sandia National Laboratories,
the company America trusts with its nuclear arsenal, lists only three
catastrophic events worthy of calculating the odds and the steps necessary for
their prevention. These three are nuclear war, the collision of an asteroid on
our planet, and global climate change.
Despite laboring over it for
sixty years, the world still hasn’t solved the first problem.
Non-proliferation, rather than elimination of nuclear technology, is the norm,
which means the problem never really went away. As for asteroids… meh.
And Climate Change? We're
still denying it. We continue to make climate change an economic issue rather
than a survival issue, claiming that its solution lies not in the doing, but in
the cost of doing.
Maybe the reason we’re not
solving these three things is that we don’t
want to solve them. We want this pathetic world to end.
Sandia sets the odds of a
catastrophic asteroid impact at less than one in 10,000 within the next
century. Meanwhile, Sandia reports, “The chances of a greenhouse gas induced
global catastrophe are hundreds of times greater.” Nuclear winter and asteroids have
instantaneous destruction going for them. Somehow the very real but slow acting
poison of climate change simply doesn’t spark the human imagination in the same
way.
And that’s what this is all
about: sparking the imagination. You would think that with three very real
possibilities for the end of the world at our fingertips, we wouldn’t need to think
of any more. Wrong. We’re not looking for reality.
So what would the perfect
apocalypse look like?
It would have to reduce the
human population by a large margin, much like a viral event, while leaving all
infrastructure in place. It would also give us some form of entertainment.
The clear winner?
The Zombie Apocalypse, caused
by a virus. All the dead people you want, none of the damage, with a little
target practice thrown in.
Sounds good to me!
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