Yesterday on Gizmodo, we looked at the state of water rights in the face of California’s terrifying drought. And then SpaceX didn’t launch. It feels like a crappy day for humankind. But are we really gonna bite the dust?
I spent the weekend thinking about the state of post-apocalyptic New York City after seeing a play on the topic. In the play, “Salvage“, an unnamed Event levels most of the city and irradiates much of the remaining population. I’m pretty sure this is how we’re going to go, when we go — this world is too chock-full of nuclear weapons, and reckless, feckless people often have the launch codes. World War III, if and when it happens, would at best be over quickly, with a chain reaction of escalating bombs that rain fiery destruction upon us all, leaving the cockroach lords to resume their rightful place as rulers of the planet.
We should be so lucky. Knowing humankind’s shitty track record, we’d likely find a way to prolong another world war as we have those in the past — through innovative, escalating uses of technology developed into death machines. Widespread chemical warfare is in this way more terrifying than the nuclear idea.
But it could also be bees. If the bees leave us, we’ll be screwed on our un-pollenated ball of dust, and it won’t matter what we blow up. So what’s the most likely scenario that’s going to trip us into horrific dystopia? The encroachment of climate change ruining everything? A war on the horizon — who are are the likely players? Aliens descending who are finally tired of our shit? Let us know in the comments how the world is going to end — or how you’d most like to go out.
Picture: Alan Moore’s Watchmen