The more I think about it, the more I feel like people seem to have some level of desire to see “THE END”. Call it morbid curiosity. Call it nihilism. Call it death anxiety. Whatever. It seems like with all the effort people give to thinking about “the downfall”, there must be some fascination with it.

There’s so many forms of it. Doomsday preppers. Prophetic apocalypses. Global warfare. Climate disasters. The rise of fascism. People see “THE END” in so many different ways. And with the world not becoming any less precarious any time soon, we can only expect these mass-anxities to continue. (And the rich guys certainly have a vested interest in the end of everything. They get to keep their High Score.)

Or maybe not. Maybe human civilization (in at least some form) will continue for millennia more. Maybe we’re far off from the end. But one thing is certain: for each and every one of us walking this earth, the end is at most a century away, give or take a few decades.

“How grand would it be to witness the end of everything!” cries the mortal pretender. For it is not just his death, but the death of all that he knows – and he gets to bear witness.

  • SOB_Van_Owen@lemm.eeEnglish
    1·
    20 hours ago

    Late to the party but I’d say something about this. Sure looks like folks are plenty aware we’ve been on a downward track for many decades and now it’s plain enough that folks are naming it “polycrisis” or “metacrisis”. Baked into the material conditions of life how such as it is, I don’t reckon folks want to see an END but rather see no brakes on this express elevator of combined existential threats. There is now a concentration of power such that it is so much toothpaste impossible to get back in the tube -failing awful violence or catastrophe. A divided, hopelessly propagandized culture that can never get on the same page for collective action. I hear friends talking about lifeboats and doing what one can as communities. Maybe that’s all we have left now.

  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Things get worse and keep getting worse till some threshold forces radical total change.

    At least this is what i understand from history.

    I fully intend and hope to see “THE END” of this world because it means i and the generations after me have a chance of something better.

  • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    I just want to see the end of things getting worse; sure, there have been good developments, but for every good thing at least ten other things get worse. Be it people with seemingly unlimited funds and power fucking everything up because they felt like it or climate change (I don’t even know which is the bigger threat any more).

    I just want things to improve, but that’s more or less a pipe dream.

      • FireWire400@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        Life got a lot better for me in the last few years as well but what good it that when the world goes to shit?

        I’m trying my best to not worry but it’s getting harder and harder.

        • TimewornTraveler@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          i feel this. it’s kind of a blessing though. i mean look at it like this: if you knew you only had 5 years left, what would you do with that time? it would probably look like investing in the future of others (which also encompasses political action). and of course it would also look like a lot of gratitude and merrymaking.

          truth is that none of us are guaranteed to be here that long. confronting that is hard. but that awareness is what actually allows us to live a meaningful life.