Apocalypse Soon?

One of the illogical things about us humans is that, while we have built tremendous infastructure and 'civilisation', we have a morbid fascination with society being destroyed. In a way, we like to hear about times when the rules don't apply and anarchy occurs.

"Anyone, who truly wants to go to war, has truly never been there before!" -Larry Reeves


(Image: Part of an anti-Iraq War demonstration, Washington DC, 2007.)

Extending that concept from war, to all anarchic situations (where society and rule of law doesn't apply) such as natural disasters, terrible epidemics, stalking killers, alien invasion, and of course zombies, you can see how we are all interested in asking ourselves, 'how would we cope with the test'?

(Image: Here for no reason whatsoever other than that I liked both this and 28 Months Later.)

We write stories about them. We watch films, read books, and play games about them. We even pay close attention to potential real future anarchic situations. But would we really want these things to happen? Maybe the quote above explains the answer, that those of us who have not experienced a survival situation perhaps in some way want to be in one. But I don't have dozens of veterans, survivalists and natural disaster survivors to ask for verification.

I guess we are obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios because we are all animals. Our natural habitat is woodland, jungle, desert, plains etc. But most of us live in a world far removed from the settings we evolved/were designed for. (see? Open-minded on theories of human origin!)

Paved streets, central heating, street lighting at night, and TV - these are the modern human's habitat. So perhaps we would be naturally inclined to take an interest in possible situations where anarchy takes over and we have to survive, like we are all born prepared to do.


(Image: A hot spring in Yellowstone national park, USA. Someone took a hell of a photograph.)

Will Yellowstone erupt, covering the entire northern hemisphere in ash? Will a mysterious zombie outbreak force us to reach for our shotguns? Will there be a satanical New World Order to fight? The answer is: maybe, but not right now. (except Yellowstone, which experts say will erupt someday, but we don't know when.) But we will keep telling stories about such things, and as the Boy Scouts say, 'Be prepared'.