Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

 

The wise words of Robert Frost ring true. Well true enough for any of you cool kids that were engulfed in the wonderful world of Twilight. Bella said it best, allowing us all to feed into this notion that we’re completely in control of the inevitable. Unfortunately, life has a way of imitating art. It’s happening, the world is coming to an end slowly and we’re all becoming self-aware of our own demise. 

 

Before you go reaching for the pitchforks or creating circles with candles and salt, I’m not telling you that we’re actually dying. Though that’s not untrue, I wanted to talk about this feeling that’s been weighing heavy on us all for the past 3 years. Or at least since the start of covid. This feeling that no matter how hard we all try, we’ll never be able to run away from. That feeling of IMPENDING DOOM.

 

In many cases, a sense of IMPENDING DOOM comes before rather serious medical events, like a heart attack, blood clot, seizure, or poisoning. A feeling of impending doom can often be a sign of an imminent medical event or crisis. That’s why doctors take the symptoms seriously. If a patient reports a feeling that “something bad is about to happen”, it’s acted on and should be taken as seriously as any other ailment. But wait? What does any of this have to do with prepping for the end? It doesn’t, I just found that IMPENDING DOOM as a serious medical condition seems so extreme. 

 

Instead I wanted to discuss the most interesting ways people believe the world is going to end, ranked from least to most likely in my mind to happen. It’s a scientific list that’s signed off by a profession. “He’s right you know” – Neil deGrasse-Tyson

 

AI Apocalypse

 

AI is becoming way too real, and it’s not sitting right with me. While scientists/experts say AI can help maximise productivity and the worries of full-scale robot replacement are unfounded, pervasive concern persists. Isaac Asimov called it the “Frankenstein Complex” — fear that intelligent machines will rise up and destroy their human overlords. This has been portrayed and seen throughout media for years, but is actualising in the form of AI generated images, music, and more?

 

I’m not saying it’s time to engage battle stations, but we’ve seen countless tales of AI going rogue–turning on the creator. Why aren’t we feeding our own warnings as the real becomes more real, looking at how AI is inevitably going to become so smart it takes control. 

 

Run out of RAM

 

We love computer simulation theory.

 

Time simply, runs out

 

While some scientists believe the expansion of the universe is accelerating, some theorise that distant celestial bodies only seem that way because we’re looking back in time to see them (remember, it takes a while for their light to reach us). So, that means that they were moving faster in the past than they are in now… which means time is slowing down. But what happens when we reach the end of the stopwatch? Does it simply…stop?

 

“The True Way” cult 

 

Hon-Ming Chen established his “True Way” cult in Taiwan, blending beliefs from Buddhism and Taoism with UFO conspiracy theories. Chen believed that God would appear on American cable television on the morning of March 31, 1998. He relocated his cult to Garland, Texas — because the town’s name sounded like “God Land” to them — to wait for the Rapture to happen.

 

He believed that they’d be raptured, or some shit like that. Obviously it didn’t pan out, but do me a favour and look it up. While it wasn’t true, it’s a cooked journey and I want you all to just experience what I had too when looking it up. What the fuck man. 

 

Suck me in

 

Imagine a chunk of space that is totally empty, hence a vacuum. There’s nothing there. Like literally nothing. You might reasonably assume that it is therefore at what physicists call a “ground state” (because there is no energy to disturb it) and that this space is totally stable as a result. Apparently not. Assume we’re wrong and the whole thing is a ‘fake vacuum’ and isn’t ground state at all. It’s all a facade. So what happens if we shift into the true vacuum?

 

To put it another way, imagine you’re living inside a massive, fuck-off bubble. It’s kind of stable – except the air pressure on the outside of the bubble (which you can’t see) is actually much lower than the air pressure within. Then it popped. Like just collapsed and then imploded. Yeah that’s us. We’re the popped bubble.