I don't think that a real apocalypse is just around the corner, but it does concern me that so many people - journalists, politicians, commentators, wankers on Twitter - seem to be adopting an apocalyptic rhetorical style. Is it possible to talk oneself into an apocalypse simply by acting as though everything that goes even slightly wrong is a crisis, that everything one doesn't like is a mortal sin, and that everyone one doesn't agree with represents a deadly threat?
This tendency to speak in apocalyptic terms is coupled with an acceleration merely in the pace of events alone, such that one increasingly feels that it is impossible to simply pause, take stock, and orient oneself. To even make up one's mind as to what one thinks about event A before events B, C, D and E overtake it. To revise old opinions and clarify new ones in the light of new information before newer new information replaces it.
This combination of frenzied catastrophism and frenetic speed is driving us mad. When the apocalypse does come, I don't believe it will be in the form of nuclear war, the spread of disease, worldwide famine, global warming, etc. I think it will come with the fraying of our psyches such that we will no longer be capable of forming stable societies and maintaining them across time. I think the apocalypse will in other words be mental - maybe the right word is 'spiritual' - rather than physical.
What will the spiritual post-apocalypse look like, then? Not the vacant buildings and empty streets of an I Am Legend, the bleak arid wastelands of a Mad Max, the people-farms of The Matrix, or the lurid alien vistas of Rifts. I imagine instead something more like a scene from a nightmarish old folks' home: a lot of angry and confused elderly people gone senile and dangerous, unable and unwilling to procreate, living amid the slowly crumbling ruins of what was once a civilisation, and perhaps tended to by the robots they managed to create as their level of technological advancement reaches its zenith. A world in which any encounter with another person is potentially dangerous and best avoided, and in which the very means by which one person could communicate with another have totally broken down.
In the 1970s and 80s the apocalypse that confronted us was nuclear war, and the role playing industry saw this and came up with Gamma World. Will it come up with a game or setting inspired by the potential apocalypses opening out before our eyes today? I hope so.
This isn't exactly what you're describing of course, but.... did you ever read the JG Ballard story about a society run entirely through remote interaction (over Zoom/Skype, basically), and when some curious friends decide to meet in-person, the panic of being physically close to other humans drives them to murder one another?
ReplyDeleteI think I have read less than three JG Ballard stories in my entire life. He's a total blindspot for me - need to read more.
DeleteJason & Jay, are you sure you're not thinking about E. M. Forster's *The Machine Stops*? The premise is the same, and I don't remember a story like that in Ballard (but I haven't read everything he wrote, but about half).
DeleteI suspect a 'spiritual post-apocalypse' (or, certainly, a post-apocalypse with a decided spiritual dimension) is what PD James had in mind her 1992 book The Children of Men. [The 2006 film has a very different tone and set of strengths.] To say nothing of 'unable and unwilling to procreate'.
ReplyDeleteNo interest in the future (because there will be none), parodies of parenthood, radically reduced political participation, religion of an increasingly shallow variety....(I recalled when writing this comment that I had a post on it but I had forgotten that it was this long: https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2017/06/pd-jamess-children-of-men-theme-tone.html)
'the fraying of our psyches such that we will no longer be capable of forming stable societies and maintaining them across time' - as I recall, there is a bit in Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue where he proposes that this has already happened, sort of.
Sounds prescient. I have a lot of time for PD James. Not read that one, though.
DeleteI am an admirer of MacIntyre, but I think he underestimated the ability of human beings to muddle along. Ultimately, he was right, and I think we are slowly seeing that, but it is a much slower process than he implied.
Children of Men (the book) came to my mind too. My enjoyment of the book was snuffed out by having to study it. Teacher was convinced it wasn't "sci fi" for some reason, but I think spiritual post-apocalypse was absolutely what PD James was going for. Given how much 70s and 80s (British) TV had a similar vibe, though, the book didn't feel particularly prescient or original. Looking back further, being obsessed with the imminent apocalypse is probably our species' oldest hobby.
Deletethe rpg industry did come up with a game for a spiritual apocalypse, it was called Paranoia
ReplyDeleteHa! Could be right. I have got a copy somewhere.
DeleteNot to take you too literally, but I immediately thought of a long ago post of yours regarding a hypothetical White Wolf/Cyberpunk mashup
ReplyDeletehttp://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2016/03/cyberwolf-werepunkalypse.html
to which I took the following notes:
The Interurbanet is a series of 57 nodes.
You are a courier between nodes.
There will be interference.
or
You will be the interference.
or
Outside the Straight Road it's scary as hell out there.
See also Noo Futra's - The Hozo: "ARE/IS/BELIEVE," "THINK of the OUTGROUP as," and "COMMUNICATION FAILS AROUND" tables.
I still want to do something with that idea.
DeleteSeditive drugs. Our apocalypse may be a self induced, overmedicated, apathy. I can't imagine there would be much adventure gaming in that future, however.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we need to abandon the apocalyptic theme altogether and focus on a more proactive fantasy! One that is less self absorbed and more tolerant, with less emphasis on science and more on mysticism, one containing less seriousness and more whimsy. At least that way we could go quietly into the dark while smiling peacefully.
Cheers!
You are almost certainly right. Although I think the "apathetic" future would be an interesting setting to adventure in - the PCs would just be the last of the non-apathetic ones!
DeleteEquilibrium. I could really see some folks trying to outlaw emotion to head off this apocalypse.
ReplyDeleteMore disquieting than a violent end would be.
ReplyDeleteI'd take a nuclear armageddon and being eaten by a cannibal warlord of the wasteland over being the last old man in the society-wide retirement home whose dick still gets hard any day.
I do - genuinely - believe that "a real apocalypse is just around the corner" - probably 10-15 years away. And I think one way or another it will come about as a result of society putting more and more trust in some form of advanced technology that ultimately turns out to be flawed. It might be killer robots, it might be social media or entertainment algorithms designed to drive engagement, it might be the worldwide telecommunications network (and everything that relies on it) breaking down for some reason.
ReplyDeleteAssuming that you aren't in your 70s with no friends or family, or genuinely believe that society will deserve apocalypse in 10-15 years time, what are you going to do about it? Anyone who claims to believe that the apocalypse is imminent but hasn't significantly adapted their life around that belief, doesn't.
DeleteMaybe they don't believe they can make a difference (probably true if they're right). Maybe they prefer to spend the next 10-15 years living normally (whatever that means for them). Maybe they genuinely believe that rationally, but it's too psychologically painful to act on it and make it feel real (it is a pretty dark thought).
DeleteI don't think those choices are plausible. Whether you do or do not believe you can make a difference is a red herring. If you genuinely believed the apocalypse was only 10-15 years away, you absolutely ought to change your behaviour accordingly. You would not "live normally". Consider how people's behaviour would change if they believed the world would end in 1 week (e.g. the asteroid scenario). What about 1 year? Or 5? If you are in your 30s and believe the world will end when you are 40-45, you aren't saving for retirement, are you? Would you have kids? Nope. Would you waste another 5 years (33% of your remaining time) in a dull job? Maybe, but only to fund your remaining 5-10 years of hedonism.
DeleteAs far as believing the end is nigh rationally, but "it's too painful psychologically" to confront, the obvious and only answer is to get help. Maybe the therapy works, maybe it doesn't, but "too psychologically painful" isn't a termination point of the decision tree. In summary, unless I see someone either prepping for the apocalypse, prepping for a massive years-long party, or trying very, very hard to fix the problem, they don't really believe the end is coming.
I also believe that something - perhaps not an apocalypse, but certainly a significant and painful upheaval in human civilisation - is on its way, possibly within 10-15 years, almost certainly within 30 - probably as a result of climate change, although the increasing interdependence of societies, combined with the cutting-of-all-slack that came with neoliberalism, and the blossoming of easy-to-obtain and potentially catastrophic technologies, mean that other options are available.
DeleteAssuming that "doing something about it" means either dropping out of society, organising a big party, or coming up with a fix seems very simplistic, although I think it's perhaps inevitable that you will be simplistic if you don't feel that way yourself.
The main "something" that I'm doing is trying to appreciate my time here, now. Prepping seems mostly pointless and anyway goes against my ethics. Partying - well, yes, every day is an opportunity for a party of some sort, I guess; if you have the stamina. And stopping "it" - absolutely! Though my resources are limited. Where would you suggest that I start?
Probably the most significant change I have made in the last 5 years has been in disengaging as completely as possible from "journalists, politicians, commentators, and wankers on Twitter". Occasionally friends who still do those things accuse me of being irresponsible for not watching the news. Perhaps. But the Ben Hecht line "trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock" has long struck me as very true - and really struck home when I learned more about Afghanistan in 2 hours of reading a book than I had done in reading "AfghanistanAfghanistanAfghanistan" in the news every day for 10 years.
And of course I may be wrong. I was in the 1980s, when I was fairly certain that we were headed for nuclear war before the end of the decade. It does feel to me like the threats we currently face are very different in nature - they come from huge interconnected systems rather than the whims of two people - but I would be an idiot not to admit the possibility of being mistaken. To suggest that anyone who is still paying into a pension scheme, or is not entirely immersed in hedonism, can't be a TRUE believer in the coming apocalypse just seems to show an ignorance of the complex, contradictory bundles of behaviour that humans are.
I think we are possibly disagreeing about some definitions here, in particular "belief". I think many people believe they believe something, rather than actually believe something. And the test is usually what they do about their "belief". This is consistent with the idea that we're all complex, contradictory bundles.
DeleteFor my part, I actually agree that there are a couple of existential risks we're failing to manage. AI being the single biggest threat by a wide margin.
Failing to think clearly about existential risks is a meta-risk that I try to engage with when I can. That's what this paltry effort is.
Ah, that does make sense, and also casts a new light on my issues with the word "believe" - I usually use the word as shorthand for a strong form of supposition, because I think that true belief is folly, but it makes sense to use it as you do for unconscious tenets.
DeleteAs for AI, I don't think it's likely to prove an existential threat within our lifetime (although it is a threat to many individuals' livelihoods). In terms of technology, the biggest threats are those which give tiny groups of people powers which are on a par with nation states, particularly bioengineering, nanotechnology, and robotics. Have you seen the short film Slaughterbots? Absolutely terrifying, and very plausible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
Absolutely, I agree. The more likely threat posed by AI, climate change etc is the erosion of quality of life for many, more than anything truly apocalyptic. We'll probably be the frog that boiled itself.
DeleteOn "belief", there's also the social cachet/identity benefits of declaring certain beliefs, but that's a whole other conversation.
I'm watching that video right now - looks great/horrifying so far!
"living amid the slowly crumbling ruins of what was once a civilisation, and perhaps tended to by the robots they managed to create as their level of technological advancement reaches its zenith"
ReplyDeleteThe flawed but interesting novel 2121 by the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield is a bit like this. The plot doesn't really make sense because it seems like the infantilised fictional society in the books couldn't exist without some hard-headed "adults" running things behind the scenes, but it is quite a creepy and unsettling read.
Careful now, you're being a bit too close to being a "conspiracy theorist" if you say the threat of the day as ordained by social media and politicians isn't going to cause the end of the world in the next 3-5. Nevermind that anyone old enough can remember this shit in the '90s and how we'd be living in Mad Max by the end of the decade. And then the one after. And the one after. But remember, you gotta parrot the correct opinion less you become a social pariah and morally inferior.
ReplyDeleteSo yes you are correct that the apocalypse is one upon our very minds.
no communication breakdown, but twitter wars in ceaseless reverberations
ReplyDeleteMakes me think of Zardoz
ReplyDeleteI know someone who was conceived inside the head of Zardoz while their parents were tripping on acid. True story! (I, of course, have absolutely no way of verifying this, but one of their parents was in the film and... well, you would, wouldn't you?)
DeleteReminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock
ReplyDeleteReminds me, I have a copy of Future Shock which I've been meaning to read since I inherited from my grandpa [checks] almost 25 years ago. I should probably read it before the future.
DeleteThe brilliant final League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic The Tempest is a spiritual apocalypse, tho perhaps a bit of a different sort than what you're describing. Exuberantly pessimistic.
ReplyDeleteThere are a handful of "apocalypses" headed our way, though most of us will survive them because they're not *that* sort of apocalypses. But with the Boomers retiring, we're about to see yuge distortions and warping effects in the business world the likes of which haven't been seen since the Black Death killed a third of Europe. So expect to see a surfiet of garment-rending and teeth-gnashing in the business pages of your paper, while elsewhere (and occasionally bobbling up to the front page) everyone wonders why they can't get their favorite brand of toothpaste anymore at the store, and what ever happened to that Green Revolution everyone was on about when we were young? Meanwhile, far across the sea, the Four Horsemen will be be turning entire continents into their personal mosh pits, and we'll tut-tut and make noises that sound distrubingly like, "Why can't the rest of the world get its act together?" without actually saying that, because saying that out loud would be terribly rude, don't you know, without realizing how much of it is due to us being too concerned with finding our missing favorite toothpaste to really be bothered with keeping the world on kilter. >.<
ReplyDeleteI'm keen to know what you mean about the effect of Boomers leaving the business world? I can't see what impact this will have, and anyway most have them have already retired (Boomers are aged roughly from 57 and 76).
DeleteAnd with other countries - do you mean WRT climate change? This is one of the biggies for me - there are currently around 65 million displaced persons in the world, and estimates are that climate change will push this to 250 million by 2050 (although I think the figure may well go much higher - we have repeatedly and consistently underestimated the speed at which climate change is happening). Finding homes for that number of people is doable, but it is going to cause a helluva a lot of upheaval, and it's unlikely that we'll be able to keep all of these people in makeshift "camps" for their entire lives (which is already happening). I personally think that disaster expert Vinay Gupta's solution to this makes a hell of a lot of sense: "If we won’t let them get jobs and work, let them get PhDs on the internet and become huge academic centres of excellence. There is no problem in this world that access to 150 million more educated human beings would not improve, and maybe in the long run they could fan out across the globe as school teachers."
As of last year, Boomers were still more than one out of every 5 Americans. Not just adults, all Americans. If *all* of the X-ers stepped up, they could almost replace the Boomers, but "office PTSD" is the not-a-joke de jure in my circles right now. The scramble for skilled employees among industries without a tradition of mentorship (which means everything but the trades and they have their own issues) should create upward pressure on wages for those with experience. This has the chance of creating an even greater wage chasm between those who know how to market their skills and those who don't.
DeleteAs for the rest of the world, partly climate change, but I think most of the nastiness there is at least 30 years off. In the meantime, instead of pouring oil over troubled waters, Biden has ramped up the trade wars. This isn't likely to make China less bellicose. Saudi Arabia has apparently decided that the US is not a reliable partner (and not without reason) and so the US ability to keep the lid on the Middle East, already fraying at the edges, is likely to deteriorate even more. (Turkey might be able to take over, but they've been out of that business for over a hundred years, so there are likely to at least be some growing pains there, even assuming they try.) War has returned to Europe, creating all sorts of disruptions in food and energy markets, and right now the West doesn't want Russia to win, so they're going to keep propping up Ukraine but don't want a direct confrontation with Russia, so that war isn't likely to end anytime soon. I fear our long nap from history is about to end and we're going to see a return to all sorts of things that were, for most of my lifetime, unthinkable, but were SOP before WW2. :/
Ahhhh, thanks for the explainer, that all makes a lot of sense. A lot of terrifying sense.
DeleteIt's so hard to boil down years of reading and thinking into a couple of persuasive paragraphs.
DeleteI think I'm on the other side of a few of these positions, Trollsmyth, but I tried the other day to explain my current thoughts on the war in Ukraine to a sceptic, and realised it would have taken hours (of planning) to know where to start in a way that might convince my interlocutor.
Political, social, economic and spiritual collapse is imminent and inherent in the heyday of a material civilization. Every advance is a push to the limit, which can reveal a pit underfoot.
ReplyDeleteThe only people who are still a community are the religious ones (the really big and traditional ones). It will be up to them, as always in history, to rebuild civilization from the lowest common denominator they have.
As for those atomized or who think the world started with the internet, the future really looks scary.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper (q)
ReplyDeleteWe're fed too much imagery such as Vandals sacking Rome, and tend to forget that actual fall of Roman Empire took centuries. During which situation grew steadily worse despite periods of reprieve. There's a lesson in there ;))
Mike