| Author | Message | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Here is something that I think all the time without articulating it, either to myself or anyone else. I know it looks pretty cheerless as a topic but it's interesting! The end of the world. I think we have already seen it. It happened in the Twentieth Century. You get these groups of people gathering on beaches, standing in rings and holding hands, in communion, hoping to see extra-terrestrials who maybe will land amonngst the sand and palms and in the light evening breeze take them away; to the sound of the surf; because they are convinced that the end of the world is imminent. What actually I think they are expressing is that it has already happened; only they don't realise it. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi MJP, We need a way to tell, don't we? If it has ended, I think I'll take a vacation and stop stressing. It looks like these guys are still preparing for the end though: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/burie d-seed-vault-opens-in-arctic/index.html?hp So maybe it's not all over yet. Just think of it: after we're gone, the poles will continue to warm. The ice will melt, the land will remain. Then, one day, the seed vault - too weathered to stand any longer - will break open, the seeds will sow themselves and there will be thriving plant life in what is now antactica. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Thought from the 80s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Man:_A_Zoology_ of_the_Future Wasn't there a book recently about what would happen to NY if man disappeared? A guide to after the rapture, assuming a very forgiving god... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi Al, After Man looks cool! I'm not sure about the other book you're refering to, but there is a very interesting looking book called "The World Without Us" that I hope to read very soon. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Yup, that's the one - lots of publicity for it last year over here. Looks fascinating! Particularly liked the vision of NY after people - falling back into stream-y islandness... Amazing how much upkeep cities take to keep them cities... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
>>Amazing how much upkeep cities take to keep them cities... Yeah, agreed. I've been hiking and backpacking in the NY area pretty avidly for a year now, and I'm always amazed at what the "real" NY landscape is like. Harriman State Park in particular is really close to the city and is a little slice of that stream-y island historical period. There are also some old photos at the Museum of Natural History that are pretty stunning in that what they reveal looks *nothing* like what is here today. I was just at a three day training seminar at the SAS institute. They class room was on the 47th floor and the walls were all glass. I could look out past the city and see the Catskills rolling into the horizon. It hammered home what an unnatural scar the city's landscape is. I have no doubt that nature would reclaim all this urban grandeur pretty quickly if afforded the chance though. I mean, there were lions and deer running around with Will Smith in I AM LEGEND, right? And that was only a couple years after the vampires took over. ;) | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
This post: then an EARTHQUAKE here. Like - wow, dude. Fresh from Grimsby, this astonishing video of a local Alan Partridge talking us through the "devastation" : http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nod eId=181505&command=displayContent&sourceNode=23172 3&home=yes&more_nodeId1=151458&contentPK=19996927 - which, er, seems to be 3 fallen chimney pots and a few things shaken off the shelves in Tesco. As he says at the end, cleaning up after this disaster may well take until - um, this afternoon. "And on that bombshell - " No sign of the Antichrist, either. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Yikes. I've decided to take the REM 'End of the World as We Know It' test. *checks* *feels fine* Yikes! That proves it. We're all fucked. Dave - alas, similar wild hiking pretty impossible round London, but I got Heather a walks near London book for her birthday, so will be checking some of those out in the near future I think. The UK is so much less wild than so much of the States - for us, it would be a loss of a very particular kind of rural landscape as well, I suspect. Will Smith cannot lie! That's documentary proof, I would think. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
I leave you to yr own devices for a couple of days and I find you've lapsed into the end of the world. *sigh* Found a cheap DVD of Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat on Monday. Enormous fun post-apocalyptic comedy with bizarre 80s electro jazz-funk soundtrack. Mais oui! | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Superbe! But does it have Christophe Lambert in it? | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Ah non. Mais Jean Reno est vraiment formidable. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Meanwhile, back in the disaster zone: "Emergency services report no injuries as a result of the earthquake but David Hopkins of Lincolnshire Fire said the tremor had caused a fire when a candle fell from a TV in Skegness." http://www.skegnessstandard.co.uk/news/REACTION-Re aders-tell-their-earthquake.3821938.jp Hardly a re-run of San Francisco 1906, is it? | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Le Reno? Chouette. L'homme est un dieu. Yup, but the Great Fire of London began with an oven... *trembles* | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
It was the advert for the new Mike Oldfield album on the page that really made me feel that the world had come to an end. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I blame lunch. Yesterday's menu today's news: Rust and toe soup Olgivy gravy a la car Toasted fart with root vegetables & potatoes Baked potatoes with a selection of fillings | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Rust and toe soup? Stope eating in the Rustaurant, then! *bdm tish* Vangyewvairmush, ameerevryniteviseek... | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Al I can't stop eating at the restaurant at the end of the world if it is the end of the world can I? Tsk | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Some wine with that? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=b_27g-X1zsQ | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Hey - you can hear the police coming for him after 30 seconds! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
In the mean time, renowned astrologer Jonathon Cainer has it all sussed: "There may be more earthquakes over the next few years, Pluto, 'Lord of the Underworld' is famous for unleashing powerful forces. It is now in Capricorn, an earth sign, traditionally associated with mountains and tectonic plates. I am not necessarily predicting disaster, just anticipating more tremors." http://www.cainer.com/ Sceptics will note the use of "next few years," "not necessarily predicting," etc., which actually prophesizes zilch. In other words: we live on a volcanically active planet; it isn't going to change soon. That is it. Thank you. | ||
| alex Username: alex Registered: 10-2006 |
I seem to be entering a period where I am less concerned about the end of the world than I am about the end of my life, i.e that I now understand that I am not immortal. In fact, I may have less time left than I have had thus far. And I'll tell you, I am very fucking annoyed about it. It hasn't made me take up being healthy, but that has to be just around the corner as I give up everything I enjoy to stave off the inevitable. I am reading The God Delusion in tandem with The History of Gnostiscism (Giovanni Filoramo if you're interested), and therefore I am very confused. I am pondering packing my job in and doing something more fulfilling. Luckily, I have a beautiful partner so I don't need a younger one, but even that pisses me off because there's so little time left with her. So I'll be livid if the end of the world happens soon - it can wait until I'm gone, thanks. Bah. P.S Anyone know where Don De Lillo gets his Dylar from? | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Sudden bad news? Not good, hope all's as well as it can be. What would the more fulfilling thing be? | ||
| alex Username: alex Registered: 10-2006 |
Didn't mean to be alarmist - no real reason for gloom apart from middle age. As for something more fulfilling, I want to bake bread. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Ah, that's alright then. Was doing lots of Yoga a couple of years ago and had very peculiar mortality thing going on, I kept on waking up late at night with the very sudden realisation that one day my body would *stop* and I'd still be in it! So I took up cycling and now regularly risk crushing by large metal things while breathing in much fumes. Not sure how beneficial this is come to think of it. Bread baking good! Used to be a very good artisan baker round the corner from me, it did very well until it shut down. Lovely bread... | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Or rather, that's a relief then! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Alex/Al: exactly the same realisation hit me some years ago, I'm afraid - "You mean - this doesn't just happen to *other* people? Hey, there must be some way out of here -" A good song starts with that line. The rest of it offers some helpful advice, too: "No reason to get excited ..." Anyway, here we all are ... Interesting, isn't it?  | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Maybe I'm just not old enough yet but I've never spent much time angsting about death. Pain, suffering, financial woes and creative bankruptcy - yes. Death - no. It might just be terminal myopia. I never really believe in holiday destinations until I get there. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Fleeing - not mortality, but at least the office. Bon weekend all! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Anyway, as Warhol once said, death is so abstract - they've just gone shopping at Bloomingdale's and haven't come back, that's all. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Never been to Bloomingdale's either. What bothers me, or occasionally irritates me, about this society is its insistence on length of life rather than quality. The vultures of the insurance and pensions industry hover over the stack of corpses: either worried about what happens to everyone else if you die early or worrying about what you're going to do if you don't die early enough. Families bankrupt themselves financially and emotionally over maintaining the remains of elderly relatives and who's benefitting from this arrangement? As is disturbingly often the case: I'm with Larkin on this. "Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself." | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Hmm, third rant this morning! Got agitated about Clancy Docrwa and the public maintenance industry ("bad as bloody contractors in Iraq!" and "that's our council tax that they're breakfasting on!") and how stupid people are in London ("bunch of fucking cattle!") before I'd even got on the train to work. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
"What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."" http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/ scienceofclimatechange.climatechange | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Larkin indeed: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/aubade/ Mind you, living in Hull can affect folk that way. Or in Derek Jarman's words, when the consultant sadly gave him the diagnosis - Not to worry: I never did like Christmas. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
>>Mind you, living in Hull can affect folk that way. That and librarianship. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Sad man, great poet. Oddly enough, Don van Vleit's favouirte. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
But before it ends: are you right- or left-brained? http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,225 56281-661,00.html - For me, it does nothing but turn clockwise! *Stares at big picture* *Becomes impulsive* | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
It's not just a thread on the Empty Space board any more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867.html?hpid=topnews Oh. My. God. | ||
| alex Username: alex Registered: 10-2006 |
If my old mum were still alive, she's say "look, we lived through WWII and the Cuban missile crisis. Stop worrying, nothing will happen." | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Would you believe her Alex? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
" 'Well, there's nothing we can do about it,' said the neighbour - 'It's just something we're gonna have to forget.' 'Yes, I guess so,' said Pa - then he asked me if the clothes were still wet ... " - Bob Dylan, 'Clothes Line Saga.' And we are just going to have to live with it. No electable government is yet saying the unthinkable: the consumer society has to halt, and (somehow or other) our population growth has to be checked. This is brutal stuff for any liberal intelligence to consider - but it's a matter of changing paradigms. Unlimited growth is a rotten mirage, and Malthus must displace Henry Ford as a model if most people are going to survive - should we have long enough left for the luxury of choice, that is. Sadly, it doesn't take any great insight to feel that the Four Horsemen are getting fed and watered right at this moment, and they have all our addresses. We live in appallingly interesting times. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Well said Martin. Why don't you come on over here and run for office? | ||
| alex Username: alex Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave - no I wouldn't believe her. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave: I'm intensely flattered. But as we all know, the people who might make the best leaders have got far too much respect for other people ever to run for office. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Wait a minute chaps. I think you are forgetting something. The world has *already* ended. Stop worrying. Tsk. Think of it like this. Just as when you see a tall chimney being demolished. The thing is over with, but it still sits there for a moment, hangs in space, before cascading down in a heap of dust and rubble; or when say Deputy Dawg either pursuing or being pursued runs off the edge of a cliff into the void, stops and stands there for a few seconds, then fatefully looks down, and drops off camera; just as with these things, our world has ended too. We are still just hanging in space. Give it a few seconds more - subjectively say fifty years or so - and it will all disappear. You will find that your tv has turned into a beluga whale. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Could be, dude: could be. After all: http://iacs5.ucsd.edu/~pbang/dance_monkeys.htm |