Isis, Ebola and … Abba. 2014 as a trailer for the “End of Civilisation” movie…

It’s always the end of days. The apocalypse is always almost upon us. This I know. The boy is always crying wolf. But this doesn’t mean there isn’t a wolf. And that he is hungry.

How will it all end? Probably not with a thermo-nuclear war, with hundreds of short-range missiles taking seven minutes to go from Russia to Germany or vice-versa, with those slow-poke ICBMs taking 25 minutes.

Not with a zombie apocalypse (we’re all too savvy now, anyway).

Will it be a long slow grind, a ratcheting decline, the “world”(1) ending with a series of more plaintive whimpers rather than a bang.

Or will it be a ridiculously abrupt change (forced by the Gulfstream flipping or some such). If you’d told Europeans in 1346 that in 5 years a third of them would be dead, I doubt you’d have too many takers (though of course, God was bigger back then). If you’d told someone in Vienna in 1913 that in 5 years the Empire (and others) would be gone, and that there would be some exceptionally well-fertilized fields in Northern Europe, they probably would have laughed.

In hindsight, these things look inevitable and OBVIOUS. Before, not so much, and certainly not the speed.

So, is it going to be a disaster movie ending (but without the redemption). And are Isis and the Ebola outbreak trailers for that film?

And the Abba? It’s not click-bait, it’s this –

I was at a party and this fella said to me
“Something bad is happening, I’m sure you do agree
People care for nothing, no respect for human rights
Evil times are coming, we are in for darker nights”
I said, “Who are you to talk about impending doom?”
He got kinda wary as he looked around the room
He said, “I’m a minister, a big shot in the state”
I said, “I just can’t believe it, boy I think it’s great
Brother can you tell me what is right and what is wrong?”
He said, “Keep on rocking baby, ’til the night is gone”

(1) And what is this “world” I speak of, anyway? The comfortable life of an able-bodied middle class white man? Most of the world doesn’t live with clean water, regular electricity, freedom of speech and disposable income?)

Btw, here’s what a good friend suggested as a possible scenario when journalism is gone;;

Accelerates current trends of Fox-type media such that a dystopian future shows up sooner as societal systems fail due to climate change, trends generating increased receptivity for all’s well propagandistic messaging from political and corporate elite? The masses are manipulated with zero interference as per Orwell’s 1984 but without torture and guns and so on?

We slide down past Truthiness to OFFICIAL TRUTH?