Do you feel, or have you ever felt, as if you will one day be living in a post-apocalyptic world?

[raccoon]

Such as in The Stand, Earth Abides, Alas, Babylon, The Postman, etc.?

Because I’ve felt that way a lot. Maybe because I read too many of that kind of books. :-)

The scare-mongering corporate media adds to that, always bleating about bird flu and other exotic diseases.

Anybody else ever feel this way?

[SteppingRazor]

1. No ... my grandkids, maybe, but not me.

The whole Peak Oil thing may turn the world into Mad Max, but I think that'll probably take another century or so.

[redqueen]

2. Yes

Climate change does it for me.

[Swamp Rat]

3. I've had dreams about it.

It just makes me celebrate life even more when I am awake. :D

[Connonym]

4. I've actually had nightmares about this

the kind where I literally wake up shaking and terrified. I've thought about it enough to realize that I would rather die in the initial disaster than survive in that kind of a world. I don't have it in me to be cut-throat so I imagine I wouldn't survive long but it would sure be miserable as hell.

[InvisibleTouch]

9. I've had dreams about it too, but they haven't really been nightmares.

More of a peaceful thing - they took place after the shift, and though it was a very different world, that which had survived was alive and well. Some date all the way back to my high school days, that I remember to this day. In others, the shift/disaster is underway, but I'm calm because I know I and my family will be okay. I'm actually more peaceful about it in dreams than I am in waking life.

[raccoon]

12. My dreams about it have been like those, after the shift.

And not unpleasant.

But in RL, it's quite likely that the social breakdown following the catastrophe would be quite hazardous too.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. No. I still believe in human endeavors and the will of humankind to survive and not commit

suicide.

[InvisibleTouch]

6. I'm convinced of it without a doubt.

Not that far away, either. I'm trying to put my life in order so that I and my animals can survive the shift (gotta move to a better location, become more self-sufficient in all things), but it's a long slow process. I'm just hoping not to run out of time.

Ask yourself, as you go through your daily routine: What would I do if I flip the light switch and nothing happens? Try to turn up the heat, and there is none? Turn on a faucett and nothing comes out? Went to the grociery store and nothing was there, because the transportation system had broken down? What resources would you have, to draw upon? I ask myself that quite often. We are terrifyingly dependent upon the infrastructure for our most basic day-to-day needs, and when that collapses (when, not if) - what are the alternatives? It's worth thinking about, so as not to be totally unprepared.

There's my dose of paranoia for the day.

[crikkett]

13. When I was a teenager in the Reagan era,

and the doomsday clock was a couple of minutes to midnight, we asked each other those questions all the time. That kind of "survivalist" mentality was all the rage.

It's why I know how to knit. Pretty hard-core do you think?

[donsu]

17. the more things you know how to do the better to survive

nt

[donsu]

18. I keep wondering how the babies born today are going to survive

nt

[donsu]

14. it's not paranoia it's facing reality

I too stay prepared as if for a cat. 6 or 7 hurricane or event.

we'd be nuts not too.

[JohnnyLib2]

7. I did at about age 10, after the atom-bomb drills at school.

Pretty soon, I decided to "take it as it comes."

Still waiting, 50 or so years later.

[murielm99]

23. I used to worry about it constantly.

Then, when I was 12, I had to bring some money to school for a fundraiser. I kept forgetting to turn it in.

Finally, the teacher said to me, "Did you think they would drop the bomb over the weekend and you wouldn't have to worry about it any more?"

I decided to take it as it comes, from that point on.

I did worry during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I went to the basement and checked out the crawl space, to see if my family could live there for awhile. I was sure I would never get old enough to be allowed to wear lipstick. My mother would not have cared at all if they dropped the bomb. I was still too young to wear lipstick as far as she was concerned.

We had duck-and-cover drills, too. Girls wore dresses to school in those days. I was always embarrassed to duck and cover in a dress. But it scared the crap out of me. Why did they do that to kids? I'm sure it was some form of cold war brainwashing.

We can stay informed, work for peace, and elect the right candidates. Or else, the cockroaches will inherit the earth. And there won't be any little girls to worry about lipstick.

[Blue_In_AK]

40. Me, too.

I used to have these dreams where the earth had about a fourth of it blown away, like completely gone, dirt and all. I don't worry about it much anymore. If it's my time to go, I'll go, although I'd prefer to stick around for a while.

[CJCRANE]

8. If it does happen

can I be Charlton Heston in Omega Man?

I liked his cool apartment (spoilt only by vampires lobbing the occasional molotov cocktail onto his balcony).

[skypilot]

10. Yes and no.

On the one hand I imagine the future as grim, gray and violent as it was depicted in "Chilren of Men" (but without the infertility thing) and on the other hand I imagine the sterile "orderliness" of "Gattaca". Either way, I hope I'm dead by then.

[Connonym]

11. It's the grim violent scenario that I imagine

full of anarchy and ruthlessness. I've thought about the self-sufficiency bit but I think even then it would be constant paranoia worrying about marauders and having to defend one's self. So, I hope I'm dead by then too but I do feel pangs of parental guilt about bringing children into this world.

[RebelOne]

15. Hop on over to RaptureReady.com.

They all believe the end is near.

[shadowknows69]

16. I don't expect to live to see much of it

good chunk of the earths population won't either I suspect.

[Bucky]

19. Nope. I used to, back in high school. Too often I see us waking up barely in time.

The ozone hole problem that Gore discusses in "Inconvenient Truth" is a good example. We'd polluted a goddamn hole in the earth's ozone layer. Then the country elected some Democrats, they went to work regulating the problem, and the earth is not in the process of slowly repairing the damage once done.

Climate change will prove a little harder to turn around, but reading history has taught me to have a bit of faith in humanity's ability to avert (just barely) most of its castatrophes.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Funny

"Then the country elected some Democrats, they went to work regulating the problem, and the earth is not in the process of slowly repairing the damage once done."

It's amazing how one letter can change an entire thought.

[The2ndWheel]

20. One day?

We do everyday. We live in that world. If we didn't have the energy to keep the system going every stinkin' day, what else would happen? The whole thing would fall apart. That's why we can't stop growing. But if we don't stop, if the day comes when we can't keep it together, it'll be even worse.

Of course the only reason it would apocolyptic is because we never solve problems, we just complicate them, push them off into the future, and then need more complicated "solutions" to push the problem off into the future, and then that process repeats itself again and again.

[Raskolnik]

27. To clarify: you consider present-day United States to be a post-apocalytpic world?

If so, I'm not all sure you're using a practical definition.

[The2ndWheel]

28. I was typing quicker than I was thinking

Not post-apocalyptic. Stop pumping in the energy required on a daily basis to keep our demands satisfied and entropy from happening though, and we'll all be doing a lot of things quicker than thinking.

[eShirl]

21. YES. All through the Reagan years up to the fall of the Berlin Wall

And now again, more and more ever since since Bush/Cheney assumed power.

[Javaman]

24. apocal-what?

One mans apocalypse is another mans garden.

Everyone is waiting either for the great big boom or the great big drop, but for me, as someone once said, "the devil is in the details" or "the devil creeps in on kittens paws". We won't know it until it's to late.

Each and every day something comes out to show us how much of our rights are being taken away and as a result how each of us in very subtle ways change our habits to conform to the new daily set of rules thrust down upon us.

They read our mail and email, they listen to our phone calls, they take away habeas corpus, they remove fair trials, they imprison us without warrant or evidence, they can condemn us with out witness or proof.

Gas at the pump is going back up. Our air, food and water is poisoned. We can't travel without being subject to embarrassing searches, invasions of our privacy or restrictions on the amount of water we can bring on a plane.

We are told to do nothing, ask nothing, and not help in anyway with our nation that has been at war for 6 years, Yes, remember Afghanistan started in the late fall early winter of 2001.

We live in an era where we are purposely kept in the dark.

Do we really have to wait for the apocalypse? As far as our way of life, it has already happened. or are you not paying attention? Or are you just believing everything that the TV news feeds you?

To paraphrase a lyrical poem from the 60's "The apocalypse will not be televised".

[raccoon]

25. self delete nt

[DixieBlue]

26. Yes. Increasingly the last few years ...

With all we know about global warming and all the wars that are going on ... it's hard to not to. Couple that with all the stuff going on on the black market we know nothing about, I feel like I'm going to wake up one day and suddenly be plopped down in the middle of a Stephen King novel.

[LeftishBrit]

29. No - I think there could be an apocalypse, but I don't think I'd be one of those who would survive

I have some health problems which are not terribly serious, but would likely make the difference between life and death in extreme conditions. Also, if the apocalypse involved nuclear war, I live close enough to a likely target city (London) that I'd probably be wiped out myself.

That part is reassuring in a way; I'd rather be one of those who makes a quick exit than one of those who has to continue living in an nightmarishly inhospitable world.

But I don't want an apocalypse, whether I survive it or not. And I hate the types of politicians who seem to want to drag the world into one.

[ReadTomPaine]

30. I've got my Pip-boy 2000, Rad-away and GECK ready...

all I have to do is find Vault 13.

[WinkyDink]

31. No; I'm living in the pre-apocalyptic one.

[BluePatriot]

32. Only once

and then I was like, "why the hell would the Apocalypse be in New Orleans? That makes no sense."


...moral of the story, I pay a bit more attention to odd dreams now!

[Ganja Ninja]

33. I expect that I will die 25 or 30 years from now about the time ...

global warming really starts to have catastrophic consequences for the advanced countries of the world.

[AlienGirl]

34. I have spent my life preparing for a disaster that never happens.

I Have Spent My Life Preparing for a Disaster that Never Happens

1. Fast

If I can, I will run. I whirl, dodge, leap, turn—fall. When raw speed isn’t there (I run shuffling, always likely to sprain something, awkward on legs that don’t hold up) hope must be in strategy:
set aside a bag, clothes, food,
money, always. Now watch and be ready, ready to go without looking back, into the rain and night


2. Hidden

To change appearances is more than just a matter of wigs and clothing. The right makeup can make you seem older; moving like a guy and hiding the long hair can make you look like someone else (who it is safe to be). A person, especially a small and limber person, can hide in spaces much smaller than you might expect. In an emergency duck under someone’s house; there’s often a few feet of space in there, and it’s out of the rain if you don’t mind breathing next to the spiders. This isn’t good long-term though. Hiding for long requires allies who will share a closet, a spare room, maybe a basement. They can bring food and the smell of free air. Try not to resort to this, as it is precarious at best.

3. Invisible

Here’s a plan that works for a while:
stand
perfectly
still
don’t
draw
attention

belong

or at least, be something unremarkable
be a dusty nothing reading in the library
be nobody walking down the street
look like air.

4. Teamwork

There’s no point in talking about it, as there is no safety in numbers or anywhere else. If you can learn one thing by watching the mistakes of others, that’s it.

5. Woods

Look, here is water and all the providence of nature. You can never starve
in the woods. Cattail roots, boiled. Skunk cabbage, boiled in two waters but who’d want to eat that? Gather all the acorns you can, take out the nutmeats, put them in a bag or basket, and dunk them in a stream until water leaches the tannins out.

Water lily roots. Inner bark of pine trees. Maple leaves. Berries in summer and fall. Burdock. Wild onion. Pigweed. Reindeer moss, boiled twice and wrung out like a sponge. Seaweed if the coast is nearby.

For this you need a good knife, a hatchet, and some string or thread and a needle. You also need courage and patience, sheer stubbornness and a will to live that matches any forest creature’s.

A lean living, but maybe a living.

6. Somewhere Else

You have to believe
there is somewhere else.
Soft summer breeze.

[Codeblue]

35. Yes

though I don't feel negatively about it. I have always felt that I and my friend would be able to get through. Sometimes, I almost look forward to the apcoalypse. I know, that makes me some kind of insane mental patient, but honestly.

The world would probably be a lot better off. I'm not talking about humans being better off, but the world. The Earth. That's what's most important. Because we are killing our Earth, our Mother, and if she dies, there is no hope. At least after an apocalypse (except possibly nuclear) we have a chance of recovering and learning from our mistakes.

I was thinking today about time travel. If it was possible and I could back in time to the Pax Romana or something, even without all of our technology that we take for granted, I think I would stay there and die there. Everything would be so much cleaner, water, air, ground, everything. Even with the threat of plague (maybe I'll take some modern vaccines back with me) I would stay there for the rest of my days. This day and age....pretty well sucks.

[raccoon]

42. The main thing I would miss in that time is novocaine.

Having an absessed tooth or an extraction with no pain killer would be a real mofo.

[blues90]

36. It certainly seems like this is where we are heading

Reguardless of how the government works to try to stop this killing or fix the economy for many even if they do turn some of this around it will be too late .

I don't have alot of confidence in the government since who can tell what are their motives . Look how in the past things never seem to move forward and if they do it is short lived .

Now the way things are it seems closer to disaster than ever before .

[MrSlayer]

37. Nah. If there is a nuclear war I'm one of the first to go.

Only those living in the boonies will survive that. The big cities are the first targets. And that's fine, I wouldn't want to survive that. Now a scenario like "The Stand" might be kind of cool.

[pitohui]

38. what do you think?

who needs the bird flu when they live in new orleans or the mississippi gulf coast? the bird flu will never do this

[Lone_Star_Dem]

39. The corporate media uses our worst fears to get ratings

Not unlike the creators of the works you mentioned. Having said that if I let my imagination get the better of me - like when I'm reading something designed to terrify me - then yes I do feel that way.

[Odin2005]

41. No.

Call me naively optimistic, but I think that by the time I am 60 years old (2046) We will have reversed global warming via climate control technology; we will have perfected nuclear fusion; nanotechnology will be triggering a new, environmentally friendly, Industrial Revolution that will weaken Corporatist power by allowing on-demand manufacturing of products at home; and we will have AI that is as smart as a human.

[lectrobyte]

43. No. I think the decline and fall will be more of a "process" than an

"event." Look at Rome and other empires for parallels.