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Doomsday fantasy: what would you do?

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Jack 06, Nov 5, 2005.

  1. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    I don't know why, but this popped into my head a week ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot.

    I'm convinced that what will almost certainly end most, if not all, life on Earth is a collision with another "celestial body" (asteroid, comet, whatever). It's happened before, after all, with results that changed the course of evolution.

    Imagine you're 20, and a junior in college. You're "engaged to be engaged" to your high school sweetheart. You already have the promise of an excellent job, in your hometown, when you graduate. Life is full of promise.

    A two minute news bulletin, carried by all world media simultaneously, changes everything: astronomers have determined, after two years of top-secret study, that a huge asteroid will smash into Earth in 25 years. It cannot be avoided. Likely all human life will end within 1-2 years, if not from the direct impact and its consequences, from the lack of breatheable air, despite what air some people may be able to store.

    What would you do? How would your outlook change? Would you live your life differently from what you had envisioned? If you had planned on having children, would you still, knowing that they would have about 20+ years themselves? What do you think would happen within "society" as we know it? Would it be worth trying to "hold things together" if large numbers of people started "getting out of hand"?

    Would it be worth looking for ways to survive, at least for a "chosen few"? Would you want to work in that effort? Would you try to become one of the "few"?
     
  2. aka007ii

    aka007ii New Member

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    I'm not sure that kind of information would be released to the public with fear of mass panic. I know it would leak out though. I also think that 20 years is a lot of time to work on ways to avoid the problem and or devise other options for survival. It would be hard to say I would just quit work and travel the world and part like it's 1999. Oh wait that's over already. What if they were wrong and nothing happens? What if everyone got lazy thinking everything is over, why bother? I think churches would be very popular. Drugs would get even more out of hand I bet. And with that crime would rise.

    I wouldn't have any children. That's for sure.
     
  3. bee13

    bee13 Member

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    "I'd go skydivin'
    Rocky Mountain climbin'
    I'd go 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu..."
    :)
     
  4. Wayne

    Wayne Active Member

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    No sweat! In tandem with that top-secret study is the top-secret Stargate program (you didn't hear it from me, though!) SG-1 will create a hyperspace window around the asteroid, and it will pass harmlessly through Earth. ;)

    To answer your scenario, I would hope "It cannot be avoided" would not end up being be a true statement. I would think the entire world would come together with a single focus: What can we do to save ourselves in the allotted time? Hope is a wonderful thing, it can keep civilization going, where chaos would otherwise result.

    I would imagine something like a world-war effort, except against all of mankind. Mankind can be quite creative when confronted with a matter of survival, and in this case the whole planet would be focused to the same end.

    This would make me wonder just how the various skirmishes around the world might respond -- might it be like we were being attacked from an extraterrestrial force? Might not the whole world come back together and stop their differences -- at least for awhile?

    One can only hope.
     
  5. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    Doesn't matter.

    The question is not "what would you do" rather "how will the rest of the general population change the way the world works?"

    If we're all going to die in 25 years, retirement brokers would all go bankrupt within the year. Most people would quit their jobs the next day. All construction would cease, economies would collapse, and mass transportation would stop running. Even those few who decide to work through it would not have the ability to keep things running. Consumption would skyrocket and environmentalism would fall to the wayside. Death sentences for crimes would be meaningless.

    After a year, the entire world would be radically different in every way. In ways we can not currently fathom.
    Attempting to come up with answers based on how the world currently works is not valid.

    Now, if I were the scientist who discovered and confirmed the asteroid but was sworn to secrecy by the government, that changes everything. In that case, I would marry the sweetheart, both of us would work hard and save as much money as we could for 15 years. After that time, with absolutely no retirement planning or money holed up in "65 or older" savings, I would pour her a drink and tell her the absolute truth. We would quit our jobs and live the lives we want to live right up to the very end. Whether that means charity work, environmental activism, religious pursuits, or traveling the world. Poeple might think we're crazy, but I recall the movie "Brewsters Millions" in which he had a plan and was unable to tell anyone.

    I most certainly would not have children because I wouldn't want to bring someone into the world knowing that they would die before their 25th birthday. Mean, but honest.
     
  6. Mystery Squid

    Mystery Squid Junior Member

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    Lets just say I hope you have guns.

    Mass anarchy would ensue shortly thereafter, and only those who band together and hold areas by force would survive, as there sure as hell aren't enough government forces to contain/keep order over the entire country in such event.

    I don't think a discovery as such could be held secret for too long. There are way too many independent scientists around the world "watching" the skies.

    As for me, I'd become a survivalist, and try to get as far away from any large/organized group of people as I possibly could, thinking up of ways to survive given various information broadcasted over radio/tv.

    Think "Mad Max".
     
  7. Jaguar88

    Jaguar88 Member

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    Most people would do what they do every day and have faith that there really is something we would do.

    Governments would come together and #### things up for everyone. Our elected officials would fund their buddies pet project that has no chance of working and starve projects that might make a difference.

    With about five years left they would appoint a director of foreight objects security appointed from private industry. He would funnel most of the work to the company he previously worked for and people would complain about the obscene profits the company is making. If they are successful congress will tax the excess profits.

    IF they are not successful, the government will say that they will be and minute now. In the last few days there will be some assholes and wack jobs that do bizzare things but most people will reach out to friends and loved ones and make the best of the time they have left.
     
  8. Maytrix

    Maytrix Member

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    It's hard to answer considering how you posed the question. 25 years is a long time. Even if we couldn't find a viable way to stop it, odds are probably pretty good that some other event in those 25 years could very easily alter it's course or destroy it.

    And, with 25 years and a a billion times more effort, just think of where our space program could be?

    If it was just a few years, that would be a different story. I'd try to find out as much as I could about what the effects of it would be and try to do anything possible to help give me a better chance at survival.
     
  9. bookrats

    bookrats New Member

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    Well, I'm sure things would go pretty much ala Hollywood sci-fi films:

    Somehow, some of us would end up in an alternate dimension that's populated by good-looking girls in loincloth bikinis.
     
  10. tumbleweed

    tumbleweed Senior Member

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    I would get busy and finish the time machine and go back a hundred years or so to simpler times. Or maybe go ahead a few years and see if it really happened.
     
  11. bigdaddy

    bigdaddy Member

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    OK. Jack.

    I think you know something, and are not giving us all the facts. Are you trying to tip us prius owners off so we maintain our advantage over the coming few years?
     
  12. Jack 06

    Jack 06 New Member

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    Sorry, no time machines, extra dimensions or loincloths.

    The longer time frame is what largely piqued my thinking. With the it's-going-to- hit-next-month scenario, it's much more obvious. That's the movie scenario.

    But with 10, 15, 20 years before it happens, it's a whole different set of questions. (It's probably even a different set of questions, to some degree, between 10 and 25 years, but that's another matter.)

    Does your whole outlook become "negative", "hopeless"? You still have time to accomplish some of the normal person'e life goals---family, a house, travel, con-
    tinued education, even if career progression might be more obviously futile. Why not TRY as if things were normal---at least for 10-20 years? Isn't having kids, and them having shortened lives, better than nothing (including for them)? Is the house worthless because your occupancy of it is limited, and you can't pass it on? In your day-to-day relationship with your S.O. and others, is the pall so heavy, so deadening, that most normal emotions are skewed?

    Would civil society hold together, at least for a while, as many (the majority?) people, far from suicidal, or even rendered non-functional by depression, clung to to LIFE even more passionately, trying to milk every "happy and productive day" out of even a long-term hopeless cause? Or would such a greater number of people engage in not only "selfish" but criminal behavior that society became non-functional long before the actual End? Would the "at least live for today" people be able to "control" the "to hell with it" people?

    Would "human nature" itself even seem to change, due to external circumstances?

    I tried to imagine scripting a movie with this scenario. It intrigues me.
     
  13. Schmika

    Schmika New Member

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    I, for one, live every day with the thought that this very thing could happen tomorrow, next week, or in twenty years. But I don't expect an asteroid or any such pedestrain thing.

    Actually, this WILL happen IMHO. The Rapture, then Revelations. There is a way to have inner peace. You just have to ask!
     
  14. bookrats

    bookrats New Member

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    OK; but when the Rapture occurs, can I have your Prius?

    :D
     
  15. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    think of everyone's disappointment when they find out that the consequences of spewing carbon into the atmosphere makes most of the Earth uninhabitable in 23 years. wont be no one left to witness the big bump.

    the scenario has been published by the scientific community, granted a different fantasy but with similiar results and we already know what the reaction is from most of the world right??

    your colliding planet will produce the exact same reaction... that i can guarantee you.
     
  16. HAMMER55

    HAMMER55 New Member

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    No matter how/what happens and you die....

    When you stand before GOD and He asks,

    "Why should I let you into My Heaven?"

    What would YOUR answer be ??

    You don't have to post your answer, but just think about it.
     
  17. Kiloran

    Kiloran New Member

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    I'd still wait till January to take delivery of my '06.
     
  18. Schmika

    Schmika New Member

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    You betcha! I would hate to see it not go to use during that time. I'll try to stow a Bible in there for you :lol:
     
  19. Schmika

    Schmika New Member

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    :rolleyes: There , there...it'll be allright. Here, have a sugar cookie and go lie down.
     
  20. Maytrix

    Maytrix Member

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    If there is a GOD, wouldn't a good question be "Why didn't you stop this? What good are you anyway?"