WHY DO SO MANY PEOPLE WANT THE WORLD TO END?

OR, WHO GOT DROPPED ON THEIR HEAD?

The idea of the world coming to an end is as popular as those asinine claims that the government has secret towns tucked away in remote areas of the West where they incarcerate dissidents or that Denver International Airport is going to be the capitol of the new world order. (I’ll discuss the DIA conspiracy theory at length later).

In late 1959, when I was eleven, some crackpot declared the world was coming to an end on January 1, 1960. I worried about it all through Christmas. End of the World anxiety, I suppose. It seems to me that more than a few people suffer from it. And in late ’59 I was asking myself, What if he’s right? Well, New Years Eve came and went and the world continued to survive, even though the Cold War was fairly intense at that time. Hey, let’s face it, the only time I’ve ever really thought about the world coming to an abrupt end was in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. My brother was in the Navy and his ship was dispatched from the Pacific through the Panama Canal to join the blockade. Now that was a scary time. No one wanted the U.S. and the Soviet Union to start swapping missiles over the North Pole.

A blogger on ModernSurvivialOnline.com addressed the question: “Do preppers want the world to end?” (Preppers are, I assume, people preparing for the worst.)  The blogger stated, categorically that he believes the “…VAST majority of preppers out there do not want some major disaster or event to occur.”

Well that’s good news.

He continued that he stockpiles food, ammunition, medical supplies and other items in case something bad does happen and “I would want it to happen while I am still alive so that I can help my family and friends through it.”

Once, back in the late 1970s, an old friend came by the house to see us. At one point, he took me out to his car, opened the trunk and showed me an M-15 rifle. Now, for those familiar with the M-16 rifle used by U.S. troops in Vietnam, you probably know that the M-15 is the exact same rifle, but is not fully automatic. I asked my friend why he had it.

After explaining that a gunsmith can easily convert an M-15 to an M-16, he told me: “I’m going to be a leader in the Great Food Wars.”

“What Great Food Wars?”

“They’re coming. There’ll be rioting in the streets, fighting for food…”

Holy Crap! My friend’s train had derailed or at least taken the wrong spur. Thirty-plus years later and no Food Wars in America. Maybe in Africa and parts of Asia, but not here.  

My point is this: It is a good thing to have a disaster kit in your house. Some water stockpiled, food, candles, flashlight, etc. The Center for Disease Control has a nice section on its website about surviving a zombie apocalypse as a frame of reference for people to become “preppers” for disasters that might hit: floods, tornados, hurricanes, fires, etc.

However, many people squawking on about the end of the world appear to have a hero-complex; they want to world to end so they can to emerge from the ruins like Charleton Heston in Omega Man or the Wolverines in the highly improbable Red Dawn.

Oh, and it’s also about getting morons to spend money on an endless parade of end-of-the-world crap.