A few people here have pointed this out already, but people have thought the End was pretty Nigh for about as long as we’ve been thinking about things.

Other people are countering this point by saying, ‘Ah, but this time it’s real!’ which doesn’t prove anything. People thought it was real all those previous times (the ecological collapse on Easter Island, or the Bronze Age collapse, or the Roman Civil Wars, or the Black Death, or the French Revolution or the Cold War etc.) and not many of them killed themselves or joined suicide cults, so why would people act differently now?

This isn’t to be pollyannaish about things. All the examples I gave above really did kill huge numbers of people and the Cold War in particular really could’ve caused the collapse of modern civilisation (if a nuclear war had broken out). Climate change, war and resurgent fascism are truly huge problems. I just don’t think the particular example of suicide cults is a very likely development.

It’s sad how easily this generation is taken in by mass propaganda. We laughed at the propaganda when it started, but then it worked it’s way into the school system and kids have been indoctrinated into it for 20+ years.

Look at the “solutions” to the “end of the world” scenarios. They all involve giving up your freedom and wealth and giving the governments more money and more power.

They took critical thinking out of the schools and it has left an entire generation unable to think for itself and more than happy to let those in control maintain their power over them.

We’re already breaking suicide records:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/health/suicide-deaths-record-high-2022/index.html

It’s easy to focus on the negative, especially because that sells more toilet paper and beer on TV (and Internet sites).

But as Mr Rogers instructed us, when you see bad things going on, look for the helpers. There are a lot of people out there working to put the seams back together even as others are picking at them.

So far, the seam fixers have been winning. I think they’ll still win. For all its downsides, there is a huge upside to globalization: the wealthy people have more to gain from a mostly peaceful planet than from a mostly war stricken planet. Now, there’s profit in that “mostly” that is - to my way if thinking - bad. It’s something that (small “d”) democratic people should push back against.

Like, think about the American bullshit in Iraq and Afghanistan. We actually stopped being at war in those places in the recent past. We don’t have large deployments of active duty troops out there killing poor brown people. That’s good.

Biden also seems like the most likely guy to strongly resist the inevitable calls for war from the military industrial political media complex. Not only does he have personal experience with the loss that comes from war. He has decades of experience in government which makes him less likely to be hornswoggled by generals who want to blow shit up. (If he can purge all the white supremacists from the military that will also help.)

Don’t only look at the bad news. There’s good news out there, too.

Millenarianism doesn’t tend to have an association with famines or anything like that. It’s usually closer to a feeling of alienation and disruption of social contracts that drives it. Was very common during colonialism due to that reason.

I think some deathcults where the whole point is “live to 50, throw a massive party for the cult and go on a month long vacation, then kill yourself” might get some members. But they won’t really be that influential.

Most likely will be the rise of the “work the least possible, care the least possible” culture. China already saw it happen, it was called “Lying flat”.

Why join a suicide pact or death cult when you could just buy a SUV and eat Meat every day? Take the whole population with you.

Yes. Definatly. Not necessarily because of the world going one way or another but because our global population is rapidly increasing. 1 decade is enough to increase the global population by 1 billion people.

Every generation has had people who think they are important enough to witness the end of the world. All of them have been wrong.

I’m not yet middle aged and have lived through quite a few supposed doomsdays so I’ll just wait for someone to breathlessly tell me why this time is different and the world is really going to end now.