The apocalypse: It’s not the end of the world

ABSTRACT

Humanity is facing multiple possible apocalypses, with narratives that often miss an important point: The apocalypse probably won’t be quick or final. It will be an environment, not an event or an end point for humanity. The apocalypse is more likely to bring misery than catharsis or salvation. Although worst-case scenarios theoretically make it easier to prevent dire outcomes, in the case of slow-moving apocalypses such as climate change, it’s difficult for humans to envision the scale of the problem and to imagine how we will actually experience it.

KEYWORDS:

• Apocalypse
• climate change
• misery
• narrative
• nuclear war
• the future

Disclosure statement

Potential conflict of interest: The author is biased by a fervent desire for humankind to avoid apocalypses of any kind.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

1. In quantum physics, a vacuum is a space with as little energy as possible. A “true vacuum” has the absolute minimum amount of energy; a “false vacuum” has a local minimum and is not fully stable. At some point, quantum effects may cause the local minimum energy to collapse to the absolute minimum energy, potentially changing the underlying physical rules, making life (and everything else we know) impossible. Some research suggests that the universe is in a false vacuum (Kusenko 2015).

2. Hysteresis was initially described in material physics, particularly magnetic materials. It has become more broadly used across disciplines, including medical biology, cognitive psychology, and climate science (for example, see Hawkins 2011; ScienceDirect n.d.).

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Jamais Cascio

Jamais Cascio is a professional futurist who has been exploring the intersection of environmental, technological, and cultural change for 25 years. Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009, Cascio specializes in plausible scenarios of the future. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future, where he works on a wide array of projects. Cascio’s written work has appeared in both academic and popular journals and collections. Cascio has been featured in multiple film and TV documentaries, and he speaks about future possibilities around the world. In early 2009, he released his first book, Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering. The subsequent year, he was invited to present on the subject at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC. In 2017, the University of Advancing Technology awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his ongoing work to build a better future.