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Saturday, April 28, 2012

The problem with being a doomer



You never get to say, “I told you so.”

It’s a real bummer. The world ends. What to you say? Pay up? I win? See I told you so?
No, what you really say is AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! After all, the world’s ending right?

The whole end of the world thing doesn’t have a very good predictive outcome. It’s been predicted for a long time and yet it is still here. Even if you guess right, there’s no chance to collect. For doomers, it’s a bit of a waste of time. Let it go.

How about mini doom? Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, blizzards, fire, and really bad relationships. Picture it. You buddy was unprepared for the hurricane so he loses everything, including some family members. What do you say? Ha ha, you really should have bugged out like I told you so? That won’t do much good and you’ll be a real jerk to boot.

When disaster strikes, a decent human being will zip his lip and do what he can to help. Mature human beings don’t gloat.

So here’s what I’m going to do, being a bit less than mature. Now I won’t do this for the hurricane scenario, or something else as harsh. Maybe I’ll use it for the bad relationship I warned the person of. I’ll lift an eyebrow and smirk a very tiny bit, shake my head sadly and say, “dude.” I’m a bit less than spiritually pure. So what?

Some people try really hard to be good because they feel they are building mansions in heaven. Good for them. I’ve set my sights a bit lower: a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks in heaven. So it’s the “bad” part of heaven. It’s still heaven, right? Just trying to be good enough here.

There’s not much reward in warning people about doom. No one wants to hear it. I’ve accepted that and have learned to chill a bit. I’ve been doing pretty good through the mini doom experiences. People can learn from my example . . . or not.

-Sixbears

8 comments:

  1. You're forgetting a whole other class of doom, in between the end of the world and local disaster. If you were in Cuba in the late 1980s and saw the protests in Poland not being squelched and the war in Afghanistan going badly, and you had predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, you might have been much better prepared for the troubles that came afterwards.

    More importantly, in most collapse scenarios, what will be in shortest supply is hope. We need to focus on what we will be gaining, not on what we are losing, and start preparing to make the world better.

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  2. I never believed the world will "end", but we certainly won't recognize it in a few years if things keep going the way they are. Things have a way of reaching equilibrium after they've gotten way out of control...

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  3. LOL..you know, when I get a case of the dooms, I sometimes need a book vacation. Your "trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks" comment makes me think you'd get screaming laughter out of the same books....I think my favorite fast escape pair is out of print.

    But if you can find copies of "Waiting for the Galactic Bus" and "The Snake Oil Wars" by Parke Godwin....I think you'd greatly enjoy them.

    The world may not end, but we humans may end ourselves pretty successfully; unfortunately our engineering "marvels" in things like nuclear plants may then end a lot of other things...

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  4. Craig: I suspect the world will be unrecognizable in a few years.

    Labrys: I'm always up for a good laugh. Thanks for the book recomendations.

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  5. The world will not end in a quick poof unless some out of control, huge asteroid hits us. Everything else will be a slow process. Even a wondering, lost, huge black hole would take some time and the effects will be felt way ahead of the end. Of course the sun will slowly enlarge to a red giant and either kick the earth out of the solar system or swallow it.

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  6. I give you my word that when martial law is declared, or the fiat currency collapses, or the zombies show up, or the grid goes down, or the UN Muslim stromtroopers take all our firearms, I will let every doomer I've ever made fun of give me an unresisted noogie while I stand on the town common in a pink prom dress.

    In return, every New Years Day that society hasn't collapsed, I'd like them to stand together in front of City hall and sing "Everything's Commin' Up Roses."

    I'll shake hand on this any day of the week.

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  7. "END OF THE WORLD"

    WHEN YOUR LIFE DRASTICALLY CHANGES OR WHEN YOU KICK THE BUCKET

    AS FOR THE REST OF US, LIFE GOES ON ANYHOW...

    WILDFLOWER

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