Is the end of the world near?

Question

And if so, why do we spend so much time on newsstories like O.J., and TomKat?

and do we immerse ourselves in ridiculous, absurd things because we know the partys almost over, and we don't want to think about having to go home, we just want to enjoy the last moments before we have to face reality?

Answer 1

This is the first doomsday prediction I have seen based on OJ and TomKat.

We do not know when the "end" will be. The attention focused on OJ and TomKat is our ridiculous obsession with the famous and unfortunately what sells advertisement. And that is ALL it means.

Answer 2

It could be 28 minutes from now or 280 years from now. When the superpowers square off against each other in two camps, then come back and we'll talk WW III.

Until then, just think regional conflicts, wars between rump states, proxy wars and brinksmanship. If you recall the Yom Kippur War in 1973, a coalition of Arab States (Egypt, Syria and Jordan) were soundly defeated by the Israelis. That was a worse situation than the current conflict and it didn't raise a blip on the world war radar (not that it didn't have the potential to spark a global war).

The next World War will involve a nuclear exchange, how could it not. In the first 30 minutes, nearly a billion people will have been vaporised, mostly in the US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan. Another 1.5 billion will die shortly thereafter from radiation poisoning. The northern hemisphere will be plunged into prolonged agony and barbarity.

Eventually the nuclear winter will spread to the southern hemisphere and all plant life will die. You ask when world war three will start, you are asking when will we commit global suicide. My answer is it won't happen soon because the larger superpowers are more rational than the rump states in the middle east.

Our biggest risk is an accidental launch of nukes by one of the nuclear powers.

Why do we fiddle with OJ and other meaningless event, while Rome is burning? I guess, its in our genes, since we've been doing it a long time.

Answer 3

You ask a good question about why we give so much media attention to things that just plain don't matter.

There are belief systems that predict an end of the world. I learned recently that the Maya, I believe, had a date when they thought the world would end. Some Christians believe the end times are upon us, other Christians believe that we are to live our lives not knowing if or when, and still others tend to side a little more with science than with a literal understanding of the bible. I'm not sure about other religions and the idea of the end of the world.

Regardless of one's belief system, or the lack of one, if we keep abusing the planet as we have been, it will totally suck for our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. No matter what you believe, we must be better guardians of our environment or we won't have one and it won't be due to a higher power deciding our time is up.

We each need to make a make a commitment to living gently upon our planet and not exploiting its resources, especially not for short-term good and material wealth. No one is perfect, but we can do better. What can an individual do?

Turn off lights.
Walk, don't bum rides or drive.
Leave the chemicals off the lawn.
Plant trees, flowers, vegetables, anything.
Don't litter.
Don't let the water run.
Do you hunt? Eat what you kill.
Fish? If the fish is legal and safe to eat, do so. If not, practice
catch and release fishing.
Does your car get less than 25 mpg? Try to make sure the next one gets more than that. If you drive to work or school, couldn't you walk or take public transportation? If not, carpool.
If you smoke, quit.
If you eat meat, eat less meat or none at all.
Reduce, recycle, reuse.
Change your car's oil and keep it in good running condition.
Someday, you may not have one.
Buy organic.
Donate food to the food pantry.
Volunteer.
If there is a faith-based organization that is important to you, get involved.
Register to vote as soon as you are 18.
Vote, as soon as you are registered and there are elections.
Turn off the lights.
Kill your TV.
Go for a walk.
Breathe.
Find things to be grateful for.
Turn off the water faucet that's dripping.
Start to really wonder about what it means to be a neighbor, a citizen, a member, a life long learner.

Rent Al Gore's movie, it just came out on DVD. There is hope. Some parts of our planet are cleaner now than they once were. Some endangered species are coming back (and others are becoming extinct.) Leave as honestly, cleanly, greenly, and simply as you can.

Answer 4

well, no one really knows...the mayans predicted it was going to end in 2012, but people also predicted it was gonna end in 2000...someone is always saying the world is going to end. As for the news stories and such, well, what else are we going to do? There's nothing we can do about the end of the world, so what shoudl we do? Get with our families and live the rest of our days in fear of something we can't stop from occurring? Why not just keep living day to day loving everyone and everything around you for what it is?

=) if the world was known to end tomorrow, would you be on yahoo answers?


in response to your edit, we do not know how close the end is, so I do not think that this is the reason for such immersion-->I do believe that if we were informed that the world were to end relatively soon we would all stop what we were doing and figure out priorities in our life

Answer 5

I just think TomKat and Brangelina and those kind of things are funny, I mean think, that is how most people's lives are. Celebrities are just people who live their life in a camera lens. I say that there is always a physical end, but never an emotional or spiritual end. Your physical being may end today, but your spirit will go on and do whatever spirits do.

Answer 6

The End of the World will never happen because every learns to adapt to something its not used to if possible and Earth will adapt to many things no matter how it looks it will base its presence on living.

Adapting is natural and the Earth will evolve into something that will stay in life forever.

People say the world isn't promised tomarrow, but i say it is because Earth has been millions of years that have passed and one more will not hurt.

Answer 7

We can never know that .. once famines, floods and epidemics begin to very-widely spread, people think and predict that the end of the world is near .. but this could never be reliable, because fatal diseases are discovered each day, millions of people get dehydrated and die of hunger and thirst each day, floods and volcanoes never calm down .. so you can never be sure of this ..

But, also, i don't think it is near .. the sun will not brightly shine and huge HUGE wars will fill the earth .. be happy, seems we still have sometime to breathe and enjoy being alive :)

Answer 8

The end of modern human civilization may be near, but the world will go on fine without us.

Answer 9

Precisely because it is. That's what the world would rather think about, even though the world knows it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Very.

Answer 10

the world will end next week on Thursday 10:00 PM..let's see O.J. get out of this one..