This all seems very quaint now; Very baseless and childish to think that the year 1000 has any peculiar cosmic importance, just because we humans have ten fingers to count with, and our finger-count, taken to the third power seems like a good, round number to us.
Except, maybe this is not so quaint. It's rather familiar actually.
The truth is that the world always seems to be ending. New developments and challenges arise, the older generation gets nostalgia, and it is seems like the end of the world must be about to come. Young people are not much better; we tend to be hungry for answers and explanations, and so desperate for them that we hardly remember to be discriminating.
There was supposed to be some sort of end of the world as we know it when they year changed from 1999 to 2000. All the computers were going to crash because they weren't programmed to handle the date-change. Didn't happen.
And there was that 2012 thing. A lot of people took that seriously.
I personally, find it very painful when some writer or idealist that I would like to respect reveals that they took 2012 seriously. I love you Graham Hancock, but you seem to take 2012 seriously in Fingerprints of the Gods. Now I have to doubt everything I hear from you.
There is a saying it is attributed to various people; usually Sumerian or Babylonian kings, but probably made up in the early 20th C:
A tablet (Assyrian) 2800 B.C. says:
“Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; there are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.”
We have fallen upon evil times, the world has waxed old and wicked. Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their elders. Each man wants to make himself conspicuous and write a book.
People seem to have going on like this since the dawn of civilization-if not before, and it continues to this day. The news is full of little armageddons: Fukushima, the mass-death of pollinators, the re-emergence of Non-Western powers. Some apocalypses are more widely reported than others. The information age has amplified the apparent number of apocalypses.
I say it's all bullshit. The Armageddon is an escapist fantasy (I know escapist fantasy) and People long for it! But the world and history do not "end."
The ugly truth is that it continues, bearing all the consequences of the present. And that is far more terrifying than a neat ending with a flash-bang and a Revelation.
This is an interview with the late Terence McKenna. He's another one of the thinkers I would like to believe but can't. Nonetheless I do enjoy listening to his leprechauny little voice. Usually he talks more about "the mushroom" and what it can do for the collective consciousness of humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCaK35DQ4uk
If McKenna makes sense to you, you should probably look into getting yourself a Crystal Fortress of your very own.
I find I agree with the general idea point that history is happening faster as the world becomes more complex and highly organized.
But I do not see how that necessitates an "end" of history. The desire to cap off all of history with a neat little Escaton (and it's coming soon too!) strikes me as a sort of comforting fantasy.
Have you guys ever seen Doomsday Preppers? It's on Netflix now. It's a reality show about Americans who are expecting some catastrophe, and have devoted themselves to "prepping."
(Prepping is noted to occur almost exclusively in the developed world. You need to have a highly organized society before people can get too worked up about its potential collapse)
As in most reality TV, there is a heavy dose of schadenfreude involved. A good number of the people on this show are frightening and pitiable at the same time. Others are encouraging and hopeful.
The featured preppers fall into a few broad categories. Since this is supposedly a game-blog, let's call them "Classes"
Prepper Character Classes:
Community Organizer:
These preppers make lots of friends and maintain networks of fellow preppers. Organizers typically make the same stockpiling and armament preparation as the Hyper Republicans, but are less likely to have bunkers. They might be considered evangelical preppers.
Neo-Primitivist:
"The more you know, the less you need." is the philosophy of these preppers. They do not bother much with stockpiling supplies or weaponry, but expect to survive the coming Armageddon by living off the land and traveling light. This is a difficult path because a modern person cannot easily learn the skills of a hunter-gatherer. And even a proficient hunter-gatherer has a fragile hold on their livelihood.
Scientist:
Perhaps the most rare of the preppers, they use experimental technology in their survival strategies. they are likely to attempt things like algae-farming, hydrogen generators and self-sustained ecosystems. They are either really weird, or total hippies and tend to ignore the martial aspects of prepping.
Urban Runner:
High on paranoia, low on resources. These guys tend to be young and single, or atleast unencumbered by children, They live in urban areas, which they believe they will have to flee in a crisis.
Hyper-Republican:
These guys have lots of money and paranoia. They tend to be religious and hyper conservative. When the world changes, they don't see the opportunity, just the danger. They tend to be older, having lived through the 80s, they grew up to movies like Red Dawn and are still brain-damaged from the Us Vs. Them mentality of the Cold War. Their primary survival strategy is lots and lots of money. They acquire bunkers, compounds, years of rations, lots of guns and lots of ammo. They use technology but do not understand it like the scientist does. They hoard weaponry, but may or may not have the mentality or experience to use them effectively.
Marauders and Raiders are frequently mentioned as a post-apocalyptic problem. No preppers seem to think they will become Marauders though. "We Are the Good Guys" the preppers say to themselves. But we know that raiding is something humans just do when they get into big enough groups. Sometimes the raiding is even sanctioned and organized and referred to as "war"
All I'm saying is Get Real. In an apocalypse, some of y'all are going to wind up being raiders. And you might even get to enjoy it too.
"I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week... but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting... by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...but by a two thirds majority in the case of external affairs."
Have you ever been to a gun show? A Gun Show is an American "cultural event" of which I doubt there is an equivalent anywhere else in the world. A gun show is basically a convention for civilians to buy and sell weaponry and accessories of various descriptions. Some historical, some sporting, some purely offensive. Mostly all overpriced.
I can not easily describe the subtle toxicity of these environments. There is an odd mix of fear, paranoia, pride, bravado and bigotry which suffuses a gun show. You will see plenty of prepper gear and literature, Confederate pride material, bumper-stickers and t-shirts which warn gleefully proclaim the bearer's eagerness to use deadly force provided with some slight sanction.
Propaganda designed to confirm and encourage paranoia.
At a gun show, people are afraid of the government, immigrants, terrorism, Moslems. They are afraid of being ripped off, they are afraid of seeming less knowledgeable than the next guy. They are afraid of being attacked, they are afraid of never being attacked; they wish a motherfucker would.
There is a magic of some tacit agreement: An agreement that we will all accept this spectacle as healthy, patriotic fun. We will blithely ignore that weapons are tools of grim purpose, and that we are fascinated by being able to purchase and fondle such items.
A weapon can be a powerful symbol of one's own agency. But what we have here is an obsession with a personal Armageddon. A personal-pan serving of the Apocalyptic.
What makes this frightening is the realization that the people at the gun show are not just like that at the gun show. They carry this benighted mentality around with them Everywhere. They are all over the place, carrying this mentality with them. To prepare for danger is one thing, Because shit does happen. But to obsess over it is a terrible waste of energy.
In the original context, around the time of Jesus, it meant something like a vision or revelation. It implied that God was revealing mysteries to you. Because the most famous Apocalypse is the book of Revelation, the word has come to be associated with the End of times.
And in this context, having an "apocalypse" was a kind of good thing. There was a fascinating re-assurance in the notion that all would be revealed, all would be set to rights, and God would divide the sheep from the goats.
And to modern people who still bear many of the same anxieties, this sort of Ultimate Sorting is still an appealing notion. I think this explains our continued fascination with Millenarianism. The escapist fantasy of millenarianism is the notion that when the "shit hits the fan," that none of it will get on you and yours. People half hope for the End of the World- hopeful that they will be amongst the sheep and not the goats. I say it's all bullshit and we don't get off so easy.
Oh. Ah, all this relates to D&D. It really does. D&D is all about Apocalypses. It's a basically a vehicle for you and your friends to be a group of amoral raiders in a world without rule. The sheep level up, and the goats roll up new characters.
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