QUOTE(Acid09 @ Nov 28 2006, 05:35 PM)
Sooner or later the end of our civilization as we know it will happen. There are any number of reasons why - global warming, super volcanic eruption, space rocks and ice balls the size of texas, nuclear war, killer robots, some crazy disease, God's apocoylpes. Really I'd put more weight on killer robots.
All I know if the world ends I hope I die very quickly cause I don't really want to live in a post apocalyptic world or that it happens when I'm already dead.
You know, it might be hellishly miserable, and I certainly don't personally long for an apocalypse of any kind, but not matter what one endures, there is an end to suffering eventually, at least of the worldly kind. Beyond that, then, I think that every big event like that is like taking our evolution and reliving the childhood of our Species, but with some experience under our belts this time. The world is a pretty shaky, rotten place in general, at least the "civilized" world. Perhaps when an apocalypse does happen, we'll come out of it better than we were before. Maybe then we'll be more careful with ourselves and our world.
With all the movies that have been made, and the books, etc., that put an adventurous, romantic spin on post-apocalyptic earth, it's hard to envision what it would really be like to survive such an event, if anyone will indeed survive - and you have to imagine someone will - but it would be a very different world. What could we accomplish if the standards that hold us back now no longer existed? When civilization falls, the balance of Chaos and Order will be upset, and no longer will there be powerful regimes to dictate what people are allowed to be capable of. We'll need to understand and appreciate community, which most of the world now is so saturated in that we take it for granted that there are other people in the world.
I'd bet my money on asteroids, or nuclear war, personally. Maybe there will even be mutant monsters in the wastelands. Or Zombies, I always thought it would be macabrely funny if after we made hundreds of zombie takeover movies, it really happened. Robots, I think, will happen next time, after we recover this time. Maybe it's just the tone of the culture I was raised in, but I've always felt like some kind of apocalypse will happen in my lifetime.
I wouldn't be surprised if the asteroid Nibiru turned out to be true, but you also can't really live your life in fear of it either - it's a pretty unavoidable event if it's going to happen. We'll either manage to do something about it or not.
Oh, i'd also consider alien invasion on my list as well, it is a big universe out there.
peace