18 thoughts on “The Luxury Of Apocalypticism”

  1. Sorry, but I’m in the “we need to panic” camp on this one.

    I plan on panicking about the Chinese Virus just as soon as it has gone the way of the prior epidemic from China, SARS, and exited the stage. I’m decidedly irked by the timeline uncertainty, as I prefer to carefully schedule my panics well in advance.

    It is always better to panic after the danger is long past. And that reminds me, I never did get around to panicking over the world-ends-in-2012 Mayan calender thing… maybe that’s something I can finally get around to.

      1. Procrastiapocalyptarian? Only when I get around to it.

        Actually, I think it would be good to debate whether or not the world really will end in 2012. It’s every bit as panic-worthy a threat as the Chinese Coronavirus is.

    1. Is it okay to stop panicking about how The Bad Orange Man almost started WWW III by killing that Iranian general?

      And when does the panic start over how The Bad Orange Man is going to cancel the elections and declares himself Dictator-for-Life?

    1. That doesn’t justify attempting to make the rest of us panic about it, particularly after the fake panics of Net Neutrality, Trump Tax Cuts, Brexit, and climate.

      1. Well then I guess the “elites” can with hold their support when the bill comes due, for not heeding the advice?
        Um Trump Tax cuts? How this going to look after this mess. Now maybe it be a mess anyway but paying it down in the 90’s was beneficial in the 2000’s.
        Dunno Brexit hasn’t been smooth sailing either.

        1. “You all need to give up your paltry savings and freedoms to ensure we can continue to rule you in security and comfort” doesn’t strike me as well-thought-out “advice.”

  2. I think we are very near the point where the impact of an economic meltdown exceeds the health impact of this virus.

    1. Yes. We’re rapidly heading toward ‘quarantine the vulnerable and let the rest get on with their lives’, which was the obvious thing to have done from the start. If the treatments being tested prove effective, I’m guessing that will happen very soon.

      As to panic, few people believe anything the ‘elite’ say any more, so it’s hard to get people to panic over what they do so.

  3. This is one of those save the squad and lose the battalion decisions. A no-brainer unless you have a bad case of the feelz.

  4. The people born after 1976, the ones who had an end to end Progressive education, are in some sense, apocalypse-deprived. Sure, they’ve been promised apocalypses galore, but no EOTWAWKI ever shows ups, always being a day away for some reason. Whence the popularity of the impossible Zombie Apocalypse of this century. It stands in for everything from !Global Thermonuclear War! to Robopocalypse, with the Evergreen Climate Apocalypse in between. I would not be surprised to find out this was a part of the school curriculum of the past few decades.

  5. At least the “end of the world as the clock ticked down to 2000” had an end-point.

    The best thing Trump has done now is to define a possible end point to the total closure of our economy. As long as small businesses have an end date in site, they can play accordingly.

    Anyone know why Jaws was so successful???

    The shark broke down and didn’t work in production. So, instead of showing the giant shark, the majority of the film was “left to the audience imagination”. No 2 people share the exact though as to what the ‘horror’ is. When politicians/news makes this seem like the situation will go on for months (and even years), folks fill in the blanks with their own worst case scenario. Trump gives the folks a real glimpse at the shark (and hint, it wasn’t really that scary).

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