Masopher's Mind

Now that the movie 2012 is over and done with, here come a few post apocalyptic movies. The first one is vampire apocalypse or Daybreakers. Mankind is now fully addicted to a sweet liquid that improves their lives. Some are trying to resist the urge to use it and some revel in the fact that they can. The liquid is now running out and those that indulge too much are becoming ravenous and desperate. Armies are organized to pillage the third world looking for the last drops of it but the levels are now dangerously low. Fights are breaking out and civil law is decaying as the need for the life giving liquid run out. Oil? No Blood. Matrix meets 28 days later this movie is not, and the actors could consider this one of their lowest points.

The second one is hope apocalypse or The Road. It is a good guy and his son struggling through a post apocalyptic world looking for a better life safe from the bad guys (cannibals). It’s a stark and well acted film but not so much a story as it is a bad situation which the actors must act their way out of. “Are we ever going to be bad guys daddy?” “Are we gonna be good guys no matter what?” Something bad happened and the world fell apart, now nothing grows and everything dies and those left behind scavenge and turn to eating the flesh of others. Violent shakes result from consuming the flesh of your brothers. The film is lonely and frightening until the father dies and the boy discovers that they were never really alone had they learned to trust others.

The third one is knowledge apocalypse or Book of Eli. It features a world wrecked by the last war which, as THE LAST WAR might, used nuclear weapons which tore the Earth’s protective covering off exposing us all to the real terror, the cosmos and harsh rays of the sun. Mankind struggles to put itself back together but find itself missing one key feature, the wisdom of the bible. Other holy books were there but King James’ version of the ordering of the cosmos and right way to live was needed to complete the collection. One faction wanted it to institute control, the other faction just wanted it to pop in amongst the other great tomes. Here too cannibals existed in numbers, but mankind hadn’t managed to obliterate every other creature and had maintained a sense of purpose and cohesion.

The Mayans had a very keen insight on the cosmos. Something is ending in 2012 but it won’t be the end civilization, just the end of a cycle which restarts the very next second.

Mankind doesn’t get off that easy. The Earth, evolution, civilizations even revolutions are long slow and drawn out. Historians and teleological philosophers tend to add convenient start and end points to the progression of time but historians and philosophers don’t have the impediment or facts and reality to consider. Often it is science and pioneers that discover boundaries and the lack of.

The comforting thing about post apocalyptic movies is that we recognize that like the Earth, time isn’t flat. End-of-the-world-ists should have recognized that the roundness of the clock facilitates the time going all the way to twelve and then after that instead of slipping into a magical world, time goes back to one. Even for those that choose to extend the day to 24 hours to avoid confusing 4 in the morning and 4 in the noon, the day alas comes to an end at 24 without apocalyptic repercussions, smoothly transitioning to 01:00 of the next day.

The world is transitioning from one thing to the next though. The empires of Europe and the middle east drifted into history, Japan went from Asian giant to gadget loving post modern, the soviets rose and fell, and the last remaining empire now faces an slow, choking end, coughing on its own exhaust and labouring under a heavy mix of ideologies and idealisms without proportionate leadership. It may or may not bow out gracefully to the rise of an empire of old and out it will go but even this illustrates the cyclical nature of everything.

Here are the words of this humble disciple as I listen to the demon Masopher and learn nothing more than what is already written in the heart of every man.

It won’t happen. The backward society of apes self elevating to godhood just won’t pull it off. We neither have the balls nor the brains to kill off the planet nor everything on it. Here I examine a few end of world scenarios that sadly didn’t and shall not come to pass.

Nuclear Armageddon. Despite the fact that more than a few countries in this world can exterminate a few million humans with nuclear weapons, only two can technically kill billions. This is a claim based on the reported nuclear capability of both sides. But what if it isn’t true? We all know that at considerable expense a few explosions have been performed. Grainy black and white footage of essentially field experiments sinking retired boats and knocking down ply board houses have been released. And just like the guy that broke into the tent of the ark of the covenant, no one has lived to tell if its just Hollywood lights and magic or a bonified boogy-man. If the claims are true then a lot of the world could be dead within a few years; but not all of it. Animals, plants, even humans would reappear soon after and all that would have been destroyed in the large stockpiles of weapons and meat-cicles. And it won’t happen. Both Communist and Capitalist empires want to rule the world, not die on it. After fighting the Nazi’s and spending millions supporting former Nazi scientists, none of these former allies would benefit from using these scientific experiments. They benefitted a hundred-fold from not using the Nazi scientist experiments but instead using Nazi Gestapo weapons. Fear subterfuge propaganda and intimidation.

Global Temperature Armageddon. 30 years ago scientists and governments agreed that if we didn’t drastically change our lives the world would become a frozen wasteland. Today if we don’t drastically change our lives the icecaps will melt and drown us all. Neither of these things will happen. Through-out the history of earth, the world has gotten hotter and cooler, some places are cold, some are warm. Sand and water collect more in some places, turn jungles into deserts visa versa and cover and uncover other places. Some times it gets dark and sometimes it gets light. Now mankind lives long enough to realize that after a few hours of darkness there are a few hours of light and it is not human pollution that is making the world so heavy that it is turning away from the sun. We know now that a giant frog isn’t eating the moon and disgorging it. Our sins don’t make stars fall from the sky and our wickedness doesn’t make the sun turn to blood. Just like day, night, the lunar cycle and an eclipse, wiser more experienced scientists will scoff at our naïveté. Give earth some fucking credit for crying out loud, the old bird has survived meteor strikes and iceages; I am sure that a few smarter than average monkeys burning fossil fuels wont put a sizable wrinkle in her petticoat. Very marginally smarter than average because we eat where we shit , literally living and wallowing in our own pollution, if it wasn’t noticeable then we are dumber than we give ourselves credit for. Monkeys are alarmists too, so humans naturally see their own shadow and get scared.

Computer aided Armageddon. Computers became popular in the 80’s and 90’s and in less than a decade computers were rumoured to be the source of our doom. Yeah. I was lucky enough to see the turn of the century, and luckier to see people believed that somehow computers were smart enough to know that after 99 comes 00 but dumb enough to not know that after 00 comes 01. Life went on and not a single computer exploded or spontaneously developed human-like (un)intelligence. Time, an old and imperfect invention of man and computers, a new and imperfect invention of man get along quite well, because unicorns and goblins also get along. Time computers unicorns goblins and the fear of these things are all mental inventions, fantasies and at the end of the day, none of these things can of their own volition hurt us, let alone bring on Armageddon.

WMD?

Somehow scientists and uneducated pundits believe that two beams of light colliding can mimic the beginning of the universe or initiate the end of the world. Sit for one moment and consider how many times across the universe and in the world two rays of light have ever collided. Think about it now. Shine a flashlight at another flashlight…What happens? Exactly what happened and what will happen: Nothing. It is so masturbatory to believe that a scientific concept unproven and unobserved can begin or bring an end to the universe. But after the ejaculation one realizes that Jenna Jameson has not been even near your cock and that it was your own rough unsexy hand that wipes your ass and picks up the phone that was giving you pleasure. Man is not an all powerful or all wise being; causing two beams of any particle to smash into each other will not do anything more than cost a lot of taxpayers money that they would rather spend shopping or buying hello kitty products.

Masopher has seen many of these civilizations rise and fall and the one thing in common is the people, which have not changed much in the short span of millennia. We are just as conceited, arrogant stupid and superstitious as they were. Just as prone to living in self imposed fear and self stimulating awe. We have changed but not much, there will be no revelation, no apocalyptic titanic movements. Sure a lot of crackpots will write books, make money and start religions because of our fascination and hope for the end but in a few thousand years crackpots will still be doing exactly that.

 The Russians, the climate, technology or supernatural events will not kill us off. We die, grow change and move every day as individuals and a collective, like the inexorable dunes of the desert. Where we are going we do not know but we are going and there is nothing that can stop us, not even ourselves.