Skepticism, Science & Pseudoscience

Part of it is that part of ourselves that wants things to go as they are forever, just so they're predictable, and the knowledge that the only constant is change. Part of it is free floating anger that the world isn't the way we would like it to be, so come on, asteroid! But by golly, we're going to prepare so we can dig in and watch the show.

I don't find the doomsday mindset all that troubling, that asteroid might be on the way. What I find troubling is the conceit that we'll somehow be able to prepare for cataclysm and come out at the end smelling like a rose. Thinking about it with any honesty at all means you probably wouldn't want to survive it, that the living would envy the dead. Learning how to scrape a living out of a dead planet will not be enjoyable.

That's if the doomsday people do survive. My own guess is that some news article will push them over the edge, they'll announce "this is it!" and shoo the wife and kiddies into the bunker, and end up going stark staring stir crazy within a month. They'll likely be the first to go.