The “pretending to be wise” answer is that it’s easier to deal with mass extinction than with individual mortality; that the thought of your own death is weakened by the thought of gigadeaths.
More seriously, though:
Major disasters have always been a large part of human cultural experience. Cities have been destroyed by earthquakes, volcanoes, or hurricanes. Within recorded history, plagues and famines have reduced prosperous civilizations to desperate stragglers living in ruins.
Preventing or surviving disasters is, therefore, one of the most important things humans can work on. Disasters loom large in our cultural consciousness because they really are large and because we can actually do stuff to make these problems less bad.
Disaster preparedness is, in fact, no-kidding, really important for you, your family, your city, your country, and the world as a whole.
Preventing avoidable disasters, including manmade ones such as nuclear war, is a major part of what makes world politics morally significant. Avoiding the devastation of war is a really good reason to get good at politics, diplomacy, peacemaking, mutually beneficial relations among peoples; and the high stakes of “shit, we could actually kill off humanity if we fuck up politics too badly” is a pretty good motivator.
So … we think a lot about bad shit that could happen, because bad shit really can happen, and we can do something about quite a lot of it.
One possibility: It is a weird case of "this moment in time is special because I am alive".
Humans have been around for thousands of years but I am alive now. I cannot think of what the world could be like without me so therefore the human race must end in my lifetime.
This in not a new occurrence either, there have been "end of the world" groups in almost every generation in history.
It is worth noting that people always think the apocalyptic event will happen within their lifetime.
The only real difference now is that the end of the world is now caused by humans via nukes or destruction of the environment rather than supernatural forces.
I agree that the spotlight effect (or main character syndrome in slang) plays in. We tend to expect our life to be extra special somehow.
It’s also just fun to imagine exhilarating things. We’re still dumb animals who have fun riding endorphins, whether it’s skydiving or horror movies. Makes sense that myths about paranormal entities, natural disasters, end times, etc. are recurring in so many cultures. Same reason the Walking Dead is popular. It’s exciting to imagine!
The most alive I’ve ever felt has been being shot at, running from cops/security, and throwing myself into a dog fight to save my dog who was attacked. Even when being driven to the ER, I was riding such a high. I got messed up, but I won, and damn did that feel good and powerful. He was a big dog. In a sorta twisted way, I kinda eagerly await life’s unexpected events because of the adrenaline high and sustained retrospective excitement for a while.
What’s more exciting than imaging the end of the word as our species knows it? That’s the biggest factor in the answer to the question imo.
Well that’s weird. When I was younger I almost died so many times I lost count, and it wasn’t exhilarating. Just a broad sense of, “man, what a fucked up situation”.
My guess would be that it's simply because we are aware of the concept of extinction and have watched as other species have gone extinct. This causes some existential dread, like learning about death might.
Anybody working in SEO / “search engine optimisation.” Complete bottomfeeding scumfuck grift. The only reason it’s not considered fraud is because the government hasn’t caught up to it yet.
I’m learning web design, and one of those topics I need to learn is SEO so the websites I make rank higher. While I don’t like the idea of “gaming the system” to rank higher, it kind of becomes a necessity when everyone does it. What for you makes it such a scummy business?
I’ll take the bait a little. I will help small businesses out of SEO holes from time to time. My friends’ business was really stuck, and often you just need an outside eye to point out some obvious things: their home page was a splash screen with no text, they didn’t use the most-searched terms in their headings, they were using text-on-imagd with no alt text.
As, generally, it’s agreed we need businesses to have a society (somewhat unfortunately), and businesses need the internet to function nowadays (mixed blessing), I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to help the smaller guys succeed.
A pocket knife and a small flashlight. You don’t realize how often you could use either until you have them.
My knife is an Opinel #8 ($20) and my light is an Aurora A33 ($20).
I carry a bag most of the time, so I’ve got a little extra room than most, but I’d probably still carry both if I didn’t. The pocket knife is the size of, well, a pocket knife and the flashlight is only the size of a sharpie.
actually, I am unstable and an incredible liability. If anything, I am a wealth-shrinking entity, like the common household Offshore Tax Shelter. Beware my economic hoodoo.
I mean most people saying they don’t have any bad debt, but saying they have good debt isn’t too bad! It is interesting to know how much mortgage people are carrying.
But these days even mortgages feel bad. 400k at 7% is 28k of just interest. So houses feel way out of reach with current prices/rates.
If rates go down prices go up. So doesn’t feel like there is much winning for non home owners.
Housing prices, like everything, is determined by supply/demand. Interest rates are only part of the equation.
The main reason housing is high right now is because of the supply side, and that’s low at the moment because COVID destroyed the global labor market and the supply chain, so materials are sky-high, with fewer people to do the work of building.
Also, as the stock market tanks people move their money into safer places, like cash or property, hurting the supply side even more. This is what cashed up Boomers are doing (yep, we can keep blaming them).
Housing prices won’t come down until supply outweighs demand.
Not sure if you mean per year but mortgages are generally going to be over much longer time periods. A couple who I know are looking to buy somewhere new and are looking at getting £400k mortgage or thereabouts. With rates as they are now, and over 25 years, they’ll end up paying back £900k!
I’m genuinely curious, what’s your opinion on broad reaching student loan forgiveness? If it happened tomorrow, would you be upset that you had payed yours off?
Not that guy, but basically the same situation. I’d be thrilled. Not having to think about those every month has been amazing. I want everyone to feel that way, even if I have to pay more in taxes to cover it.
My ex was a chill stoner who got radicalized on the internet and became an abusive alcoholic raging racist, then got sober but is still an angry right wing asshole.
I was selfish/self-centered as fuck as a teenager and gained patience and perspective over time, I think most people do change in that way, become more aware of others, nicer. Not everyone, obviously. But most.
No debt since we’re only now looking for houses (yes yes, great timing, I know…) and I frankly wouldn’t know what else I would need to spend so much money on that I would have to go into debt.
It really depends. Autographs can seem very tangible, but photos are a better option IMHO, because I can show them off as “See, I was there, I didn’t buy this off eBay,” or something. But it really depends on what you want. IMHO? Neither appeal to me. Now, it may be because I used to run these things, and have met celebrities on and off the show floor. I see them as people in a weird profession, and feel a little… skeevy? Like I don’t name drop until it’s vital to the story, because I feel like I am using them. I have friends among these ranks to this day, and sometimes we hang out and shoot the shit, because they know I won’t ask them for anything. And they know I won’t spread gossip. Now, some people have wanted to take photos with ME, as “omg, that’s the president of Katsucon Entertainment” when I was that, but it was rare. I think celebs did it more than my attendees. Maybe as a scrapbook thing for them. So there are photos out there with some of the Power Rangers, for example, that I don’t have a copy of, but one of the actors has in his or her personal collection.
Embarrassment: I am in some of these people’s photo albums, and I don’t know who the fuck they were. Just a selfie in the green room. Because when I am at the con, I am working, not schmoozing. So the photos are probably pretty bad: just sweaty old me with a confused “uh, okay” stare in the photo.
I know with Stan Lee, and I name drop him because of the controversy of people taking advantage of him in his later years, I saw him at a Comic Con, practically being dragged to imbalance by a staff that was churning through attendees like an assembly line. This was about 4 years before his passing. He looked so old, tired, and frail. I was not working that con, I was working my table, but I just… felt so bad for him. And they were so strict about the rules. They actually walled him of with pipe and drape over 6 feet high so people couldn’t snap a pic of him while in line. You got something like 15 seconds with him, he was allowed to sign one thing, one snapshot, and answer one question. Then ZAP you were ushered out of the area. I recall it was something $210 for those 15 seconds.
One guest I worked with said the Marvel booth was terrible about how long she could spend with attendees. That’s why she often had her own table, to sit and chat with her fans. And some celebrities, like Mark Hamill or Patrick Stewart, are fucking pros at this. I never worked with them, but I have seen Mark, sleep deprived and exhausted, be as kind to the first person in line as the last. I feel like despite it all, he’s GRATEFUL of the opportunity. I can’t imagine the crazy either of them has to put up with. I saw a video where Patrick hugged an abuse survivor, and while that is amazing and kind, I bet con security just cringed in anticipation.
So whatever you pick, I guess my point is, be kind to them. They work hard, and they put up with a lot. It’s such a weird and surreal experience for a human to endure as a job.
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