Visions of (no) tomorrow
To conclude a series of 5 posts about the apocalypse, I have collected my favorite artistic renderings and photos that allow of to imagine what a post-apocalyptic world would look like.
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Apocalypse Week
Why the apocalypse is good to think with
The apocalypse is feared for many reasons: on one hand, it might completely destroy Earth, and therefore humanity. On the other, should it leave Earth intact, it would most likely bring deep changes in humanity, be it the collapse of governments, a massive drop in population, social chaos, and so on. At least that’s how it goes in the movies.
Debunking yet another apocalypse prophecy
Let’s think back to the various apocalyptic scenarios we’ve heard people talk about in the last 20 years. There’s the zombies, the Nostradamus prophecies, the alien invasion and the planetary alignment, to name a few. Through history, fears of impending doom have manifested themselves in even more various forms.
Let’s start with zombies
Should zombies take over the world, popular culture will have given us some preparation. Watching movies and TV series on the topic, you might have learned a trick or two about hiding from, killing, escaping and controlling zombies mobs. Many books, like the Zombie Survival Guide or the Zombie Combat Manual have been released to provide you with more detailed information. Zombie survival kits, Zombie crime scene tape and emergency response operations packets are also available for your convenience.
Apocalypse Week
Until Saturday morning, we are going to hear more and more about the Mayan calendar, the end of the world and tips on how to survive an apocalypse. Chances are what we’ll hear will be a repetition of what we have been hearing since 2000, when it became clear that people we wrong about that apocalypse.
The theme of the apocalypse is not a new one, of course. People have been announcing the end of the world for centuries. When 1666 came around the corner, people in Europe panicked, thinking this would be the year of the devil, the end of the world. The same was announced about 2000, both by people quoting the Bible and others who thought computers would stop working entirely and chaos would follow. Now it’s the Mayans’ turn to provide inspiration for the apocalypse discourse.
The Geek Anthropologist 