Here is my answer. There is a universal adolescent male fantasy where the world is ending and the hero of the piece will be left to carry on with a large number of nubile female companions, hopefully repopulating the planet. It's so old, it's in the Bible (Story of Lot's daughters, but there it was the nubile females who decided to get their father drunk enough to schtoop them and repopulate the world!).
That's the scientific answer provided by sociologists and psychologists for the free-floating fear and anticipation of the "end of the world" or coming catastrophe. For over three thousand years it probably has been number one on the masturbatory fantasy hit list. There is a female counterpart as well (the menaced princess threatened with rapine by the hoards of barbarians rescued by the gallant knight who will ravish her slightly more gently, producing the progeny to repopulate the reconstituted world of good as the barbarian world of evil is vanquished).
So when I hear this story again with no analysis or definite course of action that makes any sense, I file the comment under well repressed sexual fantasies. Economic policy might be a whole lot easier if people had sex more often.
Some day the sky will indeed fall and most people will be totally unprepared. Many of them will suffer icky and gruesome deaths. The survivors will undoubtedly comfort each other and nine months later there will be an uptick in births, which the media will duly note. It happens every disaster. So if I take any action in anticipation of such an event, it will be to stockpile condoms. Can you make them out of foil hats?
Thanks for response, and here's mine. Sure, a lot of folks over exaggerate things (and are ultra-cynical all the time), however I think we live in a completely unprecedented time with a lot of very scary things happening that have never before occurred in history as far as we know it:
Scary Stuff Specific to Our Time:
1.)
Solar Flare. Before you call me crazy, hear me out. Giant flares are relatively common (ie happen every couple hundred years or so), and a big enough one today has the potential to take out ALL ELECTRONICS in North America, lol. This isn't a "theory" or "prophecy", this is simply a natural thing that happens all of the time (last one was in late 1800's (which of course was not as big of a deal for obvious reasons). If you're not concerned, I'd like to know why.
2.)
The Economy. The Fed has been printing trillions of dollars over the past 5 years and continues to buy toxic assets from the Big Banks. Our country is at an estimated $17 Trillion in debt, but more in-depth estimates put that closer to
$100+ Trillion. The banks still hold (too) over $700 trillion of derivatives on their books (ie what crashed the economy rd 1) and have not been reprimanded or forced to make any significant changes since the crash. All of these factors added up scare the hell out of me, if they don't you then why?
3.)
The Gov't. I hate being cynical but you have to admit it's alarming that we have an NSA spying on every aspect of our lives (phone calls, social networks, emails, gps location, etc) & gathering data into a permanent record book (when has that level of privacy invasion ever occurred in history?), we have a gov't that's cracking down on the free press (ie AP scandal), lying to us repeatedly (ie "it was a movie that provoked a mob in Benghazi", "you can keep your plan", "this will be the most transparent admin in history" - lol, "lets go after these fat cats", etc). I don't think America has ever looked this bad, and quite frankly it's concerning.
In summary, in the past when there were collapses, declines, etc the world wasn't half as interconnected as it is today and therefore the damage was limited.
Today, with ultra powerful weapons, Governments that know the precise time and location each citizen jerks off, and our total dependence on technology to survive just (to me) are good reasons to be nervous about a major disaster.
It's not a fantasy, and if you think it is you're going to be blindsided.
