Over 1900 years ago, when the "Book of Revelations" was written, there were passages set down in it about an end of days. Since then, a number of folks have interpreted the signs and said we were getting closer to that, a period called Armageddon. As we now know, most such predictions have turned out to be much too pessimistic, for we are still here after a succession of these doomsday prophecies have come and gone, without the foretold dire results.
Still, in 1704, Isaac Newton, a pretty smart dude, wrote that the world would end for humanity by 2060. If one believes in this sort of thing, and quite a few do, there has been ample ammunition over the past few generations for worst case scenario musings.
Many thought the end was nigh during the Second World War. Unfortunately, for close to 100 million folks that did indeed turn out to be accurate. And during the Cold War, as superpowers were playing chicken with our species' future while testing and assembling thousands of nuclear bombs and missiles, more than once we got within a few minutes of midnight on the "Doomsday Clock." Now, according to thebulletin.org, we are once more at just two minutes to midnight on that metaphorical device.
In the 1960s, scientists told us we would soon face mass starvation, as the planet simply could not sustain so many people. Humans alive then numbered about 3.3 billion. The population now stands at 224% of that level. Go figure. We seem, over and over, to get close to, yet not actually cross beyond, a point of no return.
In the early 1980s, a movie came out about Nostradamus, a mystic who wrote in the 17th Century about the future in ways that captured peoples' imaginations. The movie interpretation of his prophecies included that after the highly destructive rise and fall of the Third Reich, signified in Nostradamus' writings by the advance and decline of a fellow called "Hister (sic)" (pretty close to "Hitler," right?), there would come a time when great nations would have the means to destroy all life. Believers link certain passages as well to conspiracies to assassinate JFK and Robert Kennedy. A major earthquake was predicted to occur in CA in the latter 1980s. And there would, Welles said in the movie, be a major attack by a Mohammedan on a new world city, generally believed to be The Big Apple. Remember this movie came out in 1981, twenty years before 9/11. Per Nostradamus, again as forecast in this Orson Welles' narrated movie, "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow," the U.S. (the Eagle) and Russia (the Bear) would later team up to battle and vanquish Islamic terrorists. Hmm. Really? Even Welles himself was a skeptic about much of the seer's writings or their interpretations, saying after the movie gig that one would be as likely to get a few things right by interpreting the phone book.
Yet, if one has faith in the reality of clairvoyant experiences, there can be remarkable coincidences that seem on occasion to have foreshadowed what was to come. A lady I knew through a meditation group told me of an upcoming marriage of a mutual friend of ours, who had just lost his wife of many years, to a much younger woman. At the time, my friend did not know this younger person anymore than I did. Yet, to my surprise several months later he did indeed marry a wonderful lady at least twenty-five years his junior. An acquaintance of one of my brothers and myself several months beforehand predicted the imminent massive eruption of Mt. St. Helens (which happened in 1980), before its looming instability was at all in the news. Lucky guess, or had he really had an intuitive vision?
By whatever means, fortune tellers get just enough things right to keep people interested, and at times can even make a living at it. Few, however, foretold the financial debacle of 2008 to early 2009, and it would surely have been nice to have guessed just when to short the equity and real estate markets.
Now it appears a new sooth has been discovered. This time, there is an interesting twist. In 1973, a computer was programmed to set forth the likely events of our species over the next several decades. This university project is being taken more seriously of late because a number of its predictions appear to be coming true. The program was called "World One."
In the 1960s, an M.I.T. computer programmed with a team headed by system theorist Jay Forester developed a model of global sustainability and what might undermine it. By 1973, it had provided a series of possible events for our future, several of which have been occurring, including growing levels of pollution, population increases beyond the capacity of local resources, and a dwindling of vital natural resources. The model shows by 2020 a general decline in contentment or hope for brighter circumstances. The prediction is that, as things get worse, people will overreact with unsystematic solutions, i.e. responses that may deal with an immediate lack of wellbeing around one issue or another, but which do not take into account unintended consequences for the circumstances or system as a whole, inevitably making things worse. I wonder if Brexit might be an example. There is then a strong impulse to do more and more to "fix" what does not feel right as conditions deteriorate, so that the situation declines further. The model shows a sharp drop in quality of life for humans, beginning about 2040.
World One had forecast pollution around the world severe enough that millions would be dying from it. Though not noted so much in the U.S., this is already happening. It will, per the model, get still worse until the growth of population cannot be sustained and our numbers will decline to about 20% of their current level. National integrity will also break down, according to World One. This too is already occurring. The number of fragile nations, countries in crisis, and failed states is markedly going up, one reason scores of millions of refugees are attempting to escape their places of origin, are on the move, often at great risk to themselves and their families, or are living in camps around the world, yet with few prospects of better futures. Corporations and their interests will tend to have greater sway than governments or the people they ostensibly serve. Consumption of resources will reach higher and higher levels among an ever increasing population, with unfortunate repercussions. Other computer models are confirming the World One suggested trend, indicating as well wilder weather events, decreasing capacity of national administrations to cope, political instability, more water scarcity, pressure on food supplies, and a crescendo of financial, societal, and constitutional disasters. Ultimately, they suggest, current lifestyles and populations cannot be maintained. These models differ by a few years in how soon the impacts will become profound. Most agree, though, that they will be evident in the next couple decades.
Yet, if it comes, the end of civilization does not mean, of course, the demise of our species. Modern industrialized, agricultural, commercial, and urbanized habitation of our planet has been around for far less than 1% of our species' time on Earth. There were probably at least a couple hundred thousand years of our kind prior to what we now regard as a civilized world, and remnants of Homo Sapiens were able to survive vast volcanic eruptions that temporarily blotted out the sun, so many living things perished, bad periods of drought, and a succession of severe ice ages, when glaciers covered much of what are now temperate zones. Chances are at least a few of our kind will subsist for quite awhile through the challenging times ahead.
Perhaps they will even evolve to be better adapted to what comes. Speculation is that we are actually too smart for our own good. Who really has to know a theory of everything or how to make hydrogen bombs or create new viruses? Such advances in our understanding can be, and too often are, put to ill uses. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut had it right when he suggested, in Galapagos, that in time we might develop less acute but more survivable mental powers and be content with something similar to seal-like lifestyles on into the distant future.
On the other hand and more hopefully, let us remember that even in the historical period there have been periods of great political dysfunction or conflict, apparently only "by the skin of our teeth" progress through major prior travails. Over and over, like magicians pulling rabbits out of empty hats, we have prevailed against the odds and come out ahead till, generations hence, people were seeing better times yet again.
Primary sources:
In 1973 an M.I.T. Computer Predicted The End Of Civilization. So Far it's On Target. Paul Ratner in bigthink.com; August 23, 2018;
M.I.T. Computer Program Alarmingly Predicts in 1973 That Civilization Will End By 2040. in Computer Science, Data, Life Science openculture.com; August 27, 2018.