Archive for the ‘Signs of the Apocalypse’ Category

Surviving the Rise of the Machines

rise of the machinesSince I first saw the Terminator films I have had an ongoing sense of … I don’t know, importance, in my heart floating around that narrative, the narrative of the machines rising from our creation and destroying us. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, wanting an apocalypse to give meaning and color to my otherwise dull life. But these days I don’t think that is the case. I think it may well have been an intuitive sense of a very real danger to humanity from our own robotic creations.

Now, of course, I don’t mean this in the literal sense. I don’t think we’re going to create robots that are going to become sentient and create terminator robots to try to eradicate us because they perceive us as a threat to their survival. Maybe that is in our cards in one way or another eventually, but I think it much more likely that on the short term we will be faced with a different but very real threat to our livelihoods from the machines. That is, they will upturn the economic paradigm. Simply stated, they will take our jobs.

Fifteen years from now you will go to McDonalds and your burger will be flipped and served to you entirely by a machine. And all the trashy kids and meth heads that once worked there in an half-assed attempt to take care of themselves will be out of a job. They will be forced to be on some sort of welfare or to become full-time criminals. Most of what we humans do for our livings can be done by the machines which we will be able to create within a couple of decades. We’re that close.

It is a very small percentage of us who have the capacity to work in a role intellectual enough that it could not easily be substituted with robotics. And chances are, robots can do your job at less cost and far less liability than you can.  When 80% of the jobs– service jobs, manufacturing jobs, repair jobs, agriculture, transportation, etc are replaced by robotics what will the rest of the humans do for their livings?

A paradigm shift will become imperative. The wealth created by the machines will go to the top percentages. And the wrath of the lower 85% out of work will have to be placated one way or another. It will be welfare or it will be war. And the rich are not going to open their purse-strings easily. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not arguing for welfare. I’m simply stating there is a mathematical problem to be solved here. What happens economically when an average Joe IQ 90-110 can no longer work at Micky Ds or Oil Can Henry’s or drive a Taxi or a answer phones in a call center? He can’t be an engineer. He can’t be a scientist. Not with this shitty educational system where almost every child is left behind. But he can sling rocks and pull triggers and break into your McMansion.

This puts us in a very interesting time in history right now. The ueber rich are going to have to get very clever very fast to keep things stable. They’re going to have to kill a lot of us off and make it look like an accident or organic process, maybe through “accidental” sterilization. Or they’re going to have to buy us off. We’re going to need bread and circuses and we’re going to need a LOT more of it than we’ve already got. Perhaps they’ll pay unemployment welfare to only those who accept sterilization??? Or perhaps they’ll pay extra to those who take that option. Sounds dystopian? Yeah… But what other choices are there at this junction… Class warfare? Too messy… I don’t think they’ll let it happen. But then again the Goddess Eris is alive and well and I think I see a Golden Apple with the words “for Kalisti” inscribed on its skin being passed through the sky. And I smell hydraulic fluid on the wind.

In the meantime, start thinking about where your survival tickets come from. And by that I mean money. Can a machine do your job? Will your income survive the rise of the machines?

Plastic Rice

I have no idea how widespread this may be, but it is definitely one for the “Signs of the Apocalypse” files.

Apparently eating three bowls of this synthetic rice which is a mixture of potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic, provides an equivalent to a whole plastic bag’s mass in plastic.  Yum.

One can only assume this is pending imminent FDA approval as a pre-cooked instant microwavable product for American supermarkets.  =)

Solar Flare Apocalypse

I’m issuing an Apocalypse Watch in regards to the recent activity on the surface of the sun.  While the odds are minimal of the collapse of this phenomenon causing a coronal mass ejection that has the correct trajectory to hit Earth, the risk is real.  The resulting electromagnetic pulse (EMP), could be sufficient to bring down the electrical grid.  Eventually we will be hit with a Coronal Mass Ejection big enough to do just that.  The last one happened in 1859 when there was no grid. 

Some say we are overdue for another event of similar or greater magnitude. 

When, not if, but when this life shattering event comes to pass you would be very lucky to get this amount of forwarning.  So take this casual warning for what it may truly be worth, because this is not the sort of thing you will find on the NBC Nightly News, this is the sort of thing that you learn about when you can’t turn your television on to watch the NBC Nightly News.

For most people in the developed or developing world, the grid coming down would mean an end to the world as we know it.  As such, I highly recommend monitoring this situation. 

Here is the latest update from spaceweather.com :

A dark magnetic filament more than 400,000 km long is snaking around the sun’s southeastern limb. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed it rotating into view during the early hours of Dec. 4th:

In this extreme ultraviolet image, blues and yellows trace million-degree gas in the sun’s atmosphere. Dense plasma bottled up inside the filament is about ten times cooler, so it appears dark in contrast to the hot atmosphere around it.

The arrival of the filament comes as no surprise. NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft has been monitoring the filament for days as it approached the sun’s horizon from behind. So far the massive structure has hovered quietly above the stellar surface, showing no signs of instability. How long can the quiet last? Long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below. Stay tuned!

This my friends would be a very good time to make sure your pantries are well stocked and to read up on the potential effects of EMP.  I recommend the novel One Second After by William Forstchen (despite the political taint). 

.

.

.

UPDATE: Dec 7 2010 – The filament has exploded.  Click here to view a 4MB .gif file of the dramatic image.  Very cool!  But we still need to stay tuned to what’s happening on the surface of the sun.  We got lucky this time, if we were in the path of the blast this could have been lights out for months to years.

.

.

.

.

.

Volcano Apocalypse

In light of the recent seismic events I feel it is necessary to issue an alert for local Armageddons. 

Here’s why:

Jan 12, 2010 – Haitian Earthquake - magnitude 7.0  – estimated 230,000 deaths adn 300,000 injuries

Feb 27, 2010 – Chilean Earthquake – magnitude 8.8 – strong enough to cause standing waves on water to form nearly 5000 miles away.

April 4, 2010 - Baja California Earthquake – magnitude 7.2

April 6, 2010 – Northern Sumatra Earthquake – maginitude 7.7

April 11, 2010 – Solomon Islands Earthquake – magnitude 6.8

April 13, 2010 – Southern Quinghai Earthquake – magnitude 6.9

Source USGS

And finally the ongoing and currently increasing Icelandic Volcano eruption which has caused the largest peacetime disruption of travel for Europe ever.  This eruption is not only of note as an indicator of things going on in the bowels of the earth, but it is a risk in and of itself.  In 1783 the Icelandic Volcano Laki erupted and spewed a cloud of toxic gas over Europe which killed some 10,000 people.  Additionally, the volcano currently erupting, borders a much larger volcano, one that poses a much greater threat.  If subterrainian magma chambers were to connect the neighboring volcano could blow as well.  This could potentially shut down travel on a semi-global scale and significantly affect global climate.

Anyhow, this should be sufficient in and of itself to warrant taking some precautions, without getting into any of the freaky stuff going on right now, i.e. the Electric Man in Australia who spontaneously started fires or the massive meteor that just burned up the sky in the midwest.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not out screaming THE END IS HERE in the streets…. Well, not because of this anyway.  But I do think we should take this as a rational reminder to get our stuff in order.  Making sure to have a month’s supply of food in the house at all times, which could really just be a big bag of rice and some cans of beans and a little salt stuffed under the bed or in the attic.  A flashlight and some spare batteries and thinking through your personal evacuation plan should it be necessary to get out of Dodge.  This is just good old fashioned prudence folks.  And you’re just being irresponsible if you’re not doing this.

Now, as far as the Zombie Apocalypse goes I don’t think it is very likely that seismic activity will play a major part in some bat shit crazy hollywood 2012 Movie style cataclysm.  Rather I think the most likely causes of the Apocalypse that we will be experiencing starting now and building over the next few years are:

1st: Economic, either a derivatives implosion or through a peak oil scenario, although they are not by any means mutually exclusive.

2nd: Electromagnetic, either from a major solar event or from an atmospherically detonated nuke (North Korea has this capacity already folks)

and 3rd: Biological.  This could be in the form of a Super Pandemic or of some runaway genetically engineered bacteria that nature has no checks for and ends up adversely altering our soil or atmosphere composition or just a major crop blight.  Really there are a lot of ways biology could end us rapidly, and we’re playing with fire by releasing these human crafted bugs into the fields.  What if a plastic eating bacteria emerged and consumed all our critical infrastructure? Ack!!!

Personally though, I’m not worried about Yellowstone, or even the more likely Long Valley Caldera Supervolcano erupting.  And I’m not worried about an asteroid colliding with the earth… can’t do much about that sort of stuff.  However, I did take one bit of advice from that goofy 2012 Movie and that is about building an Ark.  And I mean this metaphorically, not building a boat and putting livestock on it, but rather building a place and a community that can weather grid down scenarios over the long haul.  So think it through folks, and keep your chins up, it can be a fun exercise and you’ll find that working towards your personal Arks, your lifeboats, will get you out in the sun and feeling strong and healthy.

Cheers and be safe!  Especially if you live near a volcano or major fault!!!

IW

P.S. Here is a link to some FEMA information on how to prepare for an earthquake, there are some important tips here that you need to know if you’re in an earthquake prone area.

Signs of the Apocalypse – Woman From Jersey Strives to be Worlds Fattest Mother

I think a better title for this article would be “Fat Moron Aims to Eat Herself to Death and Leave Child Motherless“.

This is just a short post to pass on this amazing article I ran across today.

For all the academic cases one could make to say the end is here, none are so striking as this.  No, not just her goal, but the fine print in the article that says she does this because people pay her on the Internet for some sick kind of watch fat women eating MacDonald’s fetish Webcam.  And we thought the gladiator battles during the fall of Rome were a sick spectacle…

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to get back to writing quality articles next week, now that I’ve gotten past the IRS and my Job Search both.

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More