How’s It All Going to End?

How’s It All Going to End? (Judging the Apocalypse)

In this experience, you will first make a binary choice. Do you believe (as I do) that civilization as we know it will end? Or are you hopeful that we’re up to whatever challenges we may face in the future, that humankind will persist forever, potentially even if or when the earth becomes uninhabitable?

Once you’ve made your choice, you’ll create an argument supporting your choice.

If we’re doomed, why? And what is going to precipitate our downfall?

If you’re hopeful, why? And how will humans be able to persist?

And how certain are you of your conclusions, no matter which side of the divide you fall on?

AUDIENCE

The audience is going to be curious, but they may not be wildly enthusiastic when it comes to reading and thinking about the end of the world. It’s an interesting exercise in the abstract, but it also requires us to delve into some potentially scary territory. I never would’ve even thought of the assignment if my students hadn’t goaded me into it, because I don’t actually enjoy spending time contemplating the end of civilization.

But to think through these potential threats and how we might mitigate them is also a valuable service. You’re doing the audience a favor, although they may not recognize or thank you for it.

Your choice of civilization-ending event will dictate your consideration of your audience’s attitudes and knowledge. Some threats are often publicly discussed, while others might be a little more obscure. Some may raise thorny political or cultural dimensions, which may impact receptiveness to your argument. For some topics, audiences will possess a lot of mistaken information that you may have to undo.

At the least, your audience should leave your piece significantly more knowledgeable about the issues on which you choose to write, even if they don’t necessarily end up agreeing with you.

Think through these issues and proceed accordingly.

1. Choose your path.

PROCESS

Will civilization end or will humankind persist? There’s no right or wrong answer to this question on its face, so what you choose will often be a reflection of your own attitudes and worldview. I tend toward pessimism when it comes to considerations of human nature, so I can’t help but think we’re doomed.

Other people have faith in human ingenuity, and believe our big brains and survival instincts will make sure we persist as a species indefinitely.

Your path is up to you.

2. Choose your scenario.

Whether you believe we’re doomed or we will persist, we for sure will face threats to our continuing existence. In fact, we face them this very moment.

End-of-civilization scenarios divide into two broad categories, anthropogenic (man-made), and non-anthropogenic (naturally occurring).

Non-anthropogenic threats include a catastrophic meteor strike, the death of the sun, alien invasion, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and disruption of the Oort cloud. (Look it up.)

Anthropogenic threats are things like population overload, global warfare, environmental disaster, global warming, and artificial intelligence leading to robot takeover, like in The Terminator.

Disease, the “end of men” (collapsing birthrates as portrayed in Children of Men and The Handmaid’s Tale), peak oil, nuclear war, EMP, terrorism, the Rapture—the list of different threats goes on and on.

There are plenty of resources available to study possible civilization- ending events. Be cautious, though. Some of these are going to come from conspiracy theorists and may be interesting reading but not necessarily reliable.

You may see multiple problems on the horizon, but you only have room to pick one possible scenario for analysis and discussion. You’re going to explain either how it’s going to end us or how we’re going to overcome it.

3. Do any necessary additional research.

Choosing your scenario likely required a fair bit of research. Now is a chance to do any additional research you think is necessary before you get rolling on a draft. You’ll probably need to keep researching throughout the process, so don’t delay writing for too long. The writing itself will reveal holes in your argument that will need to be filled by research.

At this stage, you should have enough to get going but likely not enough to get to the end. That’s normal and expected.

REMIX/REFLECT

Choose one of the two options below for Monday:

1. Reflect: Are you a survivor? If the apocalypse comes, are you going to do everything you can to keep going or are you just going to call it a day? Imagine beging confronted with living in the midst of your apocalypse. Would you keep fighting to stay alive no matter what? What are you attitudes rooted in?

2. Remix: Write a narrative set in your scenario that reflect your argument. You have a setting and a situation. Add character and plot, and you have everything you need.

Submit one of the two options above in 250+ words.