It is super weird to write about the apocalypse while there’s a plague going on. Not because there’s some worrying emotional parallels between the subject matter and my real life experience. My time in quarantine has basically been the opposite of Mad Max in every possible way. Rather, it’s difficult because this real life experience is mostly just unfathomably boring, and that’s basically how a real world end of days scenario would play out.
In Noam Chomsky’s interview, he talks about looking at the state of the world from the perspective of aliens, and trying to explain why the world is the way it is to these alien entities. Why is the fact that the earth is dying not a massive concern to everyone all the time? Why is everyone just concerned with twitter, and not this upcoming apocalyptic event?
My simple slug answer a couple of months ago would have just been that it’s difficult to feel a sense of urgency and dread when the impending catastrophe is so slow moving. Not many people feel active terror about something that is gonna happen 20 years from now, especially when it’s not something that most individuals have any way to affect. You can stop using plastic straws if you’d like, but that’s not going to stop the fact that most pollution comes from a handful of major companies.
However, now that there’s a plague going on and everything is happening really really fast all the time, but the reaction of most people I know is basically just boredom and apathy, it’s definitely not a question of urgency. Probably more of empathy. Basically just a perfect encapsulation of Dunbar’s number in practice. The plague isn’t directly happening to me or my friends, so there’s a limit to how freaked out I can feel about it at any given time.
That being said, there was another part of the Chomsky interview that stuck out, and that was when the inevitable downfall of empires was brought up, which led to discussion of how the next large scale war might end civilization as we currently understand it. I’m not discounting the possibility, but I’m willing to bet good money that the post-apocalypse does not resemble Mad Max. It’s not going to be roving bands of marauders, with everyone out for themselves and only localized settlements to serve as civilization. If I may borrow a take form David Wong, the entire history of humanity has been taking apocalyptic conditions in stride and then continuing forward. The black plague killed approximately half of Europe while it was prominent, but uncontrolled descent into lawlessness was not what we saw at the end of it.
I should probably say that when I say Mad Max dystopia, I’m referring to the sequels more than the original movie. The first movie does a pretty good job showing how a bunch of raiders mess stuff up, and if it’s setting were to happen anywhere, Australia is a pretty good candidate.
But still, as the internet likes to say, we live in a society. Humans are social creatures, and the default state of people is not to wander around alone and aimless. Most people aren’t drifters by nature.
The main thing apocalypse will probably do is take all the problems we have now and make them worse. Climate disaster will result in more natural disasters, more refugees, that sort of thing. It’s very un-spectacular, and therefore something it’s difficult to portray in movies. Movies are inherently biased towards drama, and it’s difficult to extract drama from things getting gradually shittier. You could go down the Idiocracy route and jump straight to the end when things have gotten as bad as they probably will, but that kind of defeats the purpose, and also Idiocracy is a dumb and bad movie. That’s not how evolution or genetics work, and it’s weird that the movie basically has a pro-eugenics setting.
Aidan Tamke Cyberpunk Class 