I had no idea so many people think the end of days is like this year. But if you Google "end of civilization," you'll get 791,000 entries, along with ads that say, "Looking for the End of Civilization? We can help!"
Even with more than 790,000 entries to go, I've learned that 2008 is the last year the United States will exist, due either to a palace coup by the Robert Mugabe wing of the Republican Party or the eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano. Also, HIV is being genetically engineered to spread like the common cold, which suggests that civilization may never have existed in the first place for some wonky biology majors.
Giant asteroids are ready to smash a continent-sized hole in our planet. Depleted uranium particles are delivering America to its post-human-genome future, sneaking past Homeland Security in the bodies of soldiers returning from Iraq. Creutzfeldt-Jakob prions are loose in the hamburger supply. Osama bin Laden is still on the CIA payroll, getting ready for his next false-flag operation, using nuclear weapons this time.
Most of these entries are gleeful at the prospect of the end of the world. It's easy to think their authors have massive credit-card debt or no health insurance or are in fight-to-the-death marriages or had childhoods during which they were teased unmercifully on school playgrounds. There's a nasty and revengeful "Ha-ha-I'll-be-alive-after-you're-dead" subtext to their writings, even among the asteroid people. They're planning gardens, installing solar panels, storing food and ammo in their basements or moving to fishing villages in New Zealand. Nobody ever seems to think an asteroid will hit New Zealand.
I've always thought it would be better to watch the end of civilization rather than participate in it. But until now, revenge hasn't been a big part of my thinking. Really.
For much of my life, I've lived in naturally gated communities in central Idaho, where the outside world shows up not as starving Bangladeshis or child suicide bombers but as fabulously well-to-do tourists looking to party. Reality for me has been other people's vacations, and if the need for revenge ever darkened my consciousness, I usually satisfied it with a day of skiing on Baldy followed by a glass of wine and a cheese plate in front of the fireplace at the Sun Valley Wine Co.
It makes you think the world would have been a far better place if Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin and even Robert Mugabe had grown up in a ski resort. If George W. Bush had grown up in a ski resort, he would never have become president, and we'd all be hanging with him at the Casino, complaining about how hard it is to ski moguls now that we're not 25 anymore and bitching about President Gore's refusal to spend the federal surplus on geriatric research. George would tell some jokes, do some shots, and buy us dinner at a nice Ketchum restaurant, and when the wine was poured he'd raise his glass and say, "To civilization."
Yeah. Right.
I could believe all that a few years ago. In an alternate universe. An alternate universe where Al Gore did become president but didn't invent the Internet.
Now, thanks to Al Gore's inventive recklessness, mountain walls no longer protect us from Google and its crushing burden of information. I've realized that people are really starving in Bangladesh because of ethanol start-ups. The dollar really will lose most of its value because of balance-of-payment deficits, budget deficits and moral deficits in the financial industry. We really are about to run out of cheap energy and the best alternative to oil really is starting to look like nuclear fission. The climate really is going to turn billions of people into refugees.
So thanks, Al Gore. Thanks for forcing me to Google New Zealand immigration policies and the logistics of growing tomatoes at 6,500 feet. I can't even get on a ski lift anymore without thinking of the Bay of Bengal rippling in the sun where half-acre farms used to be. I can't talk to my broker without inquiring about uranium stocks. I'm starting to price everything in Euros.
Thanks to you, Al Gore, civilization is becoming just a memory. Revenge is no longer a simple matter of living well. But, ha! There's a big asteroid out there, coming around Mars and heading your way, you jerk. It will fix you and your Internet once and for all. Ha.
