I have actually thought about this hypothetical situation from time to time. I think it would reveal a lot of things about human psychology, among other things.
Picture it. There’s an asteroid hurtling towards earth. It’s too big to move or otherwise affect by conventional means. So we all know that life as we know it will end in six months.
What effect will that have on humans and human civilization? Will it compel us to get our act together in some ways, end world hunger e.g.? And what about leaving a record of our existence? Would we send DNA samples into space?
World hunger won’t be ended in six months under any circumstances.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see an increase in violent crime. Afterall, the max sentence, no matter what crimes you commit, is just six months or less.
We already have records of our existence that are safely off the planet, most notably the Voyager probes and the Stardust probe. My name is etched on a chip aboard the latter, so I’m good.
If it were truly unstoppable, agreed. In this case I think it would be better to hide it from the public. I’d rather be blissfully unaware than living out a daily version of “The Purge” for six months. You think toilet paper was hard to come by before?
Heh, I’d quit work without notice, stop at the dispensary and buy as much as they’ll allow, make some phone calls to hunt down some coke. Sounds like a plan.
We have had many threads on this before. I think the world would dissolve into anarchy and chaos. Most people would quit their jobs and just either start some pleasure-orgy life or fend for themselves in this new everyone-for-himself world.
I would expect things to go to hell fairly quickly.
The disaster is a certainty, right? So why would anyone pay their bills? You are not going to lose your house in 6 months. Why would people even keep working at the banks and other institutions that care about you paying your bills? Who is going to pay them? The police are not going to keep working. Same with the armed forces, they will all be going home to be with their families. The governments have no power without the treat of force or legal consequences, and without manpower they have no threat.
Will long haul truckers keep delivering food to stores? The food processors and factories will not be running, even if they could still get raw materials. Why would anyone keep going to work at all? Maybe some dedicated individuals would want to but they are just that, individuals, who can’t really get anything much done alone. And they will never get paid or rewarded in any meaningful way for even trying.
Cities would fall into chaos first. They cannot exist without the constant supply lines of trucking and trains feeding into them. Everything runs out in about a week. You talk about the inconvenience of a toilet paper shortage, that would be the least of the problems.
I think you would quickly enter an era, a brief era, of “you have it, I need/want it, and I am taking it.” Armed forces, National Guard, Police, simply have no incentive to remain in their expected roles and everyone is on their own. Remember, this is not a situation that we all need to work together to get past and recover from. Everyone is simply walking dead, for a few hundred days and that is it.
Suicide would probably be a more pleasant option than starving to death as the grocery stores all abruptly were cleaned out and not restocked. Which would be the inevitable outcome.
The whole world suddenly and abruptly ending would be great - it’s first on my list of preferred ways to die. But there has to be no warning. Like most forms of death, long leadups to them suuuuck.
I liken it to being on death row and asked what I want my last meal to be. How the fuck can anyone enjoy a meal if they know they’re going to be dead in an hour? Same here. Okay, I’ve got six months, but that might as well be tomorrow.
Re: Considering committing suicide before the Big Day Zero:
I’d be trying to imagine how it ends for the people on the day the asteroid hits. Do we all die instantly-or-nearly-so? Will it be quick and merciful? Or will the energy of the impact set the atmosphere on fire so we all burn alive?
The victims of The Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were near ground zero, got instantly vaporized, they say. They were no doubt the lucky ones. Victims farther away got gruesomely burned, many fatally, many others not-so-quickly fatally.
When the asteroid hits, what will happen to the people who are far away from Ground Zero? Will the astronomers even be able to predict with some precision where Ground Zero will be?
If I know I’m going to die, I’d want to give some though to optimizing how it happens.
You might want to view the film “On the Beach” with Gregory Peck. Similar question - asked in the 1950’s, with the world going to end due to radioactive fallout.
