The world is going to end in 2051. How soon does society go to pot?

[CCitizen]

@msmith537

Statistically, I’m probably going to die in 35-150 years anyway, but I can’t stop working.

I am a 45 year old man. I consume tons of super fried food, weigh 157 kg, and rarely walk. I hope I have 25 – 30 years, but only G-d knows.

[Quartz]

As long as there is hope, society will stick together. Once that hope goes - and IMHO that will only be near the end - only then will society truly break down. I think people will continue to contribute to efforts even though they have no hope of personally surviving, as long as there is hope for the survival of life.

[CCitizen]

@Quartz

As long as there is hope, society will stick together.

Not if there is hope of saving 50 million people out of 7 billions – the society will erupt into a war.

[Quartz]

@CCitizen

Not if there is hope of saving 50 million people out of 7 billions – the society will erupt into a war.

I disagree - and the figure is more likely to be 10000 out of 7B.

[Richard_Pearse]

@Chronos

Unless it’s close enough to vaporize the entire planet, a GRB wouldn’t even kill off all of humanity. One hemisphere of the Earth would be flash-sterilized, but GRBs last for only a few seconds at most, so the other hemisphere would be completely untouched, at least at first. Now, killing off everything on one half of the planet is certainly going to have devastating consequences for the other half in the long run, but those consequences are all things that we know of ways to deal with. And if we somehow had 35 years of advance warning on a GRB, we could probably even arrange to move most people to an extreme enough latitude that nobody would be caught in the initial flash.

Don’t fight the hypothetical dude. We find out that everything ends for all of us in 35 years (fill in blanks as required to satisfy your own pedantry and belief system), how long does society keep on keeping on?

[Quartz]

I’ve rethought one aspect of my position. I’m sure you’ve heard and used the phrase, “Life’s too short…”. Well, I see people making literal use of that in regards to employment. Not for retiring but moving to another job. So employers will have to treat employees better. There will be a much greater emphasis on quality of life.

[msmith537]

@Quartz

I’ve rethought one aspect of my position. I’m sure you’ve heard and used the phrase, “Life’s too short…”. Well, I see people making literal use of that in regards to employment. Not for retiring but moving to another job. So employers will have to treat employees better. There will be a much greater emphasis on quality of life.

Kind of like that scene in Seeking A Friend for the End of the World where Steve Carrell’s workplace is asking who wants to be Chief Financial Officer or something. Although that was a timeframe of weeks, not decades.
I wonder what would make people demand better work conditions just because they learn that everyone is going to die in 35 years. Is life not too short regardless to toil away doing work you can’t stand?