The Linux Extremist

In case you missed the memo, the world is supposed to end today. Even the Register said good-bye this morning.

The reason we’re all doomed is that according to professor Bernard Lewis, Iran is going to nuke Israel; there is a scriptural reason to do so, apparently. According to Professor Lewis:

“This year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel, and, if necessary, of the world.”

Of course, Israel would nuke Iran back, and a veil of atomic darkness would then descend upon humanity. The end.

It’s always funny to see how many people get worked up about the end of the world only for humanity to muddle through on the foretold day of destruction. I remember when Nostradamus scholars were warning of disaster in July 1999. I remember the days of “Mutally Assured Destruction” (when the United States and Soviet Union were toe to toe) and we could expect total annihilation at any moment, a fact which some people discussed to the point of tedium. Long ago, people believed that certain years, like 1666, which contains the “Number of the Beast”, were going to herald the end. The remarkable thing is that doomsayers continue to be listened to, even though their record is so poor: consider their 100% inaccuracy rate.

Humanity is a remarkably flexible creation. Yes, we have the ability to make a terrible mess of things; some countries have an amazing potential to create disaster. For example, in the 20th century alone, Germany sparked off the two largest wars the world had ever known. The Russians managed to breathe life into a political philosophy which killed over 100 million people and mismanaged a nuclear reactor until it exploded and dropped radioactivity all over Europe. Yet we’re still here. We still have all of our petty concerns about what’s on television tonight, what are we having for dinner, does our backside look big in a particular pair of shorts. There are still advertisements for scented tampons (leading to the very important question of who would actually benefit from them) and episodes of Big Brother and Cadbury Dairy Milk bars going bad at the back of the fridge. Humanity, for all its faults, just carries on.

As for today’s prediction of doom, I suggest there are some cooler heads in Iran who know that their country wouldn’t survive the attempt and given the rate that “martyrs” are being turned into compost lately, the supply of virgins isn’t what it used to be. Even so, war is going on in the Middle East right now; yet normal life, more or less, continues.

Don’t get me wrong though, humanity will one day end. However, it’s more likely to be in a T.S. Eliot way rather than in some dramatic cataclysm. For those who aren’t familiar with his poem, the Waste Land, the following lines are germane:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

If we’re going to end, it will likely be in a quieter way than in one giant explosion. Perhaps some disease will wipe us all out. Perhaps the earth will tilt off its axis and we’ll be burned by being too close to the sun or frozen by being too great a distance from it. Or perhaps, we’ll simply become extinct. It’s certainly true that in the West there are declining birth rates; thanks to contraception, we can think about the 3 AM feedings, the driving to school, the paying for university, the bailing out of prison for smoking pot for any potential child, and stop all that happening. Given that taxes are going up in many countries, there isn’t the money that there used to be to let it happen. On top of that, there are also all the “me” considerations; having 9 babies certainly does prevent buying an Audi A4 rather than a minibus, for example. If birth rates continue to go below replacement rates, humanity may slowly, gracefully teeter into an abyss. It would take a long time, however, and certainly, it would be an uneven process. It would not be at all as dramatic as a bomb, though, and therefore, less fun to get unhappy about.

Having said all that, I could be wrong. Ahmadinejad may be left unsupervised today and press the big red button behind his desk. Israel may fire back and a good part of the world may be turned into a blackened mass of desert sand turned glass. However, it’s unlikely. The end of the world is rather like death on an individual level; we know it will happen, someday. We can’t know the hour or the means by which it will happen. As such, there’s no point in worrying about it or even thinking about it, except of course, to have a good laugh at the doomsayers’ expense.

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