We have an inherent bias that we believe things will happen in our lifetime, and conspiracy theorists are far more biased in this area than others. The next big event will bring the end of the world as we know it.
From the Bay of Pigs all the way to the Reagan era, World War III was inevitable. Y2K was going to send us back to the Middle Ages. Meteors, super volcanos, earthquakes, super floods, and yes, viruses, are all threats to humanity that will be the end of civilization as we know it…. apocalyptic threats to the human race that will happen any day now.
But the weird part is that somehow these are inevitable to happen in ‘our’ lifetime. We will bare witness. We will be the last generation to know what normal was.
Normal.
What is that? Normal as in a life of traveling by horse and buggy? Normal as in women can’t vote? Normal as in smoking in restaurants? Normal as in life before indoor plumbing, or before social media?
Our world advances in extremely fast and innovative ways, but somehow the human race will find its demise in our lifetime… or so conspiracy theorists believe. People will prepare for the end days, but they won’t live in the now.
“If I hold up this sign that says, ‘The world will end tomorrow’ long enough, one day I will be right.”
…that’s assuming the end will happen in your lifetime… but it probably won’t. We will see so many changes in our lifetime, but so will our grandkids… and maybe they will see the end times, but the simple reality is that it’s unlikely to happen in ours.
Humans, the earth, or the universe probably need a few more generations to really screw things up for us, for our planet, and odds are that this will happen after everyone living today is long dead. The end might be near, but it’s farther away than our short lives.