"Few constituencies are so ostentatiously and consistently wrong, over so many generations of human history, as the doomsayers who promise that the end is nigh.
It did seem kind of nigh there for a second, though, didn’t it?"
"Or, as the writer Kurt Andersen put it in the days leading up to today’s eclipse, after a rare (and rather substantial) earthquake rattled New York City: 'Earthquake. Eclipse. The antichrist running for president. Check.'”
I'd add: "And antichrist being eagerly welcomed and feted and promoted by large numbers of US Christians."
As I write this (and I may update later), there have been 19 earthquakes in central New Jersey beginning with a real glass-shaker of 4.8 Magnitude this morning at 10:23. I, unfortunately, did not feel it but several close relations did because they were closer. Good for them. It’s always a cool bucket list item to feel a substantial but not dangerous earthquake to remind you of how small and unsubstantial people are.
Earthquakes three days before the eclipse are not helpful for people trying to be rational
If you have been following along, the quakes are just 3 days ahead of the eclipse. The 2024 eclipse will not pass over this epicentral area of New Jersey, but the correlation in time has sent the nervous and Biblically-minded people into fits. The timing makes this very hard to explain that there is no correlation between the two interesting events. Seriously, no matter what I say, certain people will not believe me. Take one very awful person, MTG:
I mean, TAKE HER, please, get her the hell out of here. Sadly, she is not the only one promoting the idea that End Times are upon us. The heat from religious fearmongering about the eclipse was just turned up. I have to go back and update my last post because I found more about it being the Rapture, End of the World, with human sacrifices, etc. Check it out if you haven’t already, just to feel prepared for potential chaos on Monday.
The need to share the experience with each other
The eclipse is one of those events that can, actually, bring people together in a collective experience. Today’s earthquake(s) did the same. People wanted to talk to others and share what they felt. They turned to social media to do that, which is really cool.
What wasn’t great were the very many “suddenly seismologists” who appeared to opine about plate tectonics, the Ramapo fault, and the logarithmic magnitude scale. It did not help that the news media appeared to grab their meteorologist to deal with the science of earthquake reporting. The amount of misinformation may exceed the factual information. The degree and quantity of insane claims will grow, I’m sure. If you want to see some unhinged ideas, they are on TikTok and Reddit.
Just like with all the Google University bridge engineers who emerged on the internet 10 days ago, people want to contribute to the conversation by sounding sciencey. They want attention. Many of the commenters who felt the quake were very scared and overreacted because they don’t know anything about earth sciences. This is not unexpected, but social media feeds full of bogus airbags spouting nonsense makes all this much worse. Scientific explanations can help us understand a scary thing and alleviate some of the concerns. But the catch is that people have to be able to hear qualified and helpful voices and to trust them. The “qualified” and “helpful” voices are being drowned out, and the “trust” has been eroding for decades.
It’s disturbing to be faced with the barrage of information without having a trusted source about science and nature. Where is Carl Sagan when you need him! Note that some media outlets called the 21st century version of Dr. Sagan – Bill Nye. That’s OK, I know he checks his sources before speaking.
In a fortunate bit of timing (maybe), the BBC posted an article about how and why earthquakes are occurring outside of plate boundaries, in unexpected places. This was published 3 days ago:
Something very weird is happening to the planet’s earthquakes
Earth-shattering seismic events can occur away from the fault lines between tectonic plates. And there’s no easy way to predict when or where they’ll hit.
The article describes the problem of intraplate quakes, like the one that occurred in New Jersey. The faults can be hidden or quiet for so long that the population is unprepared. Exactly what happened today. Usually, intraplate faults can’t store a huge amount of energy so when they rupture, it isn’t big. But it can get up to magnitude 7, which is definitely destructive. If you are feeling nervous about earthquakes, I suggest you not read that article because it might make things worse. Clearly, these natural events are adding to the severe national anxiety we are experiencing every day for the past decade.
I told my cousin in New Jersey that aftershocks are likely and they did happen. It may not be just the seismic ones that are felt. People are edgy, the daily news is unsettling. When the ground actually shakes and your congressperson is insisting that the sky is falling, we are rudely reminded how very mired we are in Strange Times.
Finally, a favor to ask: if you see any strange stories about the earthquake, drop me a line. I’d love the links. See email address in the header or follow me on Mastodon.
We're not moving backwards, or forwards, but rather engaging in an unending cycle of existence, death, decay, and existence. Of growth, slow and then exponential and then not at all.
The world is not ending. Let me be clear: "our" world might be. But we are but a moment, in harmony and in concurrence with all other moments simultaneously. The world is not ending, simply moving through another cataclysmic cycle. We are simply myopic, we are simply enveloped in ego and fear. The universe, the world, however, does not have these shortcomings. It is indifferent, it honors both death and life equally.
And when we are all "gone", we are not really gone, but simply shifting states of existence to ride the ferris wheel of cyclical Being once again.
The coral reefs are dying.<br></br><br></br>I’ve never seen a coral reef and I probably never will,<br></br>the same is true of a variety of species and natural wonders,<br></br>but then again, the world is not a garden of delights <br></br>designed solely for my enjoyment,<br></br>probably.<br></br><br></br>There will still be an Earth left over here <br></br>once people are done enjoying it.<br></br>The garbage will stick around for a while,<br></br>but life will go on,<br></br>probably.<br></br><br></br>Oceans filled with acids and microplastics,<br></br>dusty fields of bleached-white bones,<br></br>even human beings (or things quite like them) <br></br>fighting over what’s been left<br></br>with sticks and sharpened stones.<br></br><br></br>It’s not the first time things have gone so far awry.<br></br>It’s not the end of the world, per se, <br></br>just the exhalation of a deep breath,<br></br>the boundary of one cycle and the next,<br></br>probably.<br></br><br></br>Still, it would be nice to see a coral reef before it’s done.<br></br>
#Trump never understood that #Evangelical#Christians' support for his #presidency had nothing to do with him. It was all about their belief that he would help usher in the return of #Jesus, and the subsequent #EndOfTheWorld. It's the same as their supposed support for #Israel, which is all about bringing about the end of the world. It has nothing to do with any actual regard for Israelis. But for them, it's more important to support Israel than to support Trump.
📖 According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, the world will end on a Saturday. A Saturday quite soon, in fact.
The whole of our six-part adapation of @neilhimself and Terry Pratchett's wonderful 1990 fantasy Good Omens is on BBC Sounds now - and you can listen from anywhere in the world. Tell your friends, good or evil.
@BBCRadio4@neilhimself Hopefully not this Saturday, my cat has an appointment with the vet. Next Saturday doesn't work for us either. I have a story to finish writing, and the cat deserves to feast after his recovery. Can we just postpone the end of the world ? #cats#caturday#endoftheworld
I just want to be clear, this song is prophecy, watch it, be sad, share it, accept it. The only part of it that may not be realistic is our ability to get off this rock, so we'd better figure this shit out.
“A widowed former reverend living with his children and brother on a Pennsylvania farm finds mysterious crop circles in their fields, which suggests something more frightening to come.” (from IMDB)