Resume Subscription We are delighted that you'd like to resume your subscription. Please click confirm to resume now. Sponsored Offers. Most Popular News. Most Popular Opinion. Some Christian denominations, for instance, still believe the Rapture is imminent and are preparing to join Jesus in heaven. Islam offers a comparable vision of the Final Hour and Final Judgement. Alongside these traditional doomsday worriers are the theories circulating on the wilder corners of the internet.
Some people seriously believe a planet called Nibiru is going to smash into us at any time or think that a shadowy world government is hellbent on wiping out most of humanity. And then there are well-informed scientific doom-mongers who warn of the apocalyptic potential of climate change, artificial intelligence or some other grim existential threat.
Routledge suggested the behaviour of religious doomsday fretters was similar to atheist political activists. Believer or not, there is one question everyone wants to know about the so-called doomsday: When will it happen? To show how certain everyone is about this, recorded predictions vary from 66AD right through that huge 10 duotrigintillion number mentioned above.
Some psychologists believe our obsession with the apocalypse is actually detrimental because when we dream up exciting doomsday scenarios, we fail to focus on the real threats facing humanity.
But because the consequences are visceral, immediate, and consequential, it is often a risk people worry about greatly. There are whole centres based around the existential risks that the process of automation and robots could pose to humanity. The future of Time: Is technology making time go quicker? Scientists have a new estimate for you. This year, the Doomsday Clock is set to seconds to midnight, tying last year as the most baleful warning the group has ever given.
To be clear, the clock is not a literal clock. Climate change is a big reason why the group has moved the clock up in recent years. Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one. The problem is that there are a lot of these apocalyptic countdowns, and after a while, they all start to feel like background noise. Climate activists have their own set of deadlines and apocalyptic predictions. Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Encyclopedia of Crisis Management.
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Mass hysteria generally subsides when the feared situation passes. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles.
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