The Sky IS Falling

I used to think the only way to simultaneously resolve humanity's superficial conflicts and eradicate harmful dogmas was through some kind of global catastrophe a la Watchmen or Independence Day. After all, if an alien invasion could lead to the undeniable chemistry of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, then it would certainly bring our self-destructive rampage to an end. We would destroy the invader menace with our DOS viruses, our allergies, and our ability to zero in on the one, absurdly fatal flaw that results in their fiery downfall. Then the feeling of human togetherness would be so profound that it would manifest itself in all the world's continents orgastically humping the shit out of each other. In the meantime, religious zealots the world over would begin to understand their relative insignificance in the cosmos. The presence of a hyper-advanced extraterrestrial war machine would undoubtedly disprove many, if not all of the tenets of the world's most heinously geo/egocentric religions. After some careful thought, however, I'm no longer so quick to plant the seeds of flower power.

I started to consider the vast numbers of lives snuffed out by our own hands. In the few centuries since the dawn of "civilized" man, we have racked up a death toll that would give any alien species a run for its money. One hundred million to conquest and genocide here. Sixty million to the slave-trade there. Oh, oh! And how about another forty million to totalitarian-induced famine? All within the span of two centuries?! Hot damn. That's some serious shit.

In his book Bilions and Billions, Carl Sagan noted how far humanity has come in its development of projectile weaponry. "From Gettysburg to the blockbuster, a thousand times more explosive energy; from the blockbuster to the atomic bomb, a thousand times more; and from the atomic bomb to the hydrogen bomb, a thousand times still more...in less than a century, our most fearful weapon has become a billion times more deadly" (233). It's really a staggering accomplishment. I would venture to guess that, in the cosmic scheme, mankind is a weird-as-hell sadomasochist who walks around with electrified nipple clamps under his mesh leotard.  We don't need someone to come down here and fuck us in the nose because, quite simply, we're way too good at fucking ourselves. 

I know there are a lot of people out there who feel now how I once felt. We'll just sit back and wait for some great calamity from beyond the sky to befall our species and we'll all come out the other side best of friends. We'll use our collective brainpower to overcome the greatest threat to our survival. We'll set aside our petty, territorial conflicts in order to defend ourselves against a villain of immense destructive power. We'll soar to new heights of global cooperation, bound together by our universal fear of annihilation. Call it what you want. The Second Coming, Armageddon, the Zombie-pocalypse. It doesn't matter. They all promote the same basic idea. Bad guy come. Human team up. Human win bad guy. Human happy forever.

This will never happen. 

How do I know this? Because we have already witnessed many great calamities. We have already confronted the greatest threat to our survival. We have already come face to face with the ever-looming threat of total annihilation. We did, after all, make each and every one of these things possible. We can literally destroy the surface of our planet with our combined "nuclear strength". We have created the instruments necessary to initiate the apocalypse at any ticking second. We can "drop the bomb" and ensure the bitter end of our incredible existence on this tiny, insignificant speck of matter. So, sure. We'll continue going down this road. Like a bunch of sugar-mad six year olds who don't know how to share the coolest fucking playground in the observable universe. We'll just keep coming up with more and more reasons to kill each other. More and more reasons to unleash hell on our fellow men. And then, one day, somebody will.