Many believe that the world is about to end, on the 21st of December 2012.
That is enough.
By that, I mean that the power of belief is enough to bring into reality a nightmare, even without the asteroids/zombies/earthquakes/tsunamis/nuclear war/presence of any other world-threatening phenomena.
You see, we are constantly reminded of the importance of our individual power, but we must never forget the power we have as a community, and that whatever input we have in the community will eventually come back to haunt, to suppress us.
Here is my prediction:
Conditions.
Do you remember the movie 2012? Or the countless television shows and documentaries with the apocalypse as their central theme (where people pre-emptively build bunkers/hoard supplies/preach a doomsday religion)? Or even when Australian PM Julia Gillard joked about it on a breakfast show?
That is the dispersal of information worldwide via the most efficient and popular means: modern media. The belief in a doomsday is now held or at least encountered by more people than ever before. 2012 has become a year etched in our culture, and in all our minds. That is what distinguishes it from the many previous doomsdays anticipated by feverish cults.
Outreach.
Have you heard of global warming? Or the many major natural disasters (Boxing Day tsunami, Katrina, Haitian earthquake, whatnot) that have ravaged our properties and peoples, that some have attributed, quite unhelpfully, to divine retribution? Or the tensions (Senkaku Islands in the South China Sea, North Korean missile testing) and conflicts (Middle East; the whole place is a mess) and economic pitfalls (American fiscal cliff, Eurozone Crisis, or even the not-too-distant Global Financial Crises caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers) that have plagued our world in the recent years?
That is the creation of tension, of an air of hesitation and insecurity, an atmosphere that seems to press down on you as you watch the evening news. What if I wake up tomorrow and gas prices increase tenfold? Or my investments in Asia lose all their value due to the outbreak of internal war? Or, even worse, Asia openly pits itself against the West? Sure, there have been worse times (the Cold War, etc.), but never have humanity's problems had such a powerful, extensive impact, nor have they ever been so publicised. Now, when a lot more, both personally and nationally, is at risk, is the atmosphere the heaviest, and does a single emotion dominate all our hearts.
Fear.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
What would you do if you knew, without a doubt, that the world was going to end tomorrow?
Let us think beyond the typical, politically correct "spend time with my loved ones, partake in sports that I'd never have done otherwise", because let's be frank now. The world is a screwed up place.
With the elimination of anything after tomorrow, jail sentences lose their repressive power. The fear of death disappears. Rules set in place to ensure continuity of society become irrelevant when continuity itself is void. People are stripped bare to their most basal instincts. The Freudian Id is unleashed; morals, as the consideration of consequence, are thrown aside in a world where consequence is nullified. Adults become kids, but with the knowledge, sexual energy and physical capability of adults. People will start to do whatever they want to do, because they (quite literally) can.
Murders taken in long-awaited vengeance. Sex, because, let's face it, no one wants to die a virgin. Violent protesting by a people consistently suppressed by their government and their laws.
And that's just the middle spectrum.
Rape, because they can. Torture, because they can. Armed robbery, because they can. Mindless destruction of property, because they can. Slaughter of innocent fellow civilians, because they can. All chains will be broken, and the world will be consumed in the fire that it has spent millennia trying to control.
Somehow, there is a bright side. All this madness will only happen if the spark is allowed to grow into a forest fire; this situation resembles a growing snowball more than it does an avalanche. A critical mass needs to be reached for the entire situation to spiral out of control, and this, in itself, has a small chance of happening. As long as our neighbours' houses are not on fire, we will silently stay in ours; otherwise, the human inclination to jump on the bandwagon will only ensure that this mad irrationality spreads like the virus it is. This, with the destruction of personal inhibition and full expression of inner desires, is how the world will end.
The Government and The People.
What will happen now? Will the last human simply languish in the remnants of his civilisation, slowly dying of exposure?
No; one ignores the role of the governing authority. As the chaos spreads, the degree of government intervention will gradually increase. New troops will be equipped. New laws will be made and passed. New measures will be put into place to ensure the strict adherence to these new laws.
The most saddening and, perhaps, most crucial inevitability is the implementation of repressive laws that affect the guilty and innocent alike, in the name of prevention. The moment such laws come into order, and the normal civilian is wrongfully oppressed, is when the government will turn against its people. There is a chance that global governments will unite against their respective peoples in a bid to oppress them in the name of peace. They have to; it is the only way to justify their actions and prevent further uprising.
There will be martial law. There will be government propaganda. There will be capital punishment.
All in the name of peace.
A hierarchy will be established that will evolve into totalitarianism. Then oligarchy. Then dictatorship. Big Brother will have been born out of these circumstances.
Big Brother will have won.
The Reconciliation.
A leader must rise from obscurity, from the ashes that will be society. And he must rally the people to go beyond what they would normally be willing to; he must rally them to change.
It is only in Chaos that people need leaders, and it is only then that obscure leaders may rise to a position of power and influence the fastest. The aforementioned circumstance is the perfect cauldron for such a figure. You see, the society is, in itself, ever-shifting, ever-changing; there is no denying such a statement. And to cope with the change ahead, we, as humans, must change. Change how? Into what? That is where we are led.
This leader will wield great power, and with it, will have to (yes.) bear a great responsibility, an even greater burden. Governments will outlaw him. Mercenaries will hunt him. The media will slander him. The world will watch him. And he must lead the world, and he must bring the people to a new dawn. And he will do so because his calling bids him to continue, to persevere.
This leader, and this person alone, can and must lead the people against their brothers, against their governments, and against themselves.
This leader is the Illuminatus.
Perhaps, Perhaps.
Perhaps we could permit ourselves to, with much creative rationality, predict what would happen in the coming months.
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Clash of the Titans. Due to the freedom and accessibility of information in the country, presence of certain dangerous laws (gun laws), comparatively (to China) more liberal environment as well as gullibility being a characteristic of a larger fraction of the populace, the US will be more susceptible to riots and activism. If anarchy were to break free, the US will be more adversely affected.
Of course, all would be better if every country just sat back and solved their own problems, but what are the chances of this happening, really?
With the US busy with domestic uprisings, the Middle East will erupt into heated conflict as the Palestinians hammer into Israeli-occupied land.
China will meet with the opportune moment to take the Senkaku islands by force, starting a full-scale war in Southeast Asia. China would, if they could, occupy Japan in cruel vengeance for 1937.
The EU will, itself, be consumed by internal strife, only exacerbated by the current turn of events. Maybe Russia will then choose to pick off a few smaller nations, restoring some of its land before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Who knows.
Who will win these wars? Who will falter and fail? The predictions of a different era deserve a separate discussion. Whoever wins, the world as we know it will cease to exist. We will be plunged into an era of War, Destruction and Chaos.
The Age of War.
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Vae Victus. The entire world suffers from uprisings and riots to an equal extent, and all the governments face an impending choice: revolution or repression.
Revolutionary Countries will have had their governments overthrown and either chosen a charismatic representative to temporarily lead the people, or descended into anarchy. Either way, much akin to the French Revolution, there will be mob trials, and mob judgement, and mob sentencing. The military and economy will fall into disregard and disrepair during this period, severely weakening the country. But it cannot be helped; it is a revolution.
Repressive Countries would have cracked down on the people, imposing strict sanctions on the people, and maintaining order. They will either fail and crumble into a Revolutionary Country, or it will succeed and become an authoritarian state. These Repressive Countries would have immense military power not only due to their maintenance out of necessity, but also from the training and experience gained from suppressing the populace.
As the sole example of order in the region, with states descending into anarchy all around you, and fielding a far more powerful military, what would you do?
In the name of Peace and Order, the Repressive Countries will quickly and easily overcome neighbouring Revolutionary Countries, leading to a massive aggregation of power by a few strong nations.
Vae Victus, indeed.
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(Any other ideas are more than welcome; drop a comment or write in the tagbox!)
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