no limits to your catastrophizing choice these days...

[ratcreature]

In the little bit over a year since I last did this the news got of course even worse, and yet I still seem unable to just limit myself to looking at fluffy animal pictures.

Still with ticky boxes for everybody who can't decide what to be most anxious about:

Poll #18679 why ratcreature should only look at pictures of fluffy baby animals, 2017 ed.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

Which inescapable disaster/crisis/calamity do you think is most likely to lead to your demise?

View Answers

nuclear armageddon! started intentionally by horrible politicians
6 (26.1%)

nuclear armageddon! but brought on by pure stupidity, like someone misinterpreting some screen and/or pushing the wrong button
5 (21.7%)

the next high mortality rate pandemic will come for sure, possibly via climate change mosquitoes
3 (13.0%)

no pandemics needed, I'll die of some treatable condition, not able to afford medicine, thanks to the health system crisis/collapse
7 (30.4%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by an ongoing global economic crisis/collapse in general
4 (17.4%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by the economic crisis/collapse following Brexit in particular
1 (4.3%)

I'll die in a riot/civil unrest brought on by some rampaging "alt-right" mob that felt slighted on the internet
4 (17.4%)

the climate change catastrophe will kill me through a grand disaster
4 (17.4%)

climate change will kill me slowly through failing crops and the like
8 (34.8%)

climate change will kill me fast but in a boring way through some horrible heat wave or such
6 (26.1%)

I'll die because thanks to the global water crisis I won't be able to afford clean drinking water
3 (13.0%)

I'll die in some armed conflict brought on by the above (or other) ecological disasters
3 (13.0%)

I won't die from any of the above disasters directly, but while fleeing from it
2 (8.7%)

terrorism! I'll be blown up by some shadowy terrorist organization
1 (4.3%)

terrorism! some deranged mob will lynch me as "terrorist"
0 (0.0%)

terrorism! but it's my government who will dispose of me as "terrorist"
0 (0.0%)

my government's malicious policies will kill me without them bothering to label me as "terrorist"
7 (30.4%)

crime! I'll end up as a victim in a crime statistic
0 (0.0%)

crime! but as a victim of the "tough on crime" policies, like tazered to death or shot by police and the like
0 (0.0%)

a meteorite will kill me in a huge extinction level event, but at least I have the consolation that everyone else will be dead along with me
1 (4.3%)

killer robots will get me
1 (4.3%)

killer robots will get me, but it will be an accident (less Terminator, more self-driving cars gone wrong)
4 (17.4%)

I'll get killed by the zombie apocalypse
0 (0.0%)

I'll get killed by the zombie army I raised to protect myself, falling victim to dramatic irony
1 (4.3%)

and so on and so forth... (civilian nuclear disaster! genetically modified crops! (lack of) bees!...)
8 (34.8%)

Comments

[mirabile]

That's a great and terrible survey! I'm almost comforted by how many people chose my answers (climate change and a stupid but malicious government). What a world we live in.

[ratcreature]

Well, on the human level it probably has always been terrible with variations of war, pestilence and famine wreaking havoc on humans. The real tragedy is that we are now wrecking the planet for so many other species too, rather than just a couple when we ate all of a kind in the past. We are like those oxygenation catastrophe extinction event cyanobacteria, only we ought to know better.

At least life on the planet will probably be fine eventually after we managed to kill our species' environmental foundation and most of the others alongside, with maybe some cool new innovation evolving in response, like the aerobic species were.

[conuly]

Surprised more people aren't raising a zombie army. Honestly, zombie is the new black.

[ratcreature]

Maybe they are looking more optimistically at their zombie army turning out well for them?

[conuly]

Then, I'm sorry to say, they're fools. No, I accept that my choices and my hubris will be my downfall and I'll serve as a moral lesson to the next ten generations.