Society for Creative Apocalyptology--Apply Here to Register Your Chapter
The editorial board here at Al Fin has come to a momentous decision: we have decided to organise the founding of the worldwide Society for Creative Apocalytpology (SCA). It will be modeled after another SCA, the Society for Creative Anachronism. While the Society for Creative Anachronism is organised for recreation and historical re-enactment, the Society for Creative Apocalyptology will be organised for recreation and education. Education with the aim of creating a core of competence within each participating community--competence for meeting the various challenges of the apocalypse.
Apocalyptology is the study of the end of the world, better known as doomsday or the apocalypse. Many people are amateur apocalyptologists without being aware of it. Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction happens to be very popular with the reading and movie-going public. It is a short step from watching The Matrix, Aeon Flux, Jericho, or Terminator, and actually taking a serious interest in developing useful skills that could save your life, or the lives of your loved ones.
The Society for Creative Apocalyptology would not be your typical "community organising" political scam. Besides being fun and entertaining education, the SCA might actually save the lives of large numbers of people living in communities lucky enough to possess an active chapter.
We are currently in the process of collecting ideas for how the SCA will be structured. Soon, we will announce the launching of a new web headquarters of the SCA where future plans will be announced. Stay tuned.
It is the intention of the SCA to remain nonpolitical and nonreligious. By focusing upon the core competencies and skills needed by communities who lose their lifelines to the larger economic and emergency systems of their regions and nations, the SCA attempts to assure that a kernel of competency will exist within all participating communities. In a true major disaster that severs the ties of a community from its regional and national lifelines, several problems have to be addressed simultaneously.
It was clear from observing New Orleans and Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that the local city and state governments were caught completely unprepared. If not for the US military assets who responded almost immediately, the people of New Orleans and southern Louisiana would have suffered far worse than they did.
There are many conceivable disasters and catastrophes that would not allow free-loading and corrupt local governments to abdicate their responsibilities in that way, without suffering far worse penalties than the government crooks of Louisiana suffered.
Do not completely trust your governments at any level, with the safety and well-being of yourself and your loved ones in a disaster, catastrophe, or worse. Be prepared.
Labels: apocalypse 2, apocalypse now, existential risk, extinction, futurism
posted by al fin at 4:45 pm
4 Comments:
Terric stuff. :-)
Yeah. Sometimes it's difficult to separate the irony from the possibility.
I am working on a core technology center that would be needed to jumpstart the rest.
Dean Kamen has some good ideas, and this group of UK universities has some other good ideas.
People need water, food, and shelter first of all. They need the ability to defend themselves from hostile threats--both natural and man-made.
People have physical needs, emotional needs, intellectual needs, and spiritual needs (existential needs).
Electric power is essential, so off-grid power sources are a must.
There are many things to consider, and organising a movement which is not tax-supported or remunerative will be difficult. Motivation is key.
In California, earthquake country, most people cannot be bothered to store a few extra gallons of drinking water, or extra non-perishable food (cans, dehydrated, etc.).
All those people crowded into cities like sardines--what happens when they lose power, water, gas, and food distribution?
This will be great fun.
Those who wish to play EMT's can learn how to dress radiation burns.
Arts and Science displays can be such things as "How to make a Geiger Counter form Household materials."
Strangely, much of the combat might be the same, except perhaps more with tripping and hitting once on the ground unless the combatant is screaming, "DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!"
Ingus: You've got the right idea. As a VR game like WOW, creative apocalyptology would be great. As more of a role-playing game or realtime re-enactment of a nuclear holocaust, it would be even more fun--at least until VR evolves to a full sensory experience.
There's no reason why learning how to save your own life and other people's lives has to be drudgery, right?
The point is, there is a huge competence gap in the modern world--thanks to government schools failing to teach practical real world skills, and a general societal tendency toward psychological neoteny, feckless narcissism, and academic lobotomy from indoctrination into obsolete ideologies in higher education.
If you haven't read Al Fin blog very much, you may not understand what I am talking about.
Regardless, the idea for the new SCA is still evolving, and is wide open for ideas--the wilder and more imaginative, the better.
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“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
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