A person needs small shocks to feel normal. This does not mean at all that you need to live in a permanent state of stress. However, being constantly half-asleep of carelessness is often worse than going through even very difficult life trials, since the skills of adaptability are lost and laziness develops corny.
Throughout its history, humanity, in addition to pressing problems, asked questions of a more global scale, the main idea of which was that our existence could suddenly end. The idea of the end of the world runs like a red thread through many ancient and not so works, from ancient Egyptian legends to modern scientific research. And, of course, all modern religions consider the end of the world as one of the options for the development of our species, if we, they say, “do not come to our senses”.
The fears and fears of people who lived hundreds and thousands of years before us, before the power of the elements, were fully justified. People did not understand the reasons for many phenomena, often seeing in them only the punishment of higher powers for some sins. Naturally, there were many interpreters who tried, if not to give some intelligible explanation, then at least, if possible, determine the time or conditions for the onset of these natural disasters, the extreme form of which was the end of the world. And people of a wide variety of professions were engaged in such predictions.
A special category was made up of popularized psychics and mediums, "intermediaries" between the world of people and all kinds of other, other worlds. They included many dark personalities, ranging from Michel de Nostrdam and ending with Grishka Rasputin. Their motives are simple and understandable - being close to the authorities, they frightened the rulers in every way with their revelations, not forgetting to show the ways to salvation.
Among them were serious scientists; for example, Isaac Newton throughout his life studied the texts of the Bible, trying to find in them answers to questions about what awaits humanity in the future. And although, in his own opinion, he did not achieve success, he considered this work to be the most important of the works of his life. However, Sir Isaac was a very odious person. Having quarreled with the Royal Society in the person of Robert Hooke, he went to Cambridge, where the local society was also not particularly happy. Not only fellow teachers, but also students disliked Newton for his unbearable character; not anecdote that he lectured to completely empty audiences as students boycotted his classes. However, much is forgivable to geniuses …
And the idea of the end of the world could be called a popular trend, if we do not take into account the development of science over the past one hundred or two hundred years. It suddenly became clear that our habitat, planet Earth, is not at all a piece of paradise created for us by a merciful god, but just a small grain of sand in a vast world. In a world so huge that we see only a part of it due to the speed limit of light. And in this world our species cannot live anywhere except on this grain of sand.
Moreover, even the living conditions on it can suddenly change due to seemingly insignificant factors. There are a huge number of examples of this: a slight change in illumination leads to significant reductions in yields, a temperature change of only half a degree leads to floods with thousands of victims, and an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide from three to six molecules out of 10,000 leads to the irreversibility of the greenhouse effect.
Scientists' studies of deposits of different eras show that regularly, every several hundred thousand years, serious climate changes occur on Earth. That is, the living conditions, and, accordingly, the rules of survival change periodically; Moreover, sometimes there are unplanned events that radically change the course of evolution. Our planet has experienced more than a dozen major extinctions alone. They were caused by phenomena of a very different nature: from volcanic eruptions and subsequent fires or floods to the intervention of purely external factors - the fall of meteorites or hard cosmic radiation.
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Anthropogenic, which is human, factor should also be taken into account. Despite the fact that mankind has been on Earth for a relatively short time, its development and the pace of resource development can sometimes cause a feeling of fear. The speed at which we use our planet is completely unacceptable. Very soon, literally in half a century, the planet will not be able to restore the resources that we take from it. This applies not only to water or air, but also to biomass, and to the ozone layer, to everything. Human activity, in fact, is alien to the ecological systems of the Earth and nature does not have any mechanisms that can neutralize our impact on it.
There are other opinions: many scientists believe that the influence of humanity on the biosphere of the planet cannot be compared with the processes that take place in inanimate nature. And the so-called "greenhouse effect" and the resulting global warming is just the end of the next ice age, the peak of which was observed about 20 thousand years ago. This point of view is supported by an analysis of ice layers taken from the depths of the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica. They show that the Earth has more than once experienced an almost complete melting of its polar caps and a significant warming of the climate.
How justified are the speculations about our imminent end? Judging by the fact that such fears in one form or another have been present throughout the history of mankind, and we are still alive, most likely this is just part of our culture. You can even call it a tradition: reasoning about imminent death in conditions of relative comfort. Are we not hypocritical, declaring in words that everyone will suddenly die soon and we need to repent, rethink life and do something to save us, but in our souls perfectly realizing that we live according to the principle “after us - even a flood”?