Science Fiction Friday: How Will The World End?

So this summer I read A Canticle for Leibowitz, and loved it. It is a post-apocalypic novel about the monks of St. Leibowitz who preserve the “memorabilia” of the previous (our) lost civilization, destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. The novel works its way through three different time periods as new generations grapple with the lost sciences and their eventual recovery. It is just brilliant. When Walter E. Miller wrote the novel in 1960, the threat of nuclear war was on everyone’s mind. But now, are we really going to blow everything to kingdom come, or will world end in a different manner?

I have a sense that it will end differently, and not out of fear of other humans. It no doubt will still be motivated out of fear. But fear of what?

Here is my idea. What if we immunized ourselves to death out of fear of some pandemic? Really, what if we, in trying to create a vaccine, for say the swine flu, we ended creating some killer strain that wipes out 3/4ths of the world population. I’m talking about the scale of 12 Monkeys (great movie!) or 28 Days Later. I’m just wondering because I have heard rumors that we are headed toward the possibility of forced vaccines if the swine flu truly does escalate (here, here, and a video here), and what if it backfires or instead causes the pandemic.

To add fuel to the fire, below is a hip-hop version of an anti-vaccine announcement. it is pretty fun and somewhat informative (well, maybe). But it still makes one think. Also, if you are interested, you can choose your own apocalypse (at least for America).

But let me know how you think the world will end. Or rather, what do the bowls and scrolls of Revelation contain?