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The Doomsday / Apocalypse Thread

Be prepared: asteroids, robots and deadly viruses could kill millions
28 April 2016 12:29pm

Governments are failing to properly prepare for a wave of catastrophic threats to humanity such as the rise of robots and ‘off-the-shelf’ deadly viruses, scientists argue.
Super volcanoes, asteroid strikes and nuclear war are also threats that could wipe out swathes of humanity and are more likely to occur than many realise, according to researchers at Oxford University.
Their report, Global Catastrophic Risks, ranks dangers that could kill off 10 percent or more of the human population.

It warns that while most generations never experience a catastrophe, the possibility of such an event is far from fanciful, as shown by the 1918 Spanish flu, which wiped out millions.
Sebastian Farquhar, director at Oxford’s Global Priorities Project, said: “There are some things that are on the horizon – things that probably won’t happen in any one year but could happen – which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.
“History teaches us that many of these things are more likely than we intuitively think.”

The report forecasts that the biggest threat to humanity over the next five years comes from asteroids, super volcanic eruptions or other ‘unknown risks’.
In the long term, however, it is natural and ‘engineered’ pandemics, nuclear war and catastrophic climate change that pose the greatest threat, as well as the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

“There is really no particular reason to think that humans are the pinnacle of creation and the best thing that is possible to have in the world,” said Mr Farquar.
“It seems conceivable that some AI systems might at some point in the future be able to systematically out-compete humans in a bunch of different domains.
“If you have a sufficiently powerful form of that kind of artificially intelligent system and its goals don’t match with what humanity’s values are, then there might be some sort of adverse consequences.
“This doesn’t depend on it becoming conscious, it doesn’t depend on it hating humanity, it is just a matter of it being powerful, its objectives being opaque or hard to determine for its creators, and it being in some sense indifferent to at least some of the things we find valuable.”

The report found that new threats, such as the rise of synthetic biology, could open the door for ‘off-the-shelf’ deadly viruses.
Mr Farquhar said that in time militant groups such as Islamic State might be able to manufacture their own diseases, such as ordering the parts for smallpox virus over the internet.
“We have seen that in the field of synthetic biology and genetic manipulation of small organisms or things like viruses, the cost has come down unbelievably in the last decade,” he said.
“It is still too expensive to worry about rogue groups trying to use the technology, but that might not remain true.”

The report calls for the international community to improve planning coordination for pandemics, investigate the possible risks of AI and biotechnology and continue to cut the number of nuclear weapons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...s-robots-and-deadly-viruses-could-kill-milli/

Rynner goes to cupboard, checks number of tins of baked beans, makes note on shopping list....
 
rynner2 said:
Be prepared: asteroids, robots and deadly viruses could kill millions
28 April 2016 12:29pm

Governments are failing to properly prepare for a wave of catastrophic threats to humanity such as the rise of robots and ‘off-the-shelf’ deadly viruses, scientists argue.
Super volcanoes, asteroid strikes and nuclear war are also threats that could wipe out swathes of humanity and are more likely to occur than many realise, according to researchers at Oxford University.
Their report, Global Catastrophic Risks, ranks dangers that could kill off 10 percent or more of the human population.

It warns that while most generations never experience a catastrophe, the possibility of such an event is far from fanciful, as shown by the 1918 Spanish flu, which wiped out millions.
Sebastian Farquhar, director at Oxford’s Global Priorities Project, said: “There are some things that are on the horizon – things that probably won’t happen in any one year but could happen – which could completely reshape our world and do so in a really devastating and disastrous way.
“History teaches us that many of these things are more likely than we intuitively think.”

The report forecasts that the biggest threat to humanity over the next five years comes from asteroids, super volcanic eruptions or other ‘unknown risks’.
In the long term, however, it is natural and ‘engineered’ pandemics, nuclear war and catastrophic climate change that pose the greatest threat, as well as the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

“There is really no particular reason to think that humans are the pinnacle of creation and the best thing that is possible to have in the world,” said Mr Farquar.
“It seems conceivable that some AI systems might at some point in the future be able to systematically out-compete humans in a bunch of different domains.
“If you have a sufficiently powerful form of that kind of artificially intelligent system and its goals don’t match with what humanity’s values are, then there might be some sort of adverse consequences.
“This doesn’t depend on it becoming conscious, it doesn’t depend on it hating humanity, it is just a matter of it being powerful, its objectives being opaque or hard to determine for its creators, and it being in some sense indifferent to at least some of the things we find valuable.”

The report found that new threats, such as the rise of synthetic biology, could open the door for ‘off-the-shelf’ deadly viruses.
Mr Farquhar said that in time militant groups such as Islamic State might be able to manufacture their own diseases, such as ordering the parts for smallpox virus over the internet.
“We have seen that in the field of synthetic biology and genetic manipulation of small organisms or things like viruses, the cost has come down unbelievably in the last decade,” he said.
“It is still too expensive to worry about rogue groups trying to use the technology, but that might not remain true.”

The report calls for the international community to improve planning coordination for pandemics, investigate the possible risks of AI and biotechnology and continue to cut the number of nuclear weapons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...s-robots-and-deadly-viruses-could-kill-milli/

Rynner goes to cupboard, checks number of tins of baked beans, makes note on shopping list....
Click to expand...

Get far away from cities!
 
This is the supposedly decommissioned cold war bunker between Preston and Garstang,
one of by all acounts 3 one up north this one and one down south, it looks immaculate
so someone loves it,



This on the other hand is a decommissioned WW11 ammunition dump a few miles further north definitely unloved.



 
If going north from Preston on the A6 take a right at Broughton lights then the next
major left and it's on the right part used as a vets.
There also used to be a Bungalow across from BA systems that looked a bit sus
but it may not be there now will have to look next time I am there.
The other is near Dolphinholme, most of the ordinance was dumped in Morecambe bay
it comes up on the beach now n then and the UXB lads come n blow it up.
 
Also on the way to Chingle Hall, which now is not open to visits though.
 
The last big frontier
A movement of staunch conservatives and doomsday-watchers to the inland north-west is quietly gaining steam
From the print edition

ASKED by an out-of-stater where the nearest shooting range is, Patrick Leavitt, an affable gunsmith at Riverman Gun Works in Coeur d’Alene, says: “This is Idaho—you can shoot pretty much anywhere away from buildings.” That is one reason why the sparsely populated state is attracting a growing number of “political refugees” keen to slip free from bureaucrats in America’s liberal states, says James Wesley, Rawles (yes, with a comma), an author of bestselling survivalist novels. In a widely read manifesto posted in 2011 on his survivalblog.com, Mr Rawles, a former army intelligence officer, urged libertarian-leaning Christians and Jews to move to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and a strip of eastern Oregon and Washington states, a haven he called the “American Redoubt”.

Thousands of families have answered the call, moving to what Mr Rawles calls America’s last big frontier and most easily defendable terrain. Were hordes of thirsty, hungry, panicked Americans to stream out of cities after, say, the collapse of the national grid, few looters would reach the mostly mountainous, forested and, in winter, bitterly cold Redoubt. Big cities are too far away. But the movement is driven by more than doomsday “redoubters”, eager to homestead on land with lots of water, fish, and big game nearby. The idea is also to bring in enough strongly conservative voters to keep out the regulatory creep smothering liberty in places like California, a state many redoubters disdainfully refer to as “the C-word”.

Estimates of the numbers moving into the Redoubt are sketchy, partly because many seek a low profile. Mr Rawles himself will not reveal which state he chose, not wanting to be overrun when “everything hits the fan”. But Chris Walsh of Revolutionary Realty says growing demand has turned into such a “massive upwelling” that he now sells about 140 properties a year in the north-western part of the Redoubt, its heart. To manage, Mr Walsh, a pilot, keeps several vehicles at landing strips to which he flies clients from his base near Coeur d’Alene. ...

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...-west?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/thelastbigfrontier

 
ramonmercado said:
The last big frontier
A movement of staunch conservatives and doomsday-watchers to the inland north-west is quietly gaining steam
From the print edition

to move to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and a strip of eastern Oregon and Washington states, a haven he called the “American Redoubt”.

....The idea is also to bring in enough strongly conservative voters to keep out the regulatory creep smothering liberty in places like California,
Click to expand...
By moving to five different states, they ensure that their voting base will be split five ways, making their desired political view that much less likely to win powers. Then again, rationality is likely not their strong suit.
 
The dried blood of Saint Januarius failed to liquefy in a ceremony in Naples, Italy, on Saturday, according to a report in Italy's La Stampa, heralding disaster for next year.

Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, the abbot of the chapel, said: "We must not think about disasters and calamities. We are men of faith, and we must continue to pray."

The ceremony of the blood of Saint Januarius, or San Gennaro, is performed several times a year. The blood is kept in special ampules and liquifies during the ceremony.

The miracle has been regularly recorded since 1389. San Gennaro was bishop of Naples in the third century and was beheaded in the persecution of early Christians by Roman Emperor Diocletian, who killed about 3,500 Christians.

If the miracle of liquefaction fails to occur, it can herald disaster for the coming months and years.

The blood failed to become liquid in 1939, the year in which World War II started, and in 1980, the year of the Irpinia earthquake, according to the Stampa report.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...od-miracle-naples-disaster-2017-a7484946.html
 
Tribble said:

If the miracle of liquefaction fails to occur, it can herald disaster for the coming months and years.

The blood failed to become liquid in 1939, the year in which World War II started, and in 1980, the year of the Irpinia earthquake, according to the Stampa report.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...od-miracle-naples-disaster-2017-a7484946.html
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And today people are equating the murder of the Russian Ambassador in Turkey to the Franz Ferdinand assassination that triggered WWI!! :eek:

We are all doomed! :twisted:
 
Last edited:
Just the Turks. Just the whole of Turkey is doomed. :twisted:
 
rynner2 said:
And today people are equating the murder of the Russian Ambassador in Turkey to the Franz Ferdinand assassination that triggered WWI!! :eek:

We are all doomed! :twisted:
Click to expand...

As Rob Newman brilliantly put it in his History of Oil, Franz Ferdinand wasn't THAT popular a bloke.

This is worth a watch for so many reasons....

 
I have heard something similar twice in recent years both times early morning,
found it quite frightening but did think it was some sea creature wale music something
of that we live only 3 or 4 hundred yards from the sea.
 
These sounds have been recorded quite often now but no explanation has been found as far as I know, which is odd as it's clearly quite a loud sound. You'd think that someone would be able to identify as coming from some factory, railyard or something. Someone must live close to the source surely.

Maybe it's god practising his trombone.
 
RaM said:
I have heard something similar twice in recent years both times early morning,
found it quite frightening but did think it was some sea creature wale music something
of that we live only 3 or 4 hundred yards from the sea.
Click to expand...
spokane, however, is very close to the montana border (that is, way inland in very eastern washington state), very far from the sea. it sounds more like machinery to me, or someone broadcasting trumpeting sounds just to annoy everyone.
 
Theres just been a program on More 4 Britains Wildest Weather 2016 in the second
part it is in 2 one hour parts it shows a recording of what sounds like trumpets
around the bristol area they dont give a explanation but suggest it could be vibrations
due to wave action, you may be able to find it on catch up.
 
DOOMSDAY PREP FOR THE SUPER-RICH
Some of the wealthiest people in America—in Silicon Valley, New York, and beyond—are getting ready for the crackup of civilization.

Steve Huffman, the thirty-three-year-old co-founder and C.E.O. of Reddit, which is valued at six hundred million dollars, was nearsighted until November, 2015, when he arranged to have laser eye surgery. He underwent the procedure not for the sake of convenience or appearance but, rather, for a reason he doesn’t usually talk much about: he hopes that it will improve his odds of surviving a disaster, whether natural or man-made. “If the world ends—and not even if the world ends, but if we have trouble—getting contacts or glasses is going to be a huge pain in the ass,” he told me recently. “Without them, I’m fucked.”

Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”

Survivalism, the practice of preparing for a crackup of civilization, tends to evoke a certain picture: the woodsman in the tinfoil hat, the hysteric with the hoard of beans, the religious doomsayer. But in recent years survivalism has expanded to more affluent quarters, taking root in Silicon Valley and New York City, among technology executives, hedge-fund managers, and others in their economic cohort.

Last spring, as the Presidential campaign exposed increasingly toxic divisions in America, Antonio García Martínez, a forty-year-old former Facebook product manager living in San Francisco, bought five wooded acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest and brought in generators, solar panels, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “When society loses a healthy founding myth, it descends into chaos,” he told me. The author of “Chaos Monkeys,” an acerbic Silicon Valley memoir, García Martínez wanted a refuge that would be far from cities but not entirely isolated. “All these dudes think that one guy alone could somehow withstand the roving mob,” he said. “No, you’re going to need to form a local militia. You just need so many things to actually ride out the apocalypse.” Once he started telling peers in the Bay Area about his “little island project,” they came “out of the woodwork” to describe their own preparations, he said. “I think people who are particularly attuned to the levers by which society actually works understand that we are skating on really thin cultural ice right now.” ...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
 
What are you doing February 16? If it’s important, you might want to move it up a few days.

Last year, Nasa spotted a giant object thundering through space towards us. Spanning somewhere between 0.3 to 0.6 miles in size, it was given the catchy monicker of ‘2016 WF9’.

But before you do any undue panicking, Nasa have said that it will pass us safely by on 25 February, by a distance of about 32 million miles. Phew.

But because we are now living in the era of fake news, many people feel like they can't trust the media... Or even the good folks over at Nasa.

Enter rogue Russian astronomer named Dr Dyomin Damir Zakharovich, who says he thinks the space agency is lying to us, and we’re all in mortal danger.

He says:

"The object they call WF9 left the Nibiru system in October when Nibiru began spinning counter clockwise around the sun. Since then, Nasa has known it will hit Earth. But they are only telling people now."

"If the asteroid hit Earth," he says, "it could destroy cities or cause a tsunami. We are all in peril."

https://www.indy100.com/article/doo...sunamis-conspiracy-theorist-end-world-7548996
 
My wife and I made Doomsday/emergency plans last night.

We have talked about this before but have now actually made concrete plans of what to do and where to go should we need to. It was a very fruitful and intellectually interesting exercise. We're not Survivalists or preppers (we're not doing BOB's or Bunkers or anything like that) but we have planned for the first stages. We've talked about it before but last night we agreed on meeting points, signalling methods/places and strategies.

It's mostly my idea as I like to be prepared but I think it's smart to have an agreed plan of what to do.

For example, there have been 3 or 4 times in the past few years when bad weather has caused major disruption in Stockholm. There have been numerous examples of people fist fighting just to get on buses and mothers with pushchairs being pushed over in the stampede to get on the few trains still running etc.

There was a power cut for about 45 minutes a few months ago and people began to panic then too. "Stay Calm" messages were being bandied about on social media and I realised that people were scared.

Due to the topography of the city, Stockholm is a natural bottleneck with only 2 major roads going north/south. During normal weather, you can sit in a rush hour traffic jam for 2 to 3 hours to get through the city and out the other side. Imagine what it would be like it everybody was mobilising at the same time due to a large scale emergency and you're trying to get home or to your kids school.

During the recent terrorist attack in central Stockholm, the volume of calls to an from loved ones caused the network to be jammed. And that was just one thing, happening on one street. My wife's calls couldn't get through to me.

So last night we imagined that there was no public transport, no power, no phone lines available, a major emergency/disaster has happened and now the entire city is in panic mode.

Has anybody else discussed this with their family? It's not as easy to come up with a viable plan as you might think.
 
Sweden reinstating the draft can't be helping anyone feel more calm and content. It even made us a bit nervous over here.

We haven't made any firm doomsday plans (though frankly, we probably should). We do have access to land that's quite remote, so we'd go there. However, it's not good for farming, so if we'd have to grow our own food we're sunk.
 
Let's hope that any hostilities would be nuke-free. This city is home to one of the armour regiments. Looking at Nukemap, even a modestly-sized (800kt) nuclear weapon on the barracks would destroy pretty much the entire city.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
 
World War 3: Nuke war will explode on ‘THIS’ date - and it’s just DAYS away

The self-proclaimed "supernatural being" has revealed to Daily Star Online his visions and study of the Bible and prophecies has resulted in a date on which the nuclear war will fall.

Clairvoyant Horacio Villegas envisioned Donald Trump becoming US president as far back as 2015, predicting he would become the “illuminati king” who will “bring the world into WW3”

Chillingly he also prophesied the leader would attack Syria – which later happened following a chemical attack – and that it would bring Russia, North Korea and China into the conflict.

And just days ago the Catholic follower, who lives in Texas, US, had a “dream” in which “I saw balls of fire falling from the sky and hitting the Earth”.

He warns that this occasion – which sees attacks carried out to spark conflicts based on false information – will takes place between April 13 and May 13, and that as well as Syria, North Korea will also be involved.
Click to expand...

I would just like to know where his so-called predictions are documented!

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...-Donald-Trump-North-Korea-Russia-China-May-13
 
And just days ago the Catholic follower, who lives in Texas, US, had a “dream” in which “I saw balls of fire falling from the sky and hitting the Earth”.
Click to expand...

Goodness Gracious!

He warns that this occasion – which sees attacks carried out to spark conflicts based on false information – will takes place between April 13 and May 13, and that as well as Syria, North Korea will also be involved.
Click to expand...

Blimey, only 17 days left. At the most.
 
A Survivalist/Preppers Conference in Ohio had some useful classes on survival skills but also had stalls selling child sized firearms. An interesting article long enough to deal with the issues involved in depth although the author did have some mid-life angst about what to wear to it.

America's midlife crisis: lessons from a survivalist summit
Stephen Marche attends the Ohio Preppers and Survivalist Summit and discovers the contradictions in American life are the very conditions that are slowly crumbling it from within.
Wednesday 2 August 2017 10.00 BSTLast modified on Wednesday 2 August 2017 17.24 BST

What does one wear to a survivalist summit? My physical appearance shouldn’t be too much of a problem since I’m white, forty-ish and, if I pause in my increasingly elaborate maintenance rituals, go pretty ragged pretty quickly. But the clothes worry me. After I turned 40, my friend Gabe took me aside for a kind of personal sartorial intervention.

“You cannot wear those pants any more,” he said.

“Why not?” They were just jeans.

“They’re puffy. They look like parachute pants.” He paused, examined them again, corrected himself. “They look like the pants in Aladdin.”

Like a good friend, he was communicating the information I didn’t want to face but needed to know: I would never look good by accident again. Fortunately, Gabe had a plan: tailored jeans, which are, I have to say, the middle age man’s ass’s best friend.

But tailored jeans obviously wouldn’t work at the Ohio Preppers and Survivalist Summit I was attending in Bowling Green, Ohio. I needed to look like I was preparing for the end of civilization, not a book launch.

The good news was that I had kept my old jeans, and I remembered the Waffle House shirt my wife bought me as an ironic present the previous Christmas. With a couple days’ beard, scribbling on a hotel pad in bad clothes, I almost looked like a survivalist. I looked like a survivor of something, anyway. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...t-summit-constitution-americas-midlife-crisis
 
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