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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the believe-it-when-I-see-it dept.

As the world ends, will you lock arms and sing "Kumbayah" or embark on a path of law-breaking, anti-social behavior?

A new study, based upon the virtual actions of more than 80,000 players of the role-playing video game ArcheAge, suggests you'll be singing.

The study, conducted by a University at Buffalo-led team of computer scientists, will be presented next month at the International World Wide Web Conference in Australia. It found that despite some violent acts, most players tended toward behavior that was helpful to others as their virtual world came to an end.

Researchers acknowledge that the results have limitations -- namely that they are based upon a video game, not real life. Nevertheless, researchers argue that the study offers a realistic view into the behavior of people in an end-times scenario that is useful to both the game industry and other research communities.

"We realize that, because this is a video game, the true consequences of the world ending are purely virtual. That being said, our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario," says Ahreum Kang, postdoctoral researcher at UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the study's lead author.

What would happen if the world was ending? As with most questions in life, Nicolas Cage has already supplied us with the answer.


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:44PM (10 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:44PM (#482933)

    If the world is truly ending, then all sexual behavior is without any consequences for anybody, so I'd probably do my best to go out with a bang.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:59PM (#482941)

      First thing I'm doing is crushing your junk.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:14PM (#482945)

        I'm shiny and I know it,
        Don't know why you wanna blow it,
        Need a man who likes it rough, likes it rough, likes it rough.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:01PM (5 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:01PM (#482967) Journal

      If the world is truly ending, I would be in the group singing and praying.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:27AM (4 children)

        by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:27AM (#483013)

        If you are praying to a deity, presumably you are asking said deity for mercy or forgiveness in whatever form. What always confuses me is what makes you think that the omnipotent being who decided to end your pathetic existence is going to suddenly change his mind?

        "Prayer is violence against a god" -- Frank Herbert. Think about this for a moment.

        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:10AM

          by Gaaark (41) on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:10AM (#483059) Journal

          He burned a bush (and killed two in his hand) to rid you of sin!

          Or was it that he made two tablets and told you to take them with water?
          I keep getting it all mixed up.

          Jesus Christ!!, remove your sandals before you walk on the bloody water. You want to get it dirty or something?

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:00AM (1 child)

          by anubi (2828) on Thursday March 23 2017, @08:00AM (#483116) Journal

          If the end is inevitable ( such as good sized space rock headed straight for Earth, its trajectory and place and time of impact a done deal )...

            - I have absolutely no intention of settling scores, civil disobedience, lawlessness, or anything down those lines. Its all a moot point now.

            - I'd rather be amongst friends, family, loved ones. Drink, eat, and be merry kind of thing. Give thanks for the time I have lived.

          If the end is predicted by a bunch of people with no demonstrable evidence ...

            - It's nothing more than yet another wolf call. The makers of wolf calls have been especially noisy these years. Lots of calls. No wolf.

          Thanks to the internet, I have faced more "End of the World" dire predictions in the latest ten years of my life a than all the other years combined...and the only one that had any merit in my estimation was the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union when I was much younger. I have heard so many wolf calls that by now I no longer take the reports very seriously, and I want to be shown a real live wolf first. The latest was all these dire warnings about "Nebiru".

          I call "clickbait".

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:38AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:38AM (#483163)

            Well, I'm sure that the world will end … eventually. I don't expect it to be in my lifetime, though.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:48PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:48PM (#483226) Journal

          If you are praying to a deity, presumably you are asking said deity for mercy or forgiveness in whatever form. What always confuses me is what makes you think that the omnipotent being who decided to end your pathetic existence is going to suddenly change his mind?

          Praying for forgiveness. Already done. Repeated frequently.

          Why would I expect to change God's mind? Why should I think I know better. And if the time to end my pathetic existence has truly come, why oh why would I want to delay that? (Not that I'm trying to hasten it either.)

          I don't pray in order to change God. I pray in order to change Me.

          Other people may pray for different reasons, or not at all.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:51PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:51PM (#482979)

      Seeking a friend for the end of the world

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:24PM (#482989)

        Make the world a better place. Kill your friends. They deserve death.

  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:48PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:48PM (#482936)

    You know what I can do when a video game world ends? Go play a different video game.
    You know what I can't do when the world ends? Go to a different world.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:57PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:57PM (#482940)

      Meh, I'd say you're dumb for making such a comment when the author said "We realize that, because this is a video game, the true consequences of the world ending are purely virtual. That being said, our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario."

      We have evidence of what happens when there is a disaster, but true Armageddon? Nope.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:32PM (2 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:32PM (#482955)

        The point would be how the "researchers" minimize something which completely invalidates the data.

        The world is ending is my game. I don't feel fear, pain, regret, or worry about people I know and/or love.
        I'll just sit there, watch if it looks cool, and do whatever cool shit my character can do.

        Ask the People in Banda Aceh what they did when the waves came in. Ask those who couldn't escape the March 11th Tsunami. How many remained calm, knowing that they had a small chance to survive? How does that change for the ones who don't have that hope? Will they peacefully drown or be asphyxiated, or will they get seared alive by a nuke, crushed by a comet? Can they put a bullet in their brains to avoid the pain?

        This study is irremediably flawed, and the title totally bullshit.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:38PM

          by jdavidb (5690) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:38PM (#482959) Homepage Journal
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:27PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:27PM (#482972)

          I'll agree with the "remain calm" being bullshit, people wouldn't be "calm". I liked this section of the article:

          As the game ended, anti-social behavior such as murder did increase. However, the acts were conducted by a small percentage of the overall population. Researchers found that most players exhibited prosocial behavior such as strengthening existing social relationships and forming new ones.

          So it isn't so much that they remain calm, but that they don't go crazy destroying things. I can totally see this, in a panic such as the mentioned example of War of the Worlds the people didn't loot or fight each other for the most part, they remained "calm" and tried to escape. I think the more general idea is that humans don't lose their humanity and turn into shitlords just because there will suddenly be no consequences. Our humanity goes quite a bit deeper than the letter of the law.

    • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:45AM (1 child)

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:45AM (#483141) Journal

      It raises an interesting question: If the world was really doomed from some kind of enormous, unsurvivable asteroid strike, and assuming we could actually get everybody to agree to do something about it [theonion.com] then could we, with the world's powers and resources all working in co-operation, actually make a viable bid to colonise space?

      If we stopped all the major wars and poured everything into space tech, could we have a self-sustaining moonbase and/or fleet of O'Neill cylinders within a few years? Whatever we built would need not only the ability to provide for all of its own needs indefinitely, but the ability to harvest resources and expand to account for a growing population, and eventually return to what's left of Earth and try to rebuild there. I very much doubt we could get the whole human race off the planet [xkcd.com], but a few thousand (along with plenty of frozen eggs & sperm) would probably be enough to give the human race a fighting chance at long-term survival.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:24PM (#483198)

        plenty of frozen eggs & sperm

        and a pan to fry them in

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday March 24 2017, @05:43AM

      by Bot (3902) on Friday March 24 2017, @05:43AM (#483527) Journal

      Dumb indeed.
      People feeling contented after shooting a hundred enemies and the occasional friend, Video Game Study Suggests.

      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:18PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:18PM (#482947)

    EVERYBODY PANIC

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:29PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:29PM (#482953) Journal

      Causing a panic does nothing to help put the coal miners back to work as was promised in the campaign. Try to be more helpful. An end or world scenario would bring time pressure to get this accomplished.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 1, Redundant) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:19PM (2 children)

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:19PM (#482948) Homepage

    Researchers acknowledge that the results have limitations -- namely that they are based upon a video game, not real life.

    Ya don't say...

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:23PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:23PM (#482950)

      Do you REALLY want them to do the real experiment? Better send some cameras to the moon.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:25PM (#482951)

        War Of The Worlds was the real experiment.

  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:31PM (10 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:31PM (#482954) Journal

    Everyone turns into a placid fool, or a berserker - it's a simple binary decision, and no one is going to choose an alternative course of action. The entire story should have been written in sarcasm font.

    I'll give you a very obvious third course of action. One which should be obvious to any informed person. Survivalists have places where they intend to hunker down, while the apocalypse takes place, well stocked with food, medicines, generators, fuel, and arms and ammo. They plan to SURVIVE. The population may be depleted by 98%, but they plan to be among that remaining 2%.

    Others may react differently, and still not fit that binary nonsense. I expect that the largest number of people will just panic, and do stupid stuff, in the process hurting themselves or others.

    This is just another example of people who have a limited view of reality, attempting to project that view out onto the larger world around them. Real life isn't a computer game.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:41PM (#482962)

      Real life isn't a computer game.

      Sure it is. When the Player kills you, you die like a good little NPC, bitch.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:43PM (2 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:43PM (#482963)

      The mythology of the survivalist is they tell each other the percentage is 2% but demographically I think its like 50% of white suburbanites for example, even if its like 0% of urbanites or near 100% of rural folk.

      I live in an area where we enact the end of the world via blizzard every year or so. For some people it is the end of the world and they freak out and literally die doing stupid stuff. Or they do stupid panic buying or just watch TV and panic. On the other hand some demographic groups are like "eh whatever got plenty of warm clothes, camping gear, enough food, source of water, plenty of batteries, this should be fun".

      The thing about being prepared is its literally fun. Like we play board games and play outside in the snow like we're kids. I know there's dumb urbanites literally dying in the blizzard but ... not in my backyard. So we make snow forts with the kids like we did with our parents and we got camping lanterns and the power usually comes back on in less than a day or two at most, never more than three days from memory, ever. But we could go a week or two, maybe more. You get tired of canned soup and freeze dried camping meals but its not really that bad.

      But there are people dying in the cities. No heat no good clothes try to heat their house with charcoal grill and die of CO poisoning, destroy their local businesses by looting them (and the TV announcer always says they're looting food even while the camera man shows them stealing big screen TVs and ipads). Shooting each other knowing the cops can't respond. Burn the neighborhood down if the power goes out. If the cops shoot a looter they burn their neighborhood down. I'm glad I'm not an urbanite.

      Such is the price of living in a northern paradise.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:44AM (1 child)

        by jmorris (4844) on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:44AM (#483019)

        It depends on what the disaster is and exactly how it unfolds. Country folk can survive a week or two because they expect to have to endure a week long outage and over provisioning will get another week. But a lot of them depend on a generator to keep a freezer running as part of that survival plan for example, especially in the South where hurricanes are the expected disaster instead of snowstorms. What if the disaster is EMP? Or what if it isn't a weather event that impedes travel and the zombie hordes can get out of the cities? Or the disaster is a pandemic that shuts down all transport from fear of contagion? Now what happens if the disaster requires making it a year with little modern support, again use EMP as the example? 98% losses are now on the table as a probable outcome.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:54AM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:54AM (#483070) Journal

          I think it's a function of how those country folk are used to living. Farmers and ranchers would do fine. They know how to produce food from first materials and aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty. Many of them have also retained practices passed down from their grandparents like canning, salting, pickling, smoking, and preserving food. They know how to dig root cellars. They have folk remedies for common ailments. They know how to fish and hunt. Some of them might go even further and have solid, first-hand experience roughing it. There's even a decent chance they have old muscle-powered tools they inherited.

          I know that if SHTF I'd rather take my chances among them than the people who live on my block in Brooklyn.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:17AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Thursday March 23 2017, @12:17AM (#483005)

      Sometimes taking no action is the best action.

      If we are all screwed anyway, what is the point in causing trouble?

      If there is a chance of survival, doing nothing gives you time to think of a plan of action.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:47AM (2 children)

      by dyingtolive (952) on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:47AM (#483054)

      So the solutions are to:

      - Panic and die.
      - Be stoic and die.
      - Have enough supplies to not die out until after the rest of humanity unless you get murdered by another subgroup of humanity for said supplies.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:53AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @10:53AM (#483168)

        If it is truly the end of the world, then your supplies won't help you, by definition.

        • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:58PM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:58PM (#483285)

          I mean, ultimately, given enough time, no one survives, even without some extinction event. Everything dies.

          My mind just boggles to contemplate the hillbilly living in his 150 year old farm house thinking that, because he dumps money into canned food (and sodium rich "survival" meals) and bottled water, that he's going to somehow magically survive some sort of calamity that's enough to wipe out civilization enough to disrupt his food supply chain but not kill him outright. No dude. I mean, it's possible something like that COULD happen. Given that every fucking prepper can't help but keep talking about exactly what the fuck they've been buying though to absolutely anyone who doesn't run from them as fast as they can, human nature will see someone taking it from you very soon, and there's not much your blustering about your shotgun is going to do to really stop them, once people start getting desperate enough.

          No, that plan is entirely predicated upon the assumption that whatever disaster is generous enough to leave you alive, go away after a little while, and kill enough other people in your immediate surroundings (who aren't you specifically) that they can't get together and overpower you. I'm struggling to think of a realistic situation where that could have a better return than just buying instant lottery tickets. Political collapse is probably the only thing I can think of, but that also depends on things coming back together, and your neighbors not eating you and your stash, so it still loses once people get desperate.

          Nope, it's just a hobby. You're taking an extreme amount of arrogance and hubris and turning it into a self-congratulatory pog collection. Con-fucking-gratulations.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
    • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:19AM (1 child)

      by Rivenaleem (3400) on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:19AM (#483133)

      I wonder if there are people looking to create private ArcheAge servers (if they don't already exist).

      • (Score: 1) by ewk on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:00PM

        by ewk (5923) on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:00PM (#483209)

        Ah... a variation of the Kobayashi Maru scenario :-)

        --
        I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:33PM (4 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:33PM (#482956)

    our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario

    They need to think outside the box a little more. We have tons of data on individuals and groups who think the world is ending. Just because component 2452657 of their brains are scrambled doesn't necessarily mean the rest is, so that's probably how non-crazy people would act if the world were actually ending.

    Mostly they seem to end up dead, mostly self inflicted-ish. Heavens Gate 20 years ago. The Kool Aide drinkers 40 years ago. Yet, if the leaders aren't nuts often nothing too bad happens to the followers.

    My gut level guess is this implies what passed for an "end of the world" government that still feels optimistic for a last second save would likely keep a VERY close eye on leaders and liquidate the squirrely ones.

    Depending on the time line I imagine a lot of people wouldn't make it to the end. Say an asteroid is arriving in five years. The credit markets will collapse leading to total economic collapse leading to no petrochemicals and no food and no electricity for five years, no electricity means no clean fresh water and no sewage treatment, so almost all people will be dead almost five years early, mostly of like cholera and exposure and dehydration. No electricity and no people mean all the nukes and storage pools melt down, its quite a mess. It would be a shame if better orbital measurements three years later would have indicated a near miss hitting the moon or some darn thing due to something in the decimal places that was missed.

    Its interesting to model what happens as the threshold is pushed out. Say its gonna hit in 3017. "eh". 2517. "eh". 2117 "OK get that star trek stuff booted up". 2067 "Um... get that star trek stuff booted up NOW" 2047 "BAU... for awhile." 2027 "For all intents and purposes it hit today WRT societal collapse"

    Another interesting concept. It gonna hit the X hemisphere in 10 years. Guess who's coming to visit from the Y hemisphere? In fact there's an interesting alt hist steampunk ish story... "Peshawar Lancers" from 2003, isn't that the plot? I mean its going to suck in hemisphere Y but its going to suck less...

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM (3 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM (#482964)

      Mostly they seem to end up dead, mostly self inflicted-ish. Heavens Gate 20 years ago. The Kool Aide drinkers 40 years ago. Yet, if the leaders aren't nuts often nothing too bad happens to the followers.

      The problem with this analysis is that you're only looking at extremist religious kooks, people crazy enough to join a doomsday religious cult. Intelligent, sane people don't join such things.

      However, your analysis of economic impacts is very good. No one with a brain is going to invest in credit markets when a planet-killer asteroid is coming in 5 years, even if we aren't 100% sure it's going to hit us, and that'll cause massive repercussions. It really would be funny, in a dark way, if our civilization was completely destroyed not by an asteroid impact, but an asteroid near-miss because it was predicted to be an impact.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:53PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:53PM (#482966)

        Intelligent, sane people don't join such things.

        Intelligent folk do, sure.

        Sane, well, they're sane outside judgment issues. I mean theres a lot of insanity and they don't necessarily have a mood disorder or irrational fear or hear voices. Just really, really bad judgment about the future.

        Think about a global warming catastrophist. We all gonna die horribly real soon now when the seas rise 50000 meters and all species die! I'm sure of it! They're not idiots or crazy in the hearing voices sense, just hopped up on a bit of nonsense.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:35AM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:35AM (#483051)

          I guess you aren't either intelligent or sane then, with that moronic screed about global warming. No one said the seas would rise 50km, just a few. It doesn't take much to turn coastal cities like NYC into places like Venice, with all the streets underwater and massive flooding. Given how much scientific data supports this conclusion, you have to be an idiotic religious loon to disbelieve it, thinking you "know better" somehow.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:17PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:17PM (#483195)

          I mean theres a lot of insanity and they don't necessarily have […] irrational fear […]

          Are you sure? They expect the end of the world, after all!

  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:37PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:37PM (#482958)

    Run in circles, scream and shout.

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:17PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:17PM (#482969) Journal

    As with most questions in life, Nicolas Cage has already supplied us with the answer.

    No, Alex Proyas has.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:20PM

    by archfeld (4650) <treboreel@live.com> on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:20PM (#482970) Journal

    I am thinking that someone has confused the end of a human habitable place with the actual ending of the world. If the world survived what whacked the dinosaurs it will probably shrug us people off and continue on its' merry course with the new cockroach masters...

    --
    For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
  • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:54PM (3 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @10:54PM (#482981)

    If the end of the world appears, should I hit the grocery store first for canned food and charcoal, or the gun store for all the ammo I can carry? Whichever I choose, the other is second on the list.

    Assuming of course I already have enough self defense guns. Might have to buy a shotgun, I don't own one and in fact have never fired one.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:26PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:26PM (#482990)

      That depends. Can you rob the gun store while wielding a can of food?

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:47AM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:47AM (#483046)

      "buy" might be the number one problem on your list.

  • (Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:43PM

    by charon (5660) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @11:43PM (#482994) Journal
    Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
  • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:23AM (2 children)

    by Hartree (195) on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:23AM (#483036)

    I don't really "get" that one.

    If the world is truly ending and no one is going to live through it, even if I wanted vengeance on someone, just how much worse could I make it for them compared to what's about to happen to them anyway? Besides, I won't even be around to feel smug about it afterwards. I might get violent to protect others from any who do want to make mayhem, if it was needed.

    I'd rather find some pleasant people to spend the little time left with or do something fun, because in a very short time it's not going to matter much anyhow. And during that time, I'd feel a lot better knowing I did what I could to make the ending world a little better in some way rather than making it worse.

    That's after it's become obviously hopeless. Before it gets to that point I'd be trying like hell to figure out how to fix or stop the problem that was ending the world.

    • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:29AM

      by Rivenaleem (3400) on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:29AM (#483135)

      We should just go down to the Winchester and wait for all this to blow over.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @11:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @11:09AM (#483173)

      If the world is truly ending and no one is going to live through it, even if I wanted vengeance on someone, just how much worse could I make it for them compared to what's about to happen to them anyway?

      I guess the ones who would go rampage would not be those who want vengeance, but sociopaths that normally would be held back by knowing the consequences of their actions. If you don't have to fear the consequences, this societal level of control falls away.

      Or in short: If you think it's fun to do bad things to people, but not enough fun to compensate the inevitable punishment, then just before the end of the world you've got your chance to have the fun you want without fearing the consequences.

      So this study effectively says that most people are not sociopaths. Actually it doesn't say exactly that, as most people can distinguish between killing a game character and killing a human, so even many of those who go rampage on the game might not go rampage would the world really end. And in reverse, a true sociopath might not act antisocially on the game; either because it's no fun for them to do bad things to virtual characters as opposed to real people, or because they know not only that this is not the real end of the world, but also that their actions in the game are monitored.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:43AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:43AM (#483045)

    Nevil Shute wrote a best seller (later a movie) about this. For the most part the last people alive in southern Australia were pretty calm as the fallout cloud (from nuclear war in northern hemisphere) inexorably moved south.

    On The Beach is out of copyright in some countries, available as a free ebook and a very good read.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:16AM (1 child)

      by Gaaark (41) on Thursday March 23 2017, @03:16AM (#483060) Journal

      But weren't the astronauts pretty pissed...

      (Am I remembering the right book, lol)

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @04:18AM (#483077)

        no astronauts in the 1957 novel -- from wiki,

        The story is set primarily in and around Melbourne, Australia, in 1963. World War III has devastated most of the populated world, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all human and animal life in the Northern Hemisphere. The war began with a nuclear attack by Albania on Italy and then escalated with the bombing of the United States and the United Kingdom by Egypt. Because the aircraft used in these attacks were obtained from the Soviet Union, the Soviets were mistakenly blamed, triggering a retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union by NATO.

        There is also an attack by the Soviets on the People's Republic of China, which may have been a response to a Chinese attack aimed at occupying Soviet industrial areas near the Chinese border. Most, if not all, of the bombs included cobalt to enhance their radioactive properties.

        Global air currents are slowly carrying the lethal nuclear fallout across the Intertropical Convergence Zone to the Southern Hemisphere. The only parts of the planet still habitable are Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the southern parts of South America although they are slowly succumbing to radiation poisoning as well. Life in Melbourne continues reasonably normally though the near-complete lack of motor fuels makes travel difficult.

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:34AM

    by ledow (5567) on Thursday March 23 2017, @09:34AM (#483139) Homepage

    Buy popcorn.
    Find nice big empty hill somewhere.
    Get comfy.
    Occupy time with web-browsing (if still available).

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