Karmageddon

Lets face it. We have it coming to us. We abuse the power God has given us, and in the end it will prove to be our downfall. Kids with matches.

Until recently, I was pretty set on the world ending in only 1 scenario. Nuclear Holocaust. Wait. Nope. Not that. Definitely not that. Why not that? Because we all love ourselves too much to let that happen. Self indulgence is the answer. The end of the world will come when Star Trek comes to life before us. Take it as a dumbed down version of "The Matrix", though eventually it might come to that...but lets hope God strikes us down first. What I speak of is "holograms". That's the tag Star Trek gives them anyways. It's a fantasy world, where you can play out any scenario you want. All 5 senses are stimulated in the process. You can interact with the world, and the world can interact with you. Don't believe it's close? Check out: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/. Using our bodies as controllers for games. How funny of me to actually think that the extremes of self indulgence would first originate in anything but the video game industry. It caters to a crowd of people who are very comfortable with new technology. And for that reason, they can keep pushing the lines of fun, with addictive. Yes, I know fun is always addictive, whether it's sports or video games, people can get addicted to fun. What I'm talking about is an actual addictive behavior. Think of the ramifications if they could trick your brain into actually thinking it's in a fantasy world. You're the hero, you can do anything you want, everyone loves you. Then coming out of it, back to the real world. You'd live, work, and sleep, waiting until you could go back to that world. A world where you are essentially a god. I could see people becoming truly, chemically, addicted to that feeling.

That, to me, was the only avenue for the end of the world, until a few days ago. I watched the last Dollhouse episode of the season. For everyone who doesn't know the premise of Dollhouse, it is this:

Echo (Dushku) is an "Active," a member of a highly illegal and underground group who have had their personalities wiped clean so they can be imprinted with any number of new personas. Confined to a secret facility known as the "Dollhouse," Echo and the other Actives, including Sierra and Victor, carry out engagements assigned by Adelle, one of the Dollhouse leaders. The engagements cater to the wealthy, powerful and connected, and require the Actives to immerse themselves in all manner of scenarios - romantic, criminal, uplifting, dangerous, comical and the occasional "pro bono" good deed. After each scenario, Echo, always under the watchful eye of her handler Boyd, returns to the mysterious Dollhouse where her thoughts, feelings and experiences are erased by Topher, the Dollhouse's genius programmer.

[spoilers]In the end. The company "Rossum" that funds and created the technology for this organization, decides to sell these bodies as "anatomy upgrades" for the very wealthy. Basically, stealing someones body, so they can live forever. The company then goes even larger and darker by helping the great political powers of the world stage a world-wide coup. The technology has gotten to a point, where they can wipe someone clean by using a single advanced sound wave. So they send out mass calls, over the phone. Everyone who picks up, is wiped, and given programming to kill anyone who is not wiped. Everyone who didn't pick up their phone, is hunted. The world tears itself apart.[/spoilers]

Obviously. If the end of the world was my choice between these two, I'd choose the first, much less scary in the physical sense. But the first is more scary in the spiritual side of things. In my opinion, I'd say the first is more likely to occur, because it will take less technology to figure out how to stimulate and trick a brain, then it will to learn to wipe a brain of persona and be able to fill it again. And once everyone can live in their own fantasy for cheap, who would want to live in the real world?

...scary.

FYI: For anyone that cares. Lancelot died yesterday night. We held a short ceremony for him this morning, it was beautiful. Then we buried him next to Lady Guinevere. Lancelot...you will be missed.