On 06/27/2020 05:41 PM, Douglas Lucas wrote:
See below.
On 2020-06-28 00:00, Mirimir wrote:
And the rest of the year could well be worse. As in global financial meltdown. And the rest of the decade could bring the end of our entire civilization. AKA the Jackpot. Or at least, over the inflection point.
The term "the Jackpot" of course comes from William Gibson's 2014 science fiction novel The Peripheral.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that. But hey, every cpunk knows that, no?
There's nowadays a subreddit r/collapse where redditors discuss, well, "the collapse", that being their term.
I've been wondering for a while - what other terms, from science fiction or Internet subcultures or elsewhere - are there for this current thing humanity is experiencing? Besides "the Jackpot" and "the collapse", can anyone list any additional widely or significantly used ones?
Some sort of collapse is a standard start for dystopian fiction. Decades ago, it was typically global nuclear war. However, I do recall some SF where it was toxic chemical pollution. Now it's often global climate change. That's a huge piece of Gibson 's Jackpot. Along with pandemics :\ It's also a key aspect of the back story in Watts' _Blindsight_ and _Echopraxia_. But I don't recall that Watts has a name for it.
(Not to mention, just, an anthropogenic mass extinction event. Cue reactionaries on this list freaking out because they are primed to protect dolla dolla bill from evidence of global warming etc.)
Well, the US dollar may soon be toast. Maybe down 20%-30% by 2021, and might be replaced by a gold-backed greenback within a few years (if the US can find enough gold, anyway). And/or cryptocurrencies ;)
Doug