SonicDimension wrote:The reason this is such a big thing these days is because the last ten years have witnessed many significant events that have diminished peoples' hope that the 21st century will be better than the 20th-- 9/11, 'wars on terror,' climate change, destruction of the biosphere, the increasingly alienating technoculture, the energy crisis, a worldwide economic slump, etc., etc. It's not because we are fixated on a literal 'apocalypse.' Christ, some people are fucking dense.
This is the information age; the entire world is connected to the internet. News and events worldwide are at our fingertips faster than people not even a few generations ago would ever imagine. It may seem like earthquakes and revolutions are erupting all at once, but really, how many earthquakes were reported in say, the 18th century? Keep in mind the population at the time compared to today. The means of communicating, compared to today. More people + lightning fast global communications = more reporting. welcome to the future, where we know everything that is happening everywhere.