We need to find in ourselves the permeability to pass through a great invisible filter that separates the past and the future of humanity. We are collectively at the kind of moment that only happens once for a species.
If by "a while" you mean 1 month, then sure. There were tons of conspiracy theorists saying that the world was going to end on April 8th due to the solar eclipse.
They were going to fire up the LHC to open a dimension, which can only happen when the moon is casting a shadow 6000 km away. Then aliens... or something.
It's not a shocking attention grabber anymore. Most people are well aware that the world is in a bad spot. Some idiots still argue about why, but most of us know why. We're in the end times. It's not biblical and no great battle will be taking place between good and evil. It's happening slowly, and increasingly hotter. The end is no longer nigh, it's here. I used to hope that we'd be better, and put in my part of the work. Now I still try, but I no longer have hope for humanity as a whole.
resurgence of authoritarianism worldwide, including lots of Nazis and racial/religious supremacists (white supremacists, for sure, but for instance, Modi has done some fairly appalling shit in India with pushing Hindu supremacy over the last several years)
Hah, I agree. No need for the nutters to predict it when civilization is dangling its toes off the precipice. You can see it on the horizon. Global instability, wars, anthropogenic climate change. They’re holding their breath like the rest of us.
I don't really think that the author of this book believes the world will "end" this soon but anyways. This is a post apocalyptic dystopia that sets it's scene in Moscow 2033:
spoiler about the metro series
In the later books it kinda seems like that it's only Russia that has been nuked out of existence so really the world hasn't ended. But if you just read the first book you would not get to know that
The human species will not end, we are way to many people for that. Even if 99,9% of people die, the remaining 8 000 000 people are more then enough to allow for stable populations even if those 8 000 000 are spread all over the globe in smaller communities.
I think it’s mostly because we are in a bad state already. Things don’t feel like they’re building up for it to pop, it feels like more like a slow decline.