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 >
