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You might feel blindsided by the coronavirus, but warnings about a looming pandemic have been there for decades. Government briefings, science journals and even popular fiction projected the spread of a novel virus and the economic impacts it would bring, complete often with details about the specific challenges the U.S. is now facing.
It makes you wonder: What else are we missing? What other catastrophes are coming that we aren’t planning for, but that could disrupt our lives, homes, jobs or our broader society in the next few years or decades?
First, some good news—there are a handful of catastrophic events bandied about online that you don’t have to worry about. The world made it through the “Mayan Apocalypse” in 2012 just fine, for instance. If you’ve never heard of the pole shift hypothesis or Planet X, don’t fret—you probably needn’t worry about either of those theories either.
And what about “supervolcanoes”—historic, world-altering volcanoes bubbling ominously under places like Yellowstone and Indonesia’s Lake Toba? Don’t worry; explosions of that scale are rare enough that they appear to occur tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years apart. “Yellowstone has such a low probability of erupting, you're better off playing Powerball,” says volcanologist Jess Phoenix. Such events will almost certainly occur at some point, but it would be indescribable bad luck to experience one in your lifetime. Ditto for the idea of a killer comet or extinction-level asteroid hitting Earth—yes, it’ll happen at some point in the future, but you probably should still contribute to your 401(k) and plan for a happy retirement.
The Globalization of White Supremacy
“Terrorism” today conjures images of ISIS fighters and suicide bombers. But if you ask national security officials about the top near-term terrorism threat on their radar, they almost universally point to the rising problem of white nationalist violence and the insidious way that groups that formerly existed locally have been knitting themselves together into a global web of white supremacism.
Attacks on Trust and Truth: Deepfakes, Manufactured Election Results or Other Data Manipulation Attacks
Biosecurity: Terrorists, Mad Scientists, Lab Accidents and Biological Warfare
Natural events (like the Covid-19 pandemic)
Massive Technological Disruption: Downed Power Grids, GPS Outages and Solar Flares
Nukes
Nuclear weapons always end up at the top of government risk lists, but it’s easy for the public to forget. “The persistent risk of nuclear war is something that we have anxiety fatigue from,” Matheny says. “We grow tired of talking about nuclear war.”
Climate Change
Covid-19’s Next-Level Impact
The mounting human death toll and unfolding financial calamity of the current pandemic is one thing. But the ripple effects will last for years—and given the country’s bumbled handling of the virus itself, it seems an open question whether we’re in a strong position to respond and confront what comes after it.
Catastrophic Earthquakes
The Unknowns
originally posted by: rickymouse
Hmmm. Nothing in there about the Murder Hornets. I think we should worry about the Murder Hornets, they were supposed to be Locusts with human faces when I released them from Hell....they wound up being orangeman Trump in sunglasses.
Have no clue how to fix the problem, my link to hell...Alexa is not answering me anymore.
We've sadly seen it in action, so it's easy to presume that gameplan will be the norm.
originally posted by: KKLOCO
a reply to: burdman30ott6
We've sadly seen it in action, so it's easy to presume that gameplan will be the norm.
If it’s the norm — will you conform?