Apocalypse Now?

By Michael Albert

May 23, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Eyes open. Look around. Ears attuned. Listen up. Something is happening here, there, and everywhere. Ignore it, avoid it, deny it , whine or weep over it and it will keep happening. Fight it and envision and seek better, and we can stop it. You know it, don’t your? We can abide or we can fight. Which will we choose?

I hate apocalyptic attitude, entertainment, and organizing. Even if often unintentionally, Apocalypse says don’t seek better. Apocalypse parades lies to paralyze hope and pervert action. Apocalypse says there is no better. Doom alone awaits. We will lose.

I prefer to welcome, seek, and urge vision-inspired attitude, vision-seeking entertainment, and vision-informed organizing. Vision tells truths to reveal hope and mobilize action. Vision says there is better. We can win.

Maybe it’s merely getting old. Maybe it’s the cacophony of apocalyptic utterances that now fills every silence. Maybe it’s what bellows down every byway. Whatever the cause, as much as I still hate to say it, I now hear apocalypse at our door. I can no longer deny it. But I still know vision and willful strategic effort remain essential. They must predominate.

To ignore apocalypse as if it isn’t there, as if it is only naysaying cynicism, conveys delusion. Apocalyptic fear is now warranted. Visionary hope is needed. So the latter must now harmonize with the former rather than for the latter to ignore or deny the former.

And what has made apocalypse into half of realism? It’s no secret. We all know the answer.

War has attained infinite reach and power. War’s bombs have eyes. War explodes and starves. Look at Gaza. Where there were cities of homes, schools, hospitals, auditoriums, and souls, now there is rubble. Now there are corpses. And off-site way too many people cheer.

Human choice has bent the skies and seas into cauldrons of collapse. Tornadoes meet tsunamis. High water marries record temperatures to produce still higher and still hotter. There are cities of homes, schools, hospitals, auditoriums, and souls. Look north, south, east, and west. Climate threatens them all. Rubble multiplies. Corpses decay. And off-site too many people sunbathe.

Fascism has metastasized so that hate flourishes, lies suffocate truth, and nightmares become daily facts. Reason vacates. Fundamentalism flourishes. We all become clickbait linked to our worst selves. Books burn. A new Reich. A new Reich. A new Reich. Literally, that’s what the maximum U.S. reactionary thug now says he wants. There were cities where thinking souls lived. Now city’s zealots yell hooray for our side while they seek to clear the stage of all but themselves. Some celebrate. Others tremble or hide. Off-site too many people walk an empty Mall or imbibe a soundless film. Eyes on the ground, ears shut down, lemmings prowl their way off cliffs.

And finally, as if the familiar horrors weren’t enough, a new apocalyptic threat, AI, advances at breakneck pace. It reads, writes, codes, hears, talks, paints, sees, questions, sings, designs, jokes, flirts, emotes, explains, originates, and plans—all while it instantly accesses a mind-bogglingly huge store of factual knowledge about us, until it is trained on itself. Talk of care and safety is already sidelined by odes to progress. But so what? What’s apocalyptic about that? Why can’t we use AI, welcome AI, worship AI to do more, do it easier, and enjoy ever bigger gains? Perhaps we can, but existential dangers also beckon. Further escalated capacities may go rogue and dance death and rubble on us. Less noticed, escalated AI capacities may increasingly do exactly what we ask them to until AI does steadily more of what makes us human while we humans are left to do only what is machine-like. Meanwhile, geniuses cheer on encroaching vapidity. That is not rubble. That is not death. But I fear it is a living coma. Even without corpses I find AI potentially apocalyptic.

Four crises. Four facets of apocalypse. So why is vision and willful organizing for better still essential? Because it is now the only path to better. Not overnight, but ever. To we seek suicide, we can just continue to cheer on apocalypse. Or to weep or whine about it. Or to deny it. Those paths bring disaster. If we want to attain better much less to attain best, we can’t cheer apocalypse on. We can’t just weep about it. We can’t ignore it. We have to instead find flexible vision. We have think flexible vision through and flexibly share it to create and constantly update effective strategy. And with shared vision and effective strategy we have to forge our own activist paths toward liberation. That is the hard truth. Apocalypse is no lie. What are we going to do about it? What do we want? How much do we want it? Collective action for progress? Or private slumber for death? We can’t side step responsibility. We must decide.

Michael Albert`s radicalization occurred during the 1960s. His political involvements, starting then and continuing to the present, have ranged from local, regional, and national organizing projects and campaigns to co-founding South End Press, Z Magazine, the Z Media Institute, and ZNet, and to working on all these projects, writing for various publications and publishers, giving public talks, etc. His personal interests, outside the political realm, focus on general science reading (with an emphasis on physics, math, and matters of evolution and cognitive science), computers, mystery and thriller/adventure novels, sea kayaking, and the more sedentary but no less challenging game of GO. Albert is the author of 21 books which include: No Bosses: A New Economy for a Better World; Fanfarefor the Future; Remembering Tomorrow; Realizing Hope; and Parecon: Life After Capitalism. Michael is currently host of the podcast Revolution Z and is a Friend of ZNetwork.

With Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse, Graham Hancock has declared war on archaeologists

The Conversation
November 21, 2022

Mysterious: The carved T-shaped megaliths at the prehistoric Gobekli Tepe near Sanliurfa, Turkey Ozan KOSE AFP

Netflix’s enormously popular new show, Ancient Apocalypse, is an all out attack on archaeologists. As an archaeologist committed to public engagement who strongly believes in the relevance of studying ancient people, I feel a full-throated defense is necessary.

Author Graham Hancock is back, defending his well-trodden theory about an advanced global ice age civilisation, which he connects in Ancient Apocalypse to the legend of Atlantis. His argument, as laid out in this show and in several books, is that this advanced civilization was destroyed in a cataclysmic flood.

The survivors of this advanced civilization, according to Hancock, introduced agriculture, architecture, astronomy, arts, maths and the knowledge of “civilization” to “simple” hunter gatherers. The reason little evidence exists, he says, is because it is under the sea or was destroyed by the cataclysm.

“Perhaps,” Hancock posits in the first episode, “the extremely defensive, arrogant, and patronizing attitude of mainstream academia is stopping us from considering that possibility

Trailer for Graham Hancock’s Netflix series, Ancient Apocalypse.

The pseudo fish defense

In the opening dialogue of Ancient Apocalypse, Hancock rejects being identified as an archaeologist or scientist. Instead, he calls himself a journalist who is “investigating human prehistory”. A canny choice, as the label “journalist” helps Hancock rebut being characterized as a “pseudo archaeologist” or “pseudo scientist”, which, as he puts it himself in episode four, would be like calling a dolphin a “pseudo fish”.

From my perspective as an archaeologist, the show is surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) lacking in evidence to support Hancock’s theory of an advanced, global ice age civilization. The only site Hancock visits that actually dates to near the end of the ice age is Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey.

Instead, Hancock visits several North American mound sites, pyramids in Mexico, and sites stretching from Malta to Indonesia, which Hancock is convinced all help prove his theory. However, all of these sites have been published on in detail by archaeologists, and a plethora of evidence indicates they date thousands of years after the ice age.




The Neolithic archaeological site Göbekli-Tepe in Turkey is one of the locations Hancock visits in Ancient Apocalypse.Teomancimit, CC BY-SA

Hancock argues that viewers should “not rely on the so-called experts”, implying they should rely on his narrative instead. His attacks against “mainstream archaeologists”, the “so-called experts” who “practice censorship” are strident and frequent. After all, as he puts in in episode six, “archaeologists have been wrong before and they could be wrong again”.

Steph Halmhofer, a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta who studies the use of pseudo archaeology and erasure of indigenous heritage by far-right groups, suggests that these attacks on archaeologists function to increase his sense of authority with viewers. As Halmhofer explains:

It’s about conspiracism and the positioning of Hancock as the victim of a conspiracy. The repeated disparaging remarks about archaeologists and other academics in every episode of Ancient Apocalypse is needed to remind the audience that the alternative past being proposed is true, regardless of the lack of conclusive evidence for it. And the vagueness of who this supposed advanced civilisation was, combined with the credence given to it by being in a Netflix-produced series, is going to make Ancient Apocalypse an easily mouldable source for anyone looking to fill in a fantasied mythical past.



The Serpent Mound in Ohio, another site Hancock visits in Ancient Apocalypse

Eric Ewing, CC BY-NC-SA

Dangers of pseudo archaeology

In the last decade we have seen how conspiracy theories and distrust in experts impacts the world around us. And research has shown how pseudo archaeology – especially when couched in anti-intellectual rhetoric – can overlap with more dangerous conspiracy thinking.

Of course, archaeologists frequently admit when we have been wrong. Any academic teaching “Archaeology 101” or applying to fund a new study points out how new evidence updates our picture of the past. Despite the fact that every scientific field updates its thinking with new evidence, according to Hancock, any rewrites to history mean that archaeologists, his “so-called experts,” should not be relied upon.

Despite repeated claims made by Hancock, no archaeologists today see stone age hunter-gatherers or early farmers as “simple” or “primitive”. We see them as complex people. Priming viewers to distrust archaeologists, also allows Hancock to use circular logic to re-date these sites.

The murky origins of Hancock’s theories

Hancock claims in his book Magicians of the Gods that as the “implications” of his theories “have not yet been taken into account at all by historians and archaeologists, we are obliged to contemplate the possibility that everything we have been taught about the origins of civilisation could be wrong”. However, archaeologists have repeatedly addressed his theories in academic publications, on TV and in mainstream media.

Most glaring to scholars investigating the history of Hancock’s pseudo archaeology is that while claiming to “overthrow the paradigm of history,” he doesn’t acknowledge that his overarching theory is not new.

Scholars and journalists have pointed out that Hancock’s ideas recycle the long since discredited conclusions drawn by American congressman Ignatius Donnelly in his book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, published in 1882.


Another site Hancock discusses in Ancient Apocalypse, the Cholula Pyramid in Mexico.

Ernest Mettendorf, CC BY-SA

Donnelly also believed in an advanced civilisation – Atlantis – that was wiped out by a flood over 10,000 years ago. He claimed that the survivors taught Indigenous people the secrets of farming and monumental architecture.

Like many forms of pseudo archaeology, these claims act to reinforce white supremacist ideas, stripping Indigenous people of their rich heritage and instead giving credit to aliens or white people.

Hancock even cites Donnelly directly in his 1995 book Fingerprints of the Gods, claiming: “The road system and the sophisticated architecture had been ‘ancient in the time of the Incas,’ but that both ‘were the work of white, auburn-haired men’.” While skin colour is not brought up in Ancient Apocalypse, the repetition of the story of a “bearded” Quetzalcoatl (an ancient Mexican deity) parrots both Donnelly’s and Hancock’s own summary of a white and bearded Quetzalcoatl teaching native people knowledge from this “lost civilisation”.

Hancock’s mirroring of Donnelly’s race-focused “science” is seen more explicitly in his essay, Mysterious Strangers: New Findings About the First Americans. Like Donnelly, Hancock finds depictions of “caucasoids” and “negroids” in Indigenous American art and (often mistranslated) mythology, even drawing attention to some of the exact same sculptures as Donnelly.


A page from Donnelly’s now debunked 1882 book, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World

.via the author

This sort of “race science” is outdated and long since debunked, especially given the strong links between Atlantis and Aryans proposed by several Nazi “archaeologists”.

These are the reasons why archaeologists will continue to respond to Hancock. It isn’t that we “hate him” as he claims, it is simply that we strongly believe he is wrong. His flawed thinking implies that Indigenous people do not deserve credit for their cultural heritage.

Netflix labels Ancient Apocalypse a docuseries. IMDB calls it a documentary. It’s neither. It’s an eight-part conspiracy theory that weaponises dramatic rhetoric against scholars.

Flint Dibble, Marie-Sklowdowska Curie Research Fellow, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ATLANTIS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LOST CIVILIZATIONS 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LEMURIA 

Books

‘We’re going to pay in a big way’: a shocking new book on the climate crisis

In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen write that society needs to be better prepared for an inevitable collapse

‘We don’t have a solution. But the fact that there aren’t easy and obvious solutions doesn’t mean that you can ignore the issue’ … An Inconvenient Apocalypse. Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy

Veronica Esposito

THE GUARDIAN

Wed 31 Aug 2022

In An Inconvenient Apocalypse, authors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen style themselves as heralds of some very bad news: societal collapse on a global scale is inevitable, and those who manage to survive the mass death and crumbling of the world as we know it will have to live in drastically transformed circumstances. According to Jackson and Jensen, there’s no averting this collapse – electric cars aren’t going to save us, and neither are global climate accords. The current way of things is doomed, and it’s up to us to prepare as best we can to ensure as soft a landing as possible when the inevitable apocalypse arrives.

“The book tries to be blunt and honest about the depth of the crisis,” said Jensen, “and to be blunt and honest about the current solutions, which do nothing to deal with the depth of the crisis.” Jackson added: “Now humanity is on a whole different journey than a gathering-hunting society. I saw that we were going to pay for this some day, and we’re going to pay in a big way.”


Earthly Order: ‘mercurial professor’ with urgent ideas on climate change

Jackson and Jensen make for an interesting pairing. The former is an agronomist, having spent his career studying the problem of soil erosion and developing The Land Institute, which seeks to develop grains that can be used for sustainable agriculture. For his efforts he has garnered a MacArthur “genius” grant and a Right Livelihood Award, among other honors. Jensen is a longtime journalist who has written books on ecology, masculinity and radical feminism. He has received backlash for propounding exclusionary and harmful views against transgender people, specifically targeting transgender women, and in response to the criticism he has doubled down on these viewpoints, continuing to promulgate them.

In Jackson and Jensen’s view, the dawn of agriculture represents something like original sin. This is what got humanity on to the course of increasing energy use and material wealth that has brought us to the current ecological crisis. Via this reading of human history, the authors seem to be arguing that our trajectory as a technological species capable of high energy use and large-scale agriculture is a mistake that has taken us to a place we never should have been, and has doomed us. In conversation Jackson endorsed this viewpoint, telling me that our way of life has us “caught in a big Ponzi scheme that we’ve probably had for 10,000 years. We know how Ponzi schemes tend to end. They’re not nice things to have to deal with.”
 

Photograph: University of Notre Dame Press

The answer to this Ponzi scheme involves shrinking humanity from the current 7.7 billion people to a more sustainable 2 or 3 billion. An Inconvenient Apocalypse doesn’t describe how exactly this decline in population will occur, nor reckon with the enormous trauma that the elimination of the majority of humanity will inflict on humans and our societies. Although the book is nominally oriented toward social justice, the authors make no effort to address the fact that such a population decline would probably be an absolute disaster for marginalized ethnicities and sexualities, those who are disabled or mentally unwell, and basically anyone not deemed fit for survival in the new world. In conversation, Jensen offered this explanation:

“A lot of past talk of population control has been based in white supremacy, but that doesn’t mean we can ignore the question of what’s a sustainable population. That’s the kind of thing that people have bristled against. We don’t have a solution. But the fact that there aren’t easy and obvious solutions doesn’t mean that you can ignore the issue.”

According to Jackson and Jensen, once the collapse occurs and the Earth’s population declines, it is up to humans to figure out how to live in a “low-energy” future – that is, one where fossil fuels are no longer used and we essentially are back to relying on our own muscles and those of beasts of burden. In terms of what that low energy world might look like, An Inconvenient Apocalypse articulates an ethos that might be summed up as the paleo diet, but for society. Because 10,000 years of so-called progress has left us in “dire straits”, the answer involves looking back to the prehistoric millennia before humans developed agriculture, began writing down their history, and built societal hierarchies. Insofar as An Inconvenient Apocalypse describes how this future could look, it involves tradespeople and agricultural workers elevated to the high-status ranks of society, the affluent getting taken down some notches, a wholesale elimination of the cosmopolitan, consumerist world, and religion playing a prominent role. One is tempted to sum it up as “make the Earth great again”.

The world of An Inconvenient Apocalypse is a very bleak one, and also one with no middle ground. The authors write that “the future of continued endless expansion that we have long imagined is over and a new future defined by contraction is coming”. Any attempt to find some kind of middle way through these two poles is simple “denying, minimizing and ignoring” a problem that we must all face. The emphasis on this book is on being blunt and stating truths that the authors believe to be self-evident – there is little effort by Jackson and Jensen to argue their case or to convince others. To be fair, Jackson and Jensen seem to be aware that their style will put off many, stating their expectation that many readers will simply abandon their book. Jensen said: “We set out to write a book that, in some sense, everybody will have a reason to dislike.”

For a book predicting the mass death of most of humanity and the end of life as we know it, An Inconvenient Apocalypse is chillingly cerebral. There is virtually no room for acknowledging – much less processing – the emotional toll that such a message will take on both the authors and their readers. That can make the book feel cold and condescending. In conversation, Jensen showed more vulnerability, offering some of the feelings that his vision for humanity raised within himself. In this reader’s opinion, letting this vulnerability through more often in An Inconvenient Apocalypse would have made for a more relatable and ultimately more compelling read.

“I’ve wrestled with what this means in everyday life,” and Jensen, “and these are distressing questions. It’s about wrestling with that sense of grief, rather than trying to avoid it. And when you wrestle with that, it means you don’t wake up every day on the sunny side of the street. It’s weighing on a lot of us. My goal is just try to open up space for people to say what’s on their mind.”

An Inconvenient Apocalypse is out on 1 September

U.S. CDC’s zombie apocalypse tips rise again for pandemic times

Josh K. Elliott 

© CDC A depiction of a zombie is shown in this promotional image from the CDC's website.

If there's one lesson that horror movies can teach, it's that you should always be prepared for a zombie outbreak — especially during a pandemic.

A decade-old guide to preparing for a zombie apocalypse has resurfaced on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, amid fresh paranoia caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Social media and Google traffic surged around the topic on Wednesday and Thursday, after a handful of news outlets recirculated the CDC tips alongside a zombie-related "prophecy" supposedly attributed to Nostradamus, the 16th-century French astrology. The prophecy mentions "half-dead" people and "great evils" leading to the end of the world.

Read more: Iran sentences ‘Zombie Angelina Jolie’ to 10 years in jail for photos

The reports quickly prompted people to make tongue-in-cheek plans for a real-life World War Z, the book and film in which zombies rise up against all the nations of the world.



There are no signs of a zombie apocalypse on the immediate horizon (yet). Nevertheless, the CDC's advice is useful with or without a horde of brain-hungry corpses hammering at your door.

The CDC has used zombie preparedness to teach people about disaster preparedness for nearly a decade, according to its website. It also appears to be making occasional tweaks to the plan, including an update on Feb. 23 of this year, according to its site.

"What first began as a tongue-in-cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages has proven to be a very effective platform," the CDC says.

Video: A zombie apocalypse live action role playing game invades St. Laurent

The CDC campaign encourages everyone to set up a zombie apocalypse kit consisting of all the supplies you'd need in the event of a global catastrophe, a localized outbreak of brain-eaters or something more pedestrian, such as an earthquake or blackout.

Recommended supplies include food, water, tools, clothing, a radio, personal hygiene products and medications, important documents and first aid supplies.

Read more: Toilet paper panic: Fear, fights and memes spreading faster than coronavirus

"Although you're a goner if a zombie bites you, you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you might get during a tornado or hurricane," the CDC says.

The preparedness blog also recommends setting up an emergency plan with your loved ones, so that everyone knows who to call and where to go "if zombies start appearing outside your doorstep."

"You can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake or other emergency."

Video: How would public health officials deal with a zombie apocalypse?

The zombie (and everything else) survival plan has become a popular messaging tool for many public health agencies over the last decade. British Columbia has run its own zombie survival campaign in the past, and the Canadian Red Cross has also adapted the CDC plan to fit its needs.

Read more: Amazon’s terms of service won’t apply in the event of a zombie apocalypse

There have been no zombie uprisings since the original tips were issued in 2011, though Denmark came close with its COVID-19-related "zombie mink" crisis last year. There have also been plenty of natural disasters in the intervening years, proving that it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

Because you never know when a flood, an earthquake or a flesh-eating monster will smash down your door.

 

Eleanor Coppola, matriarch of a filmmaking family, dies aged 87

13 April 2024, 02:24

Obit Eleanor Coppola. Picture: PA

She documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s best-known films, including Apocalypse Now.

Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s best-known films and who raised a family of filmmakers, has died aged 87.

She died on Friday surrounded by family at home in Rutherford, California, her family announced in a statement. No cause of death was given.

Eleanor, who grew up in Orange County, California, met Francis while working as an assistant art director on his directorial debut, the Roger Corman-produced 1963 horror film Dementia 13, after had studied design at UCLA.

Within months of dating, Eleanor became pregnant and the couple were wed in Las Vegas in February 1963.

Francis and Eleanor Coppola in 1991 in Los Angeles (AP)

Their first-born, Gian-Carlo, quickly became a regular presence in his father’s films, as did their subsequent children, Roman (born in 1965) and Sofia (born in 1971). After acting in their father’s films and growing up on sets, all would go into the movies.

Gian-Carlo, who is seen in the background of many of his father’s films and had begun doing second-unit photography, died at the age of 22 in a 1986 boating accident. He was killed while riding in a boat piloted by Griffin O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal, who was found guilty of negligence.

Roman directed several movies of his own and regularly collaborates with Wes Anderson. He is president of his father’s San Francisco-based film company, American Zoetrope.

Sofia became one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of her generation as the writer-director of films including “Lost in Translation” and the 2023 release “Priscilla.” Sofia dedicated that film to her mother.

Beginning on 1979’s Apocalypse Now, Eleanor frequently documented the behind-the-scenes life of Francis’ films.

The Philippines-set shoot of Apocalypse Now lasted 238 days. A typhoon destroyed sets, lead actor Martin Sheen had a heart attack and a member of the construction crew died.

Eleanor documented much of the chaos in what would become one of the most famous making-of films about moviemaking, 1991’s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.

“I was just trying to keep myself occupied with something to do because we were out there for so long,” she told CNN in 1991. “They wanted five minutes for a TV promotional or something and I thought sooner of later I could get five minutes of film and then it went on to 15 minutes.

She ended up shooting 60 hours worth of footage and published Notes: On the Making of Apocalypse Now where she wrote of being a “woman isolated from my friends, my affairs and my projects” during their year in Manilla. She also frankly discusses Francis having an extra-marital affair.

They remained together and Eleanor documented several more of her husband’s films, as well as Roman’s CQ and Sofia’s Marie Antoinette. She wrote a memoir in 2008, Notes on a Life.

In 2016, at the age of 80, Eleanor made her narrative debut in Paris Can Wait, a romantic comedy starring Diane Lane. She followed that up with Love Is Love Is Love in 2020.

Eleanor died just as Francis is preparing a long-planned, self-financed epic, “Metropolis,” which is to premiere next month at the Cannes Film Festival.

By Press Association

Bible apocalypse: Burnt Pyramid notes reveal Newton's ‘astonishingly complex’ occult study

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S fascination with biblical apocalypse, pyramids and the occult have been revealed in burnt fragmentary manuscript notes.

By TOM FISH
PUBLISHED:  Dec 8, 2020 


Legendary English mathematician, physicist, astronomer Sir Isaac Newton is rightly considered one of the greatest scientific geniuses ever. However, his wide-ranging research also led to an interest in alchemy, religion and even divine biblical apocalypse prophecies – now laid bare in some of his stranger papers.

Newton’s surviving notes, and manuscripts contain approximately 10 million words.

These notes are part of Newton's astonishingly complex web of interlinking studies – natural philosophy, alchemy, theology – only parts of which he ever believed were appropriate for publication

Sotheby’s

And among reams of scientific and mathematical brilliance is evidence of another side of Newton, one his descendants were determined to shield from the public.

Much of these mystical leanings would have been considered heretical-thinking in the 17th century.


The texts, which are available at auction house Southeby’s, are literally fragments.

Bible apocalypse: Burnt Pyramid notes reveal Newton's ‘astonishingly complex’ occult study (Image: Getty)

The fire was reportedly started by a candle that was inadvertently felled by Newton's dog, Diamond (Image: Getty)

At time of writing, the pages have attracted a leading bid of £280,000 ($375,000).

They are the scorched remnants from a fire, reportedly started by a candle that was inadvertently felled by Newton's dog, Diamond.

The scorched correspondence concerns Newton's obscure occult theories which would today be categorised as pseudoscience.

They reveal Newton’s thought about ancient Egypt's Great Pyramid, which he believed was designed using an Egyptian unit of measurement called the royal cubit.

At time of writing, Newton's pages have attracted a leading bid of £280,000 ($375,000) (Image: Sotheby's)


By quantifying this royal cubit, Newton believed he might be able to refine his own theories on gravitation.

And through this he may even arrive at an unerringly accurate measure of Earth’s circumference.

At the same time, Newton suspected he could gain far weirder geometrical insights, including predicting the apocalypse as forecast in the Bible.

Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's manuscript specialist, told The Observer: ”He was trying to find proof for his theory of gravitation, but in addition the ancient Egyptians were thought to have held the secrets of alchemy that have since been lost.

"Today, these seem disparate areas of study – but they didn't seem that way to Newton in the 17th century."

But although pyramidology now lies outside the bounds of real science the study consumed the attention of one of the greatest minds on the planet.

Sotheby’s auction listing states: ”These notes are part of Newton's astonishingly complex web of interlinking studies – natural philosophy, alchemy, theology – only parts of which he ever believed were appropriate for publication.

"It is not surprising that he did not publish on alchemy, since secrecy was a widely-held tenet of alchemical research, and Newton's theological beliefs, if made public, would have cost him (at least) his career."

The notes reveal Newton’s thoughts about ancient Egypt's Great Pyramid (Image: Express)

The imminent auction coincides with the news historians have uncovered copies of Newton’s first edition in 27 countries, more than double the amount previously known.

New research has identified 386 copies, while it may be possible an additional 200 of them exist somewhere in private and public collections.

Mordechai Feingold, one of the historians and lead author of the study, said: “We felt like Sherlock Holmes.

"One of the realisations we've had is that the transmission of the book and its ideas was far quicker and more open than we assumed, and this will have implications on the future work that we and others will be doing on this subject.”

Why Archaeologists Are Fuming Over Netflix’s Ancient Apocalypse Series

In an open letter, the Society for American Archaeology accused journalist Graham Hancock’s docuseries of disparaging experts while promoting “racist, white supremacist ideologies.”

by Sarah E. Bond


Artistic rendering of the fictional city of Atlantis originally used as an allegory by Plato (image by George Grie via Wikimedia Commons)


In November 2022, Netflix launched a new “docuseries” titled Ancient Apocalypse, presented by journalist Graham Hancock. Over the course of eight episodes, Hancock revivifies long-discounted, Victorian-era views of the ancient past in connection with a great flood and even Atlantis. He also questions the views and motives of professional archaeologists. Hancock’s unfounded hypotheses and attempts to undermine the field of archaeology have now pushed the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to issue an open letter decrying the show’s disparaging remarks against archaeologists and calling out the show’s alignment with racist theories about the ancient past.

To many, pseudoarchaeology at first appears to be a harmless form of entertainment consumed in jest or by those who revel in tales of lost cities or alien architects. But the recasting of science fiction as historical fact has real consequences. It emboldens conspiracy theorists who then use it to question everything from the legitimacy of the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples, to scientific studies, to the validity of higher education in general. In remarks to Hyperallergic, Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian archaeologist Vivian A. Laughlin noted that although archaeology is a social science, “both the social and scientific aspects are consistently disregarded in pseudoarchaeology.” She and many other professional archaeologists have co-signed the SAA letter’s categorization of the show as “harmful” and rooted in “racist, white supremacist ideologies,” adding that it “does injustice to Indigenous peoples; and emboldens extremists.” Finally, they called on Netflix to reclassify the series as “science fiction.”

What exactly does this “docuseries” pose that has archaeologists up in arms? In Ancient Apocalypse, Hancock first positions himself as a truth-teller while often reusing theories from the late 19th century. This includes discredited ideas such as those posited by politician and novelist Ignatius Donnelly in his 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. The book argued that the advanced peoples of Atlantis revealed the secrets of architecture and agriculture to Indigenous peoples. Critic of pseudoarchaeology Jason Colavito has written extensively on Donnelly’s use of Atlantis’s utopian society to critique Reconstruction-era America, all while also reinforcing white supremacy: “Atlantis reflected his ideal American society. Whites ruled, of course, but everyone had a share.” Hancock’s resuscitation of Donnelly breathes air back into ideas and ideologies that, as I have written on prior, are rooted in white supremacy.

Although never trained as an archaeologist, Hancock also scripts himself as the truly reliable narrator who can speak out only because he exists outside of “mainstream archaeology.” It is the same outsider approach taken by showmen like Alex Jones or fellow pseudo-archaeologist Erich von Däniken, both of whom bank on public distrust surrounding science and, increasingly, the conservative suspicion surrounding academia itself. Hancock believes that archaeologists have ignored or even covered up the existence of an “advanced Ice Age civilization.” According to his hypothesis, this innovative culture was wiped out around 12,900 years ago by the impact of a comet that then caused a devastating flood. Hancock notes we have been “lied to by academia for eons” about the existence of this advanced civilization.

Hancock has been peddling these goods in print for a long time. In his 2015 book, Magicians of the Gods, a sequel to his 1995 Fingerprints of the Gods, he elaborated on a theory from a 2007 study that originally proposed to explain evidence for large-scale extinctions of megafauna in North America using a comet impact. Hancock then universalized this theory and used it to explain the existence of his “advanced” civilization globally. But as Michael Shermer reported for Scientific American over five years ago, not only is there no crater to support this theory, but the radiocarbon dating does not support a unitary event. This comet also conveniently wiped out all evidence of Hancock’s global, advanced civilization except certain sites which show signs of survivors from Atlantis. Explaining the giant stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey as the product of some of these survivors robs Neolithic hunter-gatherers of their agency and ability to create their own monumental structures. As Shermer notes, what Hancock counts on when explaining this mysterious, progressive civilization is the “bigotry of low expectations.”

The site of Göbekli Tepe (Şanlıurfa Province, District of Haliliye, Türkiye) is a Neolithic site dating to about 9,600 to 8,200 BCE with early monumental and megalithic structures believed by Hancock to be evidence of survivors from Atlantis. (image by Volker Höhfeld via Wikimedia Commons)

Contrary to Hancock’s depictions of it, archaeology is today an active field predicated on painstaking excavation and the collation and careful analysis of archaeological data. It is also one which relies on public trust in the science and scientists that undergird it. Active movements led by archaeologists in the SAA and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) have encouraged repatriation and set strong ethical codes for the field. Although movies like the recently-revived Indiana Jones series or Tomb Raider may cast looting as archaeological science, professional archaeological sites uncover, document, and map sometimes only centimeters per day. The field is unique in that it is also dependent upon public knowledge and media attention in order to survive. This is true both in terms of external grant funding for digs and, in the case of sites like Pompeii, Petra, or Chichén Itzá, the money that comes from archaeological tourism. In short, archaeologists need and deserve the trust that Hancock denies them. It may be amusing to believe that academics have joined forces to keep secrets from the public, but honestly, they would be the first to tell the world of such findings.

Beyond the SAA, there are also many individual academics countering Hancock’s false narrative. One of the most longstanding and widely read archaeologists today is Eric H. Cline, a professor of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies and of Anthropology at George Washington University, who is also the director of the GWU Capitol Archaeological Institute. In addition to continued excavations at Tel Kabri (Tell al-Qahweh in Arabic) in Israel and his previous work at Megiddo — the site where the Book of Revelation foretells that the final battle of Armageddon will take place — he has written extensively on the biblical archaeology behind ideas of the Apocalypse and on the truth behind the “Sea Peoples” alleged to have invaded Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. In remarks to Hyperallergic, Cline notes that there is simply no proof or supporting evidence for an advanced but now lost Ice Age civilization. Rather than presenting much hard evidence, Hancock presents his audience with a flurry of questions (“Is it possible?” or “Could there have been?”). Cline underscores that the inception of doubt in the minds of the viewer often becomes more important than the presentation of facts.

Hancock’s questions and continued jabs at archaeologists throughout the Ancient Apocalypse series is, as the public SAA letter responds to, a tactic for undermining science and scientists who have dedicated their lives to archaeological inquiry. And such questioning is certainly on trend. Cline notes that the show capitalizes on an anti-establishment sentiment all too common since the 2016 presidential election.

“He is appealing to a particular subset of the general public who are now ‘anti-expert’ (on any topic ranging from medicine to archaeology), building on sentiments which came to the fore during the Trump era and continue today,” Cline said. “Ironically, however, he is beholden to the very archaeologists whose work he denigrates, for almost nothing of what he covers or says in the series could have been done without their work and by standing on their shoulders.”

Perhaps two of the most vocal critics of Hancock in print and on Twitter are archaeologists John Hoopes and Flint Dibble. In comments to Hyperallergic, both pointed to the holes and harm inherent in Ancient Apocalypse. Hoopes points out that in proposing an ambiguously “advanced” civilization, Hancock oddly also requests the audience view it as a society comparable to that of 19th-century Europe. Using European society as the standard metric for intellect, the arts, and “civilization” is at the heart of arguments in favor of white supremacy and European exceptionalism. Dibble similarly points to the fact that claiming such an advanced civilization actually built famed monuments suggests that a “fake civilization is responsible for monuments and the domestication of plants and animals around the world, with the implication that Indigenous people were not responsible for it.”

How did such a sham of a show get made? Is nepotism the answer? Graham Hancock’s son, Sean Hancock, is an executive at Netflix who works in the “Unscripted Originals” department. If you can’t get a show greenlit on its own merit, why not have your son help it along? Nepotism in the art world, in show business, in “legacy” college admissions, and in virtually every other area of our society means that access is often granted to those with more connections than merit. Although there has been intense interest devoted to the so-called nepo-babies that have pervaded the news towards the end of 2022, we might do well to do a bit more investigation into nepo-parents.

Social media plays a big part in the reception and impact of shows like Ancient Apocalypse. In 2022, former Cornell University undergraduate Angelina Nugroho published a network analysis of the Twitter discourse surrounding pseudoarchaeology. What she discovered is that such tweets “employ anti-institutional sentiment and draw on rhetorical themes in support of a historical white supremacy.” Nugroho noted that not only do pseudarchaeological theories and their diffusion detract from the ability of archaeology to provide a general understanding of the field as a scientific field, but they also cause real harm to modern Indigenous populations by undermining their past.

Can we then blame archaeologists for trying to push back against fiction masquerading as fact? As Hancock himself notes, his team was banned from filming at Serpent Mound in Ohio for attempting to falsely modify the dating of the site much earlier, to around 11,000 BCE. In fact, sacred mounds were made by two Native cultures: the Adena culture (800 BCE–100 CE) and the Fort Ancient culture (1000–1650 CE). Beyond shutting gates, other archaeologists are increasingly taking to public scholarship to push back against the broader harms of all “alternate history” shows. Whether it is actress Megan Fox’s short-lived “alternative history” show (inspired by her beliefs that the Pyramids of Giza were actually a kind of ancient power plant) or the lure of former Fear Factor and comedian Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, which Hancock appeared on: Conspiracy theories and pseudoarchaeology are a growing business.

The Great Serpent Mound located near Peebles, Ohio, United States, is a sacred site created by the Adena and the Fort Ancient cultures. (image by Eric Ewing via Wikimedia Commons)

The SAA letter points to the fact that every day, thousands of archaeologists work to speak to the public in museums, through government agencies, in university courses, on dig sites, and through their publications. Amplifying a culture of distrust around these professionals causes harm not only to them and to cultural heritage institutions, but also damages attempts at understanding and celebrating Indigenous peoples across the globe. At the end of the day, archaeologists are translators and, as Cline notes, “The number one danger is that such fantastical work, presented without supporting evidence, targets gullible audiences, who don’t know who or what to believe.”

While pseudoarchaeological shows are growing on the History network and now Netflix, the number of fact-based documentaries focused on the archaeological process and the science behind it is on the decline in the United States. As an increasing number of series get canceled across HBO, Netflix, and many other streaming services, opportunity is now at a premium. And championing pseudoarchaeology often means that the shows that center science are not given the green light. What might be the solution here? The SAA and many others see equal air time as one way forward. Cline notes that “the general public has seen only Hancock’s version in this series; a response by professional archaeologists, even of only an hour, and broadcast by Netflix, would be most welcome.” If Netflix is truly invested in presenting historical fact, it might do well to set a policy of allowing archaeologists to have their own shows with ample time to respond. Make no mistake that they will show up with trowels and real evidence in hand.

Author details link between 'Christian nationalism' and MAGA’s 'smashing of the administrative state'

President Donald Trump on June 20, 2020 (Wikimedia Commons)

Alex Henderson

February 18, 2025

ALTERNET

Journalist/author Katherine Stewart has a long history of in-depth reporting on the Religious Right — and not in a favorable way.

2012's "The Good News Club: The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children" and 2022's "The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism," both characterized the Religious Right movement as antithetical to religious freedom in the United States. And in her new book, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy," Stewart emphasizes that Christian nationalists and billionaire oligarchs have formed a deeply authoritarian alliance.

Stewart discussed that alliance during an interview with Salon's Amanda Marcotte, published in Q&A form on February 18.

READ MORE:'Time to think of Plan B': Musk ripped after forcing out Social Security chief

When Marcotte asked Stewart how "MAGA tech bros like Elon Musk" and the Christian Right "fit together," the journalist/author responded, "The New Right and Christian nationalists are a power couple of American authoritarianism. Both want to smash the institutions that safeguard our democracy. They've said it in different ways. The smashing of the 'administrative state' is more of a New Right concept. The Christian nationalist movement is more focused on rejecting pluralism and equality. But both are committed to this anti-democratic project."

Stewart continued, "On the Christian Right, they would say our democratic system is not godly. On the New Right, they would say it simply doesn't work, that it's outlived its purpose. They want to smash it up and create something new, and that's an autocracy."

In 2025, the term "New Right" has a very different meaning than it did during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Back in the early 1980s, "New Right" was used to describe the conservative movement being championed by President Reagan and his allies. But these days, the term "New Right" is used to describe President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement — which, in many respects, is a major departure from traditional old-school Reagan/Barry Goldwater/John McCain conservatism. And many Never Trumpers who were considered "The New Right" back in the 1980s are now scathing critics of Trump and MAGA.

When Stewart speaks of the New Right, she is referring to MAGA — not the conservatives of 40 or 45 years ago.

Stewart told Marcotte, "The Christian nationalist side has been an authoritarian movement for quite some time. They refer to Donald Trump like a biblical ruler. They compare him (to) King Cyrus or King David, an imperfect ruler God chose to enact his will. Here's the thing about kings: they're not part of a democracy. They're the law onto themselves. Christian nationalists have persuaded themselves they're facing a demonic other, defined as anyone who doesn't believe as they do. They also believe God's hand is on Trump's shoulder. If anybody opposes him, they're going against God."

Amanda Marcotte's interview with Katherine Stewart for Salon is available at this link.



'Not just blood that they’re after': Expert says Christian Nationalists 'want a show'

Photo by David Todd McCarty on Unsplash

Naomi LaChance

February 20, 2025

ALTERNET




President Donald Trump was able to be elected president a second time partly by mobilizing his base of Christian nationalists. This anti-Democratic group has an “us vs. them” mentality, believing that America is on the verge of an apocalypse and that they are being persecuted. In her new book, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy," journalist Katherine Stewart investigates this voter base. Salon published an interview with her Tuesday.

This subculture, Stewart argues, believes America should move past democracy. “They believe the U.S. is not founded on principles, but on a specific religious and cultural heritage,” she said. “They argue America is on the brink of an apocalypse, owing to the rise of equality and what they call ‘wokeness.’ They argue democracy, as a system, isn't sufficient to meet the ‘challenges’ of feminism and equality. They believe the democratic rules no longer apply, because we're facing this absolute apocalypse of equality. They want an authoritarian leader who puts himself above the law, who's going to seize the reins of power and scrap the rule of law in favor of the iron fist.”

One of the three major tenants of this mindset is the belief that the country is nearing an apocalypse.

“This is what authoritarian leaders do,” she explained. “Christian nationalism is not just an ideology. It's also not just a political movement. It's a mindset… First is ‘us versus them’ or ‘pure versus the impure,’ or those who properly ‘belong’ in the country, and those who do not. Second, there's a sense of persecution. They claim white conservative Christians are being persecuted more than any other group in society. Third is the sense that we're facing an apocalypse. They share this view with the new right. It's always, ‘If we don't win this election, we're gonna go under the control of the Illuminati and the devil's gonna be controlling us for hundreds of years. So it's any means necessary to ‘save’ us from this terrible fate.”

“Those three ideas,” she continued, “clear the way for the acceptance of an authoritarian leader, someone who doesn't respect the rules, who will punish their enemies, and who will suspend the rule of law. If you look at what's happening in our politics today, you can see it playing out before our eyes. In the first weeks of the Trump presidency, we're seeing a version of Project 2025. They've been telling us for a long time they're going to smash the institutions that safeguard our democracy. That's what they're doing.”

But the members of this group have been “colossally misinformed.”

“Many of these supporters don't recognize that American democracy might be destroyed. Some don't care. They think it's more important to put a strong man in power to demolish the supposedly dangerous radical left. But whether they don't care or don't know, it's because they've been colossally misinformed. That's how they rationalize their choices at the ballot box. And I would have to say this is not just about Trump. Authoritarianism loves a misinformed public. The anti-democratic movement has funded this massive propaganda campaign that has led us to where we are today,” she said.

Here is an excerpt from the book, published by Rolling Stone:

“Power has not softened the base of this movement. It’s not just blood that they’re after; they want a show. This is the thing that Trump surely understands best. Policy simply doesn’t matter. You can kill off grandma through vaccine denial, take away health insurance, bust unions, drive up inflation, and reward your billionaire friends with policies that benefit their bloated bottom lines. None of that matters as long as you give the people the pleasure of a good performance, where they can project their frustrations and resentments on the targets they have been trained to hate.”

BILLIONAIRES HIDE AWAY
New Zealand: The ideal spot to ride out the apocalypse?

Google's Larry Page has been granted New Zealand residency, boosting the country’s image as a refuge for tech billionaires. Is it all because the Pacific island nation is the best place to shelter from societal collapse?


A view of Lake Wanaka, close to where Peter Thiel's ranch is located on New Zealand's South Island

"Saying you're 'buying a house in New Zealand' is kind of a wink, wink, say no more." So said Reid Hoffmann, LinkedIn co-founder, in an article in The New Yorker that caused a stir in 2017.

Three years before the pandemic was defined, the article "Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich" outlined the extent to which high-net-worth people were preparing for an apparently impending apocalypse. "We're buying a house in New Zealand" was code for "we're gearing up for Armageddon."

New Zealand is the most isolated rich country in the world and just last month was named by researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom as the best place to survive global societal collapse.

It has long held that status among those interested in such things. The idea that the country is laden with secret luxury survival bunkers is even an internet meme. So when a famous billionaire announces plans to move there, that does draw some attention.

Last week it was revealed that Larry Page, the co-founder of Google and the world's sixth-richest person with a fortune of around $122 billion (€104.1 billion), had obtained New Zealand residency. This under a special category for investors, which requires them to pump 10 million New Zealand dollars ($6.9 million, €5.9 million) into the country over a three-year period.
Thiel tales

Page's motivations may have nothing to do with apocalypse survival planning. But this story does recall the tale of New Zealand's most famous billionaire-investor-survivalist: Peter Thiel.


Many consider remarkable the story of billionaire Peter Thiel's road to New Zealand citizenship

Thiel made his name by founding PayPal, and his megafortune by buying 10% of Facebook for just $500,000 in 2004 — a stake he ultimately sold for more than $1 billion.

The bizarre story of his relationship with New Zealand is perhaps the main reason the country is so strongly associated with the idea of being a refuge for Silicon Valley's elite.

Thiel is known among other things for his unusual political views. He has spoken of how influenced he is by the 1997 book "The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive during the Collapse of the Welfare State."

That book argues that democratic nation-states will ultimately become obsolete, and that a "cognitive elite," with vast wealth and resources, will no longer be subject to government regulation and become the primary shapers of governance. Thiel's own book, "Zero to One," expands on some of these ideas at length.

Shortly after Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election in the United States, Thiel's interest in New Zealand stepped up. He said in 2011 that "no other country aligns more with my view of the future than New Zealand."

Around this time, he was secretly applying for New Zealand citizenship. Despite having spent barely any time in the country, his application was granted. However, that all remained a secret for six years.

In 2016, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sam Altman revealed in an interview in The New Yorker he had made an agreement with Thiel, that in the event of some global catastrophe, they would fly together to a property Thiel owned in New Zealand.


New Zealand's isolation, wealth, liberal democracy and apparent insulation from the ravages of climate change have fostered its image as a survivalist bolthole

This led New Zealand Herald investigative reporter Matt Nippert to look into what property Thiel owned. It turned out that Thiel had bought a 477-acre (193-hectare) former sheep ranch on New Zealand's sparsely populated South Island, as well as a luxury townhouse in nearby Queenstown.

Nippert's work ultimately revealed that Thiel had been granted citizenship — news that sparked major controversy in the country.
Thiel's Kiwi passion peters out

Yet by the time of that revelation in 2017, Thiel's interest in New Zealand had already cooled significantly. Thiel was a major Donald Trump supporter, and his election appeared to refresh Thiel's faith in the US.

His huge ranch at Damper Bay on South Island, far from being a survivalist compound, has been left largely untouched over the years. No planning applications have been made and Thiel has spent barely any time in the country in recent years. His townhouse has recently gone up for sale.

As part of his route to citizenship, Thiel had pledged to invest heavily in New Zealand's tech sector, which he has called underrated and underfunded.

He heavily and successfully backed local accounting software startup Xero and retail software firm Fend; but as New Zealand investigative reporter Nippert told DW, once his citizenship was granted, Thiel's financial commitment to New Zealand also cooled significantly and is dormant at present.
Bunker of the mind

For Nippert, Thiel's interest in New Zealand did not stem from a burning belief in the country's tech sector or necessarily from seeing it as an ideal apocalypse safe haven.


Larry Page, the world's sixth-richest man, has recently been granted New Zealand residency

"You don't need an actual bunker here because it is a legal bunker," Nippert told DW. "New Zealand is a great place [...] we don't have armed mobs or warlords. We have a fairly well regarded, uncorrupt public service. There is low firearms ownership."

"It's a bunker of the mind. It's a fall back plan if the IRS comes after you. I suspect that may be the motivation."
Escaping the apocalypse (or the taxman)

Precisely what Thiel's ultimate New Zealand plans are remain unclear. But the image of the country as an ideal bolthole for the American super-rich to escape to has been bolstered during the pandemic, with reports of well-heeled US citizens activating long-held Kiwi escape plans once the coronavirus hit.

The news of Page's residency adds to this mystique. Nippert suspects Page just wants easy access in and out of the country.

He has continued to investigate the extent to which overseas investors, like Thiel or Page, have established links to New Zealand. Nippert said that people he trusts say this continues happening, although he himself has found little evidence it is as widespread as reported.

Meanwhile, New Zealand continues to be seen as the place to be when the world finally comes crashing down.

"The way these guys operate, hedge fund managers [...] they assess risk and what will happen if certain unlikely events happen, and how can you be positioned to survive and make a profit from it."

"Does he [Thiel] have an inside line on the end of the world? I think anyone reading the news over the last few years would be concerned about the direction things are going."

Why There Could Be ‘Internet Apocalypse’ In 2025?

A strong solar storm could hit Earth - a rare event that has not happened in the interconnected world so far - causing widespread internet outage, the report said.

Solar storm expected in 2025. (Representational image) Representative Image

Outlook Web Desk

UPDATED: 12 JUL 2023

The sun is expected to reach “solar maximum” in the next two years, a phenomenon which may lead to “internet apocalypse”.

According to Washington Post report, the Sun will reach "solar maximum" - a particularly active period - in 2025 and today's digital world is not prepared for it.

There has been a renewed interest in the solar cycle of the Sun as it sends out solar storms, sometimes so devastating that they could snap all means of communication on the Earth, the report mentioned.

Terms like "internet apocalypse" have caught the attention of social media users, which led to a barrage of misinformation and unsubstantiated warnings from American space agency NASA.

NASA has not yet commented on the possibility of the end of the internet being caused by the 2025 solar storm.

But people started discussing what the "always online" tribe will do if such an event takes place? But it is just a hype? The Post says these concerns are not entirely fiction.

The report said a strong solar storm could hit Earth - a rare event that has not happened in the interconnected world so far - causing widespread internet outage.

It mentioned the Carrington Event in 1859 due to which the telegraph lines sparked and operators were electrocuted, as well as the 1989 solar storm that took out the Quebec power grid for hours.

"We've never experienced one of the extreme case events, and we don't know how our infrastructure would respond to it. Our failure testing doesn't even include such scenarios," the report quoted Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, a computer science professor at University of California at Irvine.

Her paper 'Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse' played a key role in popularising the term, the report mentioned.

Jyothi, as per the report, said that a severe solar storm is likely to affect large-scale infrastructure such as undersea communication cables that could interrupt long-distance connectivity.

Such outages could last for months, the report said, adding that the economic impact of just one day of lost connectivity in the US alone is estimated to be more than $11 billion.