9 End Of The World Scenarios We’re All Secretly Worried About

As if contemplating your own mortality wasn’t terrifying enough, what would you do if all those end-of-the-world rumors suddenly came true and you were face to face with a terrorist alien brigade sent to clear the earth of human filth? These are the kinds of things that should absolutely be keeping you up at night, especially if you’re looking to increase your anxiety levels from those of a mere worrywart to a true Connoisseur of Concern.

Still think the world couldn’t end with you in it? Over half of the world-end scenarios on this list are scientifically plausible, meaning they could actually happen today. So find the key to the bomb shelter, clear out the canned food aisle at Costco, and tell your sister-in-law what you really think of her.

It’s time to get positively apocalyptic.

1. Zombies

The only thing worse than death-by-Zombie is actually becoming a Zombie yourself and eating all of your friends and family.
That, coupled with the gnarly way you have to walk and the freaky look you get in your eyes, and your final glance in the mirror of life is bound to be Ugly with a capital Ugh.

2. The Bible Gets Literal

Wouldn’t it suck if all that stuff in the Bible you thought was just metaphorical turned out to be absolutely, positively, and quite literally true?
If it is, we’re talking fire, brimstone, and a whole bunch of pissed off angels coming down to toss most of us into a fiery pit of despair – and all while your buddy who listens to Christian rap cackles from the sidecar of Jesus’s Harley.

3. Overpopulation

Here’s a little statistical food for thought:

• There are some 135 million people born every year, but only about 50 million die.
• The average woman in the country of Niger has eight babies. Eight!
• Oh, and our global population increased by four billion in the last 45 years alone.

The apocalypse scenario where we die by overpopulation looks a lot like the set of a Hunger Games film – killing your neighbor over a couple of berries, protecting the scorched earth from hostile land-pirates, and killing yourself, Romeo & Juliet-style, just to save your true love.

Okay, so maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.

4. Robot Wars

Programmers at Google recently developed Artificial Intelligence that’s smart enough to teach itself new things. As of right now, it’s a program, not a robot, but who’s to say it won’t teach itself to build a robot that will take over the world?

With so many convincing 90s Sci-Fi movies to consider, a robot takeover is pretty much inescapable at this point. Choose your side now and get ready for a battle to the death (or at least to the microchip).

5. Death By Superhuman

Speaking of robots, the only thing more terrifying than being dominated by a machine is being out-evolved by a superior race of superhumans.

The worst part is that the creation of these genetically superior superhumans is totally plausible right now thanks to genetic engineering and testing.

Transhumans will be stronger, faster, and more intelligent than we are. Even if they’re not evil, their super genes will quickly replace our weaker genes in a survival of the fittest-scenario that would make Darwin roll over in his grave.

6. Colony Attack

Remember that little war that happened in the late 18th century….what was the name….oh, yeah, the American Revolution? Where trusting Mother England sent off her best and brightest to colonize the New World, only to have her tea dumped in the Boston Harbor as a thanks?

Yeah, that could totally happen to us as a planet the second we send some bored former boy band members to go colonize Mars.

Before you know it, they’re gonna want Tempurpedic mattresses and really expensive Champagne sent over, and they won’t hesitate to attack Mother Earth to get it.

7. The Worst Flu Season Ever

So it turns out that your biggest risk during flu season is not that dribbly-nosed neighbor girl who never washes her hands with soap.

You’re actually more at risk from the gnarly microbes contained inside meteorites and comets, which could land on Earth and infect you with a space bug the likes of which your immune system has never seen.

Anxiety alert: scientists say that this scenario isn’t a matter of if, but when.

8. Sun Goes on Strike

Scientists are also predicting an apocalyptic phenomenon whereby the sun decides it’s sick of this whole ‘warming the Earth’ nonsense and figures it’s high time to shut down – um, forever.
And without the sun, we….[insert humanity and all life forms instantly withering away to nothing].

9. Killer Asteroids

We know enough to know when an asteroid is headed for Earth. That’s all well and good, but wouldn’t it be nicer to know how to get the hell out of the way?

In another when-not-if scenario, scientists predict that the Earth will be capsized by a giant, killer asteroid sometime in the next thousand years or so. I wonder if by that time the Transhumans will have genetically mutated themselves to withstand the storm.