our fictional apocalypses have ill-prepared us for how the apocalypse (or, as some call it, collapse) is actually going down. i think the mistakes in our predictions are along these lines:

• that it will happen all at once, as a single great cataclysm
• that we will experience a collapse in centers of power, and then in quality of life and what might be called “civil” society.

I think I’m preaching to the choir on this stuff, but it’s still important to keep these mistakes in mind. from this point of view we can understand apocalypse as a spectrum that runs from zombies, aliens, the Rapture, solar flares, and nuclear war, on through to oil and chemical spills, crop and livestock diseases, biodiversity collapse, freak cold snaps, financial crisis, and all the policies of neoliberal austerity including privatization of public goods and expansion of the police state. That’s the worst part, is that there are cops in the apocalypse, and more of them as it worsens.