The Apocalypse That Never Comes: Why Are We Fascinated by the End of the World?

"Everyone, deep in their hearts, hopes that the end of the world will come someday," said Haruki Murakami, and perhaps the legendary Japanese writer is right. Morrissey, the iconic lead singer of The Smiths, pleaded in his song Everyday is Like Sunday: "Come, come, nuclear bomb." The fascination with the end seems to have woven itself into our history, a permanent desire to witness the great collapse. Personally, I feel that the world ends and is reborn every night; at eleven, it shuts down, and at four-thirty in the morning, it revives. An eternal cycle, like an orgasm: the climax is reached, and a moment later, it starts again.

As a child, my mother used to tell me stories from her grandmother about the end of the world. She said that since the early 1900s, there were already rumors about the apocalypse. In my youth, I remember the Cold War and that tense idea that everything would end in a nuclear missile exchange between the great powers. They said Monterrey, being home to one of Latin America’s most important steel mills, was in the crosshairs of a missile. The steel mill went bankrupt years later, and in its place today is a lovely park where I sometimes ride bikes with my family. Ironic, isn’t it?

Thirty-five years ago, political scientist Francis Fukuyama ventured to predict “the end of history” after the once-unthinkable fall of communism. Perhaps the excitement of that event, which had once seemed impossible, led him to believe that time itself had surrendered. But history didn’t end; as Karl Marx pointed out, it only began to repeat itself, first as tragedy, then as comedy. Fukuyama didn’t realize the KGB had already ensured its return in a more pragmatic form, free of ideological ties. Fukuyama’s audacity brought him glory, then harsh criticism; few have risked as much as he did—"skin in the game," as Nassim Nicholas would say.

Today, every time a conflict breaks out in the Middle East, the South China Sea, or Eastern Europe, "prophets" emerge eagerly proclaiming the end of the world. We love the drama; no one wants to miss the chance to be announcers of the apocalypse. Even with that, "FOMO" ends up winning us over. But as my mother used to say, the world won’t end before time forgets us. First, it will be our existence that ends, long before the world stops spinning.

Just a few years ago, talk began about the start of a "Third World War." This "war" has been rather silent. Some say it’s a trade war between the United States and China; others point to a cyberwar, with hackers from Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Has it already begun? I don’t think so. Instead, dynamics have changed. After years of globalization, the United States and China distanced themselves during the pandemic, but both know that a total separation would be a catastrophe they’ll avoid at all costs. Still, there are constant tensions: a conflict in Ukraine, another in Taiwan, yet another in Israel.

And then there’s the famous artificial intelligence. Some claim it will destroy us. Grimes and Elon Musk, for example, found common ground in discussing its dangers. Musk warns us to be cautious, but at the same time, he uses his social network, X, to train his AI, Grok. Probably, the first time someone used a rock as a weapon, they thought that tool would destroy humanity. Today, AI is our creation, and it’s still at a stage where we can shape it to build a better future. AI, like all tools, depends on us. And I can assure you, it’s still not writing things as entertaining or mind-blowing as this.

So, will the world end soon? I don’t think so. History—this eternal repetition—seems to have no end in sight. We’re trapped in a cycle that repeats itself, over and over, and perhaps that very cycle is our true end.