End of World Scenarios are Multiplying

Would you believe this could end the human race?

This was a headline that I spotted this morning:  "Could This End the Human Race?"  Are you guessing I was watching Fox News? No, that was The Weather Channel.  Were they referring to global warming?  Of course not, commercial media have gone silent now for several years about global warming.  They were referring to a solar flare, which they were calling a solar tornado.  And, according to the video presenter, Matt Sampson of weather.com, if this solar flare erupted on Earth, it could wipe out the human race.

http://www.weather.com/video/could-this-end-the-human-race-37304

It seems that no exaggeration is too great any more in the quest for attention grabbing headlines.  Especially on the internet, where mouse clicks result in advertising revenue. As you might expect, when you click this headline you first get a short advertisement just before you find out if the human race is really about to be wiped out. In my case, the ad was about making sure your dog is emotionally healthy.  Of course my dog is emotionally healthy, he does not read headlines like "Could This Wipe Out the Entire Shit-zu Race?" before his first coffee of the morning.

Now lets get back to reality for a second, just in case you were worried, too. A solar tornado cannot happen on Earth, for many reasons.  I will not bother to explain all of them, but suffice it to say that if the surface of planet Earth was like the normal, average surface of the sun, for only ten minutes,  with or without the solar "tornado", all life on earth (not just the human race) would also be wiped out.

Underneath the video are buttons for viewers to express their reaction.  You can choose from  A. Unbelievable B. Terrifying C. Crazy.  Apparently you are not allowed to choose D. "Are you kidding me?"

What bothers me the most about these headlines is that we have now seen from years of surveys, that about 18% of people believe anything they see on TV, newspapers or the internet.  That 18% is the irreducible stupidity element, or I.S.E., and that percent is big enough to swing elections.  It is also big enough to hamper our education system, clog our justice system, water down our health care system, and create mayhem with our traffic system.  They should not be encouraged.

Here is another result for my search for "End of the Human Race".  It's Montana Steam Power Co, that provides emergency electric generators in case the grid goes down, which as they say, will also result in the end of the human race. Unless somebody buys one of these steam generators.

http://www.montanasteampower.com/

Picture: It's pretty obvious that a robot uprising is more likely to wipe out the human race than either of the first two alternatives.
http://news.mindprocessors.com/technology-news/risk-of-robot-uprising-wiping-out-human-race-to-be-studied/