• Berlin
  • Konrad Werner: Hot fiery death from the sky

Berlin

Konrad Werner: Hot fiery death from the sky

Just because Mayan Armageddon isn't going to happen today, doesn't mean you shouldn't be paranoid. In fact, according to the German government, you're not paranoid enough. Not by a long shot.

Image for Konrad Werner: Hot fiery death from the sky
Photo courtesy of NASA/GSFC/SDO

Just because Mayan Armageddon isn’t going to happen today, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paranoid. In fact, according to the German government, you’re not paranoid enough. Not by a long shot.

One of the many pieces of official advice provided by the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) is that you should have two weeks’ worth of provisions in your home at all times. “Keep in mind that you should store food that you can also eat cold in an emergency,” it adds, pointedly. The government also recommends that you store medication in your home, including pain killers, laxatives, and charcoal tablets. How are you doing for charcoal tablets? Plus you are supposed to have emergency luggage to hand, in case of a quick evacuation. That includes a radio, a waterproof document bag, and basically a complete set of camping gear.

In short, you really can’t be paranoid enough about the End of Days. If you followed all the government’s disaster assistance advice, you might become a shivering neurotic wreck, but then again, you might also recover from that psychological car-crash when the giant solar flare fries all the electricity and telecommunications networks in the northern hemisphere and the nuclear power stations all explode. You’ll be laughing then, just like everyone is laughing today at the Dutch guy who built a submarine.

But the government also has to strike a balance. They have a duty to give you advice about laxative awareness, of course, but although it offers this advice, you’ll notice from the above that the authorities never get into specifics about what could actually happen. That’s because they also have to make sure you don’t panic and hide in a hole when you find out. For example, the governments of the world never tell you much about their Electric Infrastructure Security Summit, which they have been holding for three years now. Here, congressmen, senators, and cabinet ministers meet and discuss things like “Severe Space Weather” and “Electromagnetic Pulse attacks” (EMPs) – in other words, the apocalypse. The Mayans never said anything about that shit.

Watch this video – it’ll make you rush out and stock up on charcoal tablets.