Apocalypse how?

April 11, 2006 6:37 AM

Six Visions of the End: Fall Down Six Times, an essay by Ran Prieur, describes six possible scenarios for the near future: Worst Case ("Meanwhile computer technology keeps accelerating, leading by 2050 to an insane and nearly all-powerful artificial intelligence, which exterminates all life on Earth except a single human, who it keeps alive to torture for all eternity: you."), Ridiculous Best Case ("In 2016 Dean steps down and the new president is an anarchist who spends eight years peacefully dismantling the federal government and building local systems that make central control irrelevant and impossible."), Naive Sci-Fi Utopia ("Everyone can live forever, and have kids, and enjoy wide open spaces. No one is sure how this is possible, but it probably has something to do with the Mayan calendar or the word "quantum.""), and three others. Whether or not you agree with his vision, the exercise of imagining different futures is a useful one that might help us see a way through the multiple crises the Earth is going through. What does your apocalypse look like?
posted by spacewaitress (70 comments total)

Peak oil, bird flu, fiscal malfeasance catching up with us (America), healthcare cost crises, unnecessary and financially ruinous wars, police state, mad cow, housing bubble, erosion of the middle class to the point of elimination, and um... a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now. In no particular order.
posted by beth at 6:42 AM on April 11, 2006

How could I forget climate change and the 2038 unix time thingie?
posted by beth at 6:47 AM on April 11, 2006

He forgot about the space aliens.
posted by unreason at 6:57 AM on April 11, 2006

My apocalypse involves robots, of course.

Duh.
posted by grubi at 6:58 AM on April 11, 2006

Our only hope is that grubi's robots and beth's time thingie will cancel each other out.

(That seems unlikely though. Goddamn Microsoft battle robots.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:10 AM on April 11, 2006

We need to combine all of the different causes into one narrative, for the ultimate apocalypse.

So, President Bush gets into an oil war in Iran, which causes a nuclear war, which also causes massive flooding and accelerates global warming. The radiation causes tentacle laden killer mutants to appear, who fight us for domination of the Earth. All this ruckus pisses off the space aliens, who come in their flying saucers to kill us all by dropping a meteor on us and polluting the atmosphere. We build giant robots with lasers to fight the aliens with the aid of their metal claws and laser beams, but the robots turn on us and use us for food. Contrary to expectations, Keanu Reeves does not save us all. Just as the robots are about to win, it's the year 2012 and the Mayan apocolypse happens, and the gods appear to destroy the Earth. Before they can, Thor appears and starts drunkenly fighting with the other viking gods and giants and dragons and shit, distracting the Mayan gods, and the increasingly confused robots. The sun then explodes. The earth survives due to the pseudo-scientific efforts of poorly dubbed Japanese scientists, but the population is then mostly wiped out by a virus released by a doomsday cult that turns people into zombies. The remaining population then dies when the earth collides with Mars.
posted by unreason at 7:12 AM on April 11, 2006

unreason: I'd watch that movie.
posted by Leon at 7:14 AM on April 11, 2006

This guy really wants me to have a garden.
posted by mullacc at 7:16 AM on April 11, 2006

The anti-immigration rhetoric heats up enormously and all hispanics are expelled from the United States, legal or otherwise.

And nobody is left to make delicious tacos.
posted by I Love Tacos at 7:20 AM on April 11, 2006

Meanwhile computer technology keeps accelerating, leading by 2050 to an insane and nearly all-powerful artificial intelligence, which exterminates all life on Earth except a single human, who it keeps alive to torture for all eternity: you.

Cool - this is essentialy the plot to Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" which was made into an award winning adventure game in the early 90s.
posted by wfrgms at 7:24 AM on April 11, 2006

unreason I think you need to wedge Cthulhu in there somewhere.
posted by beth at 7:26 AM on April 11, 2006

unreason: I'd watch that movie.

I'd even watch the sequel. (I can't believe unreason would let all the humans die in the first movie.)
posted by three blind mice at 7:28 AM on April 11, 2006

The Future according to...
posted by Jart at 7:33 AM on April 11, 2006

WHere are the Alien Space Bats?
posted by paddbear at 7:33 AM on April 11, 2006

I'd even watch the sequel. (I can't believe unreason would let all the humans die in the first movie.)
posted by three blind mice at 10:28 AM EST on April 11 [!]

Ah, the sequel. Well, you see.......

Some humans escape from earth before it gets hit by Mars in a giant colony ship. Alien space pirates attack the ship, which goes of course and heads for a black hole. The ship is steered away from the black hole due to the explosions from all the explosive barrels being held in the cargo hold. The radiation from the black hole then causes the ship's passengers to change into two different races, both half-black and half-white. The guys with white on the right side get to fighting with the guys with white on the left side. Their magnetic weapons attract a meteor which contains alien parasites that feed on human flesh. The parasites then are killed by the ship's computer, which has gone mad from the meteor impact, and proceeds to vent its wrath on the passengers, by killing anybody who is over the age of 40 in a trippy 80's style pseudo-religious ceremony. The ship crash lands on a planet where frogs have evolved from Man. The frogs and the people and the computer and the parasites all fight for awhile, until all the fighting pisses off the fish-men, who summon the Lovcraftian fish-god Dagon. Nyarlathotep then shows up, all mad that someone besides him is ending the world, closely followed by Cthulhu. The Martians, who also had to leave their planet then interrupt the gods, start killing everyone with their Martian disintegrator beams and Xenu-given mind powers. Before they can finish the job, both they and humanity is killed by a strain of the Bird Flu.
posted by unreason at 7:46 AM on April 11, 2006

Jart: nice. There's also the Future according to R. Crumb.
posted by spacewaitress at 7:49 AM on April 11, 2006

I think unreason's stuff would work nicely into another season of Firefly. I think Joss Whedon would totally go for it.
posted by beth at 7:52 AM on April 11, 2006

I think Joss Whedon would totally go for it.
posted by beth at 10:52 AM EST on April 11 [!]

Only if the space ship was piloted by a mopy teenage girl who agonizes about the pressures of running the ship while maintaining her friendship with a group of wacky sidekicks.
posted by unreason at 7:58 AM on April 11, 2006

I remember reading a book from the 70's called "Six Visions of 2000". I think it was published by Omni. The neat part about it was that we were living in a combination of the best case, and second best case scenarios.

To be truthful though, the rest of them were really crappy Mad Max type future.

I'm also disappointed at some of his scenarios. It reminded me of this post from Worldchanging:

I think it has to do with vision. Even those of us who get it (who recognize that our civilization is impelled to change itself utterly or be utterly changed by forces beyond our control), and who believe that we can create instead a bright, green future (one which is both more prosperous and far more sustainable than our own) have a damn hard time telling people what such a future will look like. We can't build what we can't imagine, but very, very little good work is being done on imagining and portraying a future exciting and inspiring enough to fight for.

Even the best case version looks unappealing to me.
posted by zabuni at 7:58 AM on April 11, 2006

Some humans escape from earth before it gets hit by Mars in a giant colony ship.

I knew it, I just knew it.
posted by three blind mice at 8:03 AM on April 11, 2006

Excellent reading btw, thanks. I am going to learn gardening now.
posted by poppo at 8:04 AM on April 11, 2006

Excellent reading btw, thanks. I am going to learn gardening now.
posted by poppo at 11:04 AM EST on April 11 [!]


Or you could just learn how to beat up post-apocalyptic gardeners and steal their shit.
posted by unreason at 8:08 AM on April 11, 2006

zabuni: that sounds like a facsinating article to read. does anyone have access to that?
posted by ruwan at 8:09 AM on April 11, 2006

I'm going to sell guns, ammo, and vicious guard dogs to gardeners.
posted by beth at 8:10 AM on April 11, 2006

I prefer Exit Mundi for my depressing futures...
posted by Spacelegoman at 8:27 AM on April 11, 2006

From Everybody's An Expert—Putting Predictions to the Test:

...he measured his experts on two dimensions: how good they were at guessing probabilities (did all the things they said had an x per cent chance of happening happen x per cent of the time?), and how accurate they were at predicting specific outcomes. The results were unimpressive. On the first scale, the experts performed worse than they would have if they had simply assigned an equal probability to all three outcomes—if they had given each possible future a thirty-three-per-cent chance of occurring. Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world, in other words, are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys...

Now, for starters, if we could just get them all to face in the same direction.
posted by cenoxo at 8:33 AM on April 11, 2006

> those of us who get it (who recognize that our civilization is impelled to change itself
> utterly or be utterly changed by forces beyond our control),

I think we should all have a nice cup of tea and let the forces beyond our control do the heavy lifting. Especially since they will anyway.

posted by jfuller at 8:42 AM on April 11, 2006

But do you know how to plow?
posted by boo_radley at 8:44 AM on April 11, 2006

Snakes. They'll hijack one plane first. Then all of them.
posted by ninjew at 8:44 AM on April 11, 2006

Motherfuckin' snakes!

And robots!

And quite possibly zombies.
posted by grubi at 8:57 AM on April 11, 2006

ruwan: Sadly no. Pre-Internet, I found it moldering in the back corner of my high school library. I was the only person in a decade to check it out.

Further searches on the net have turned up nothing. At this point, I'm only half sure it was published by Omni.
posted by zabuni at 9:05 AM on April 11, 2006

But do you know how to plow?

Nice Connections reference.
posted by Optamystic at 9:11 AM on April 11, 2006

Just when it looks like everything everything has sorted itself out for the best, a seagull will crack open a long buried thermos of ice-9 and promptly tip over backwards into the Santa Monica surf.
posted by maryh at 9:23 AM on April 11, 2006

“...the new president is an anarchist who spends eight years peacefully dismantling the federal government and building local systems that make central control irrelevant and impossible.”

Look, I’ve said already that I will never run for office.

The only apocalypse I can see is stagnation. Pure inward focus. Sorta like the solopsism in 1984.
I suspect it would be worse to be an all powerful AI than to be the one being tortured by it. The lack of change is the only real ending. (I’m thinking Dante’s vision of the ninth circle of hell)
Torment and death of all life on earth? Amateur night in Dixie.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:24 AM on April 11, 2006

The future? Socialism or barbarism. I think that the situation in the Middle East has shown conclusively that technology has advanced beyond the point at which the third world can be controlled effectively by the first. Either humanity creates international socialism and global equality, or the clashes of the masses bring the house down. (Assuming that the environment holds out.)
posted by graymouser at 9:39 AM on April 11, 2006

The future? Pretty much like today. Except with more expensive fuel and cooler toys.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 9:48 AM on April 11, 2006

Robots, human excrement, and flies.
posted by homunculus at 10:18 AM on April 11, 2006

britney spears gets ahold of the nuclear football during a command white house performance and authorizes armageddon while her agents kidnap nanotechnical scientists who have discovered the secret of eternal life and excessive multi ovulation ... hunkered down in her underground bunker with a bunch of justin timberlake clones, she reproduces herself by giving birth every 10 minutes while singing her mating call, "oops, i did it again" ... thousands of britney and justin workers work at expanding the colony through out the earth, turning the planet into a supersized disneyland with lots of mcdonalds ... meanwhile the reptilian aliens and their leader, queen elizabeth ii, send for a rescue ship and drop a biological bomb into the pacific ocean which quickly turns the earth and everything in it into tofu ... centuries later, the few vegans who escaped in rocket ships return to earth to see what has happened and declare they have discovered paradise before they land and the little nano buggies turn them all into tofu

many thousands of years later, aliens discover one of the voyager space craft and follow the directions to our planet ... they attempt to turn the tofu into gold with a transmutation ray but fail, turning it into haggis instead

from an alternate universe, capt kirk and the starship enterprise arrive through a worm hole and marvel at the odd alternate earth they have discovered

"what ... what IS it, bones?" capt kirk asks

"it's tripe, jim ... but not as we know it"
posted by pyramid termite at 10:22 AM on April 11, 2006

In the future, the rich use the one-two punch of religion and xenophobia to maintain a status quo where a thin middle class enforces the exploitation of the poor for the profit of the rich.

Oh, wait.
posted by basilwhite at 10:37 AM on April 11, 2006

Bush Administration nukes Iran : WW3 ensues.
posted by troutfishing at 10:55 AM on April 11, 2006

Uh, trout? That's in the first line of the article.

I should have mentioned that the last scenario is the best part, IMO. Worth a read - if nothing else, skim the rest and scroll down.
posted by spacewaitress at 11:05 AM on April 11, 2006

You want to know what the future is? Watch Star Trek.

Star Trek is a documentary disguised as entertainment fiction made by time travelers.

Kirk is real, keep hope alive.
posted by Bonzai at 11:18 AM on April 11, 2006

Not my apocalypse exactly, but my dystopia.
posted by salvia at 11:25 AM on April 11, 2006

Spaceports will look exactly like airports.
posted by jfuller at 11:28 AM on April 11, 2006

"The world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet spiraling towards destruction, scientists said on Monday." -- Jeremy Lovell, Reuters, 1/31/06

(Those scientists! Always fearmongering!)
posted by salvia at 11:28 AM on April 11, 2006

I think you need to wedge Cthulhu in there somewhere

I hate it when someone says something and I think of too many possible responses, and then become paralyzed, unable to choose between them. If forced to choose, I'd probably go with the following, despite it being obvious:

MetaFilter: I think you need to wedge Cthulhu in there somewhere.
posted by sparkletone at 11:48 AM on April 11, 2006

Star Trek is a documentary disguised as entertainment fiction made by time travelers.

So Khan Noonien Singh is already in power over a third of Asia?
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2006

How could I forget climate change and the 2038 unix time thingie?
posted by beth at 8:47 AM CST on April 11 [!]

If we're still using Unix in 2038 then we deserve what we get.

The particular flavor of the apocalypse means nothing to me.

We all die.

It sucks.

The end.
posted by Ynoxas at 11:57 AM on April 11, 2006

Dude. We'll still be using UNIX in 2100. Maybe by then Linux will be usable.
posted by muppetboy at 12:33 PM on April 11, 2006

Apocalypse? It may already be happening. Scientists and journalists are going to keep us informed? Politicians are going to prepare for the worst?

The scary scenario is that we may hit a critical point in the chaotic equation that is our global climate and suddenly experience an order of magnitude faster change than anyone imagined possible. We will have been too busy patting outselves on the back for doing nothing about the situation to save ourselves. Could we really survive a runaway climate with an increase of a degree C every 5 years instead of every 50?
posted by muppetboy at 12:44 PM on April 11, 2006

> We will have been too busy patting outselves on the back for doing nothing
> about the situation to save ourselves.

As long as you're not being humanocentric about that "we."

On teh internets, no one knows you're a roach.
posted by jfuller at 12:57 PM on April 11, 2006

I figure by the time my kids have kids, more people will be farming at least some of their own food as in pre-industrial days, and in many cases providing local sources to supplement the shipped sources that inner-city folk generally buy -- in short, farming is going to become an important part of our economy again.

As for energy needs:

I suspect travel in all its forms (including shipping of goods, hence the economic incentives that will drive local farming activity) will become prohibitively expensive; rather than an increased dependence on public transportation, however, I predict most people will begin living very close to their work, rather than commuting on a daily basis. The exception to this will be the truly wealthy, who will not only continue to use the private transportation available to them (at excessive prices compared to today's standards), but will move to outlying areas and commute longer distances on the now relatively-empty roads as a symbol of their economic status. Kind of like suburban folks do now, but to a ludicrous degree.

Home heating/cooling and other home energy needs, on the other hand, will be primarily served through solar-power, as recent breakthroughs are improved and brought down to reasonable prices through manufacturing efficiency and increased yields. Certain specific power drains will go down significantly (refridgerator usage will drop, due to the easy availability of local food sources that are consumed while still fresh, and television power usage will drop significantly as LCDs become the norm rather than the exception.)

In short, we'll take a few steps backward in conveniences, and a few steps forward in technology, and within a generation or two everyone will have adjusted.

Or at least this is the story I will tell my kids so that they don't freak out at night.
posted by davejay at 1:29 PM on April 11, 2006

Maybe by then Linux will be usable.

I'm using Linux right now. I AM THE FUTURE!
posted by davejay at 1:31 PM on April 11, 2006

I’ll be fine with my V-8 Interceptor.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:20 PM on April 11, 2006

*snaps mouse trap on testicles*

*no longer even slightly concerned with the apocalypse*
posted by Smedleyman at 3:07 PM on April 11, 2006

It's funny how all these visions involve the American government being the only evil force in the world.
posted by Krrrlson at 3:09 PM on April 11, 2006

What does your apocalypse look like?

The whole world having a collective breakdown, simultaneous and writ large. Incomparable and incomprehsible madness, everywhere. Forget fuel and seeds, I'm stocking up on sanity.

But thats the boring part. The notion of Apocalypse is pretty straightforward (i.e. failing systems collapse) whatever mannner it manifests. It's what happens afterwards (new systems arise) that is interesting.
posted by MetaMonkey at 4:02 PM on April 11, 2006

Author Dan Simmons recently shared his account of the Time Traveler's warning of the impending Century War with Islam.

“Ahmadenijad,” he said softly. “Natanz. Arak. Bushehr. Ishafan. Bonab. Ramsar.”

“Those words don’t mean a damned thing to me,” I said as I scribbled them down phonetically. “Where are they? What are they?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the Time Traveler.

“Are you talking about . . . what? . . . the next fifteen or twenty years?” I said.

“I’m talking about the next fifteen or twenty months from your now,” he said softly. “Do you want more words?”

I didn’t. But I couldn’t speak just then.

“General Seyed Reza Pardis,” intoned the Time Traveler. “Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three. Tel Aviv. Baghdad International Airport, Al Salem U.S. airbase in Kuwait, Camp Dawhah U.S. Army base in Kuwait, al Seeb U.S. airbase in Oman, al Udeid U.S. Army and Air Force base in Qatar. Haifa. Beir-Shiva. Dimona.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. “Oh, Jesus.” I had no clue as to who or what Shehab One, Two, or Three might be, but the context and litany alone made me want to throw up.

“This is just the beginning,” said the Time Traveler.

“Wasn’t the beginning on September 11, 2001?” I managed through numb lips.

The one-eyed scarred man shook his head. “Historians in my time know that it began on June 5, 1968,” he said. “But it hasn’t really begun for you yet. For any of you.”

posted by Tubes at 4:58 PM on April 11, 2006

♥ oh, Optamystic, will you internet marry me?
posted by boo_radley at 5:27 PM on April 11, 2006

Good post. Thanks.
posted by pompomtom at 6:07 PM on April 11, 2006

Zombies!!!


and I am prepared for their onslaught.
posted by Megafly at 6:43 PM on April 11, 2006

Apocolypse? Good grief ... the world has been getting (relatively speaking) better and better for larger and larger proportions of the poulations since recorded history began.

The odd thing about our species is that virtually every generation produces some minor (but vocal) ideological stream that argues that the (insert apocolypse du jour) will mean the end of all life and/or the death of all pleasure.

And yet, still we are here, and striving, and hoping, and (in a shocking number of cases, regardless of our race, creed, sex, or national origin) just diggin' being alive.

My prediction? There is no horrible end we'll reach 20, or 40, or 60 years from now ... rather, there is the (usual) minority of fools (as there has always been) that want to predict such things ... but none of them are ever right ... and we just keep on - as a species - trying to figure out how to have freer, more enriching, more spectacular times on this lovely blue marble.
posted by MidasMulligan at 6:49 PM on April 11, 2006

it's funny that the "ridiculous best case" scenario is more or less another medieval period... fall of the empire, diminished populations, small static communities without much travel or technology.

also still strikes me as odd that people are so comfortable with a 'happily ever after' belief, like we'll just hit a right answer and then stop having ideas or movements. That's why anarchy is so naive - sure, maybe most people will be happy to live & let live: but the point of government is to have ways to deal with that (whatever) percent who will go against that (whether thru petty theft or military conquest - and of course this becomes more likely when drought or disease affects resources, but it can stem from boredom or grandiosity, too).
posted by mdn at 7:18 PM on April 11, 2006

...it began on June 5, 1968...


posted by cenoxo at 8:12 PM on April 11, 2006

My prediction? There is no horrible end we'll reach 20, or 40, or 60 years from now ... rather, there is the (usual) minority of fools (as there has always been) that want to predict such things ... but none of them are ever right ...

I want to be wrong so bad I can taste it. Please, let me be wrong. I was wrong about y2k - so utterly, blessedly wrong.

I'm just starting into the Easter Island section of Collapse by Jared Diamond. I'll bet there was some dude back then on that island talking about how everything was going to be sunshine and roses and gigantic statues forever.

"It's a big island! We have plenty of trees! Quit worrying!"

... fast forward X years....

"The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth!"
posted by beth at 8:39 PM on April 11, 2006

Doesn't the approaching Singularity moot all of these predictions?
posted by ereshkigal45 at 8:44 PM on April 11, 2006

Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.

chicago cubs win?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:11 PM on April 11, 2006

The trouble with this singularity thing is that is wholly unthinkable. Humanity has a lot of practice worrying about war/famine/pestilence style Apocalypses, but the singularity is (by its very nature) inconceivable. I'd like to believe in the singularity, tech and sci-fi fan that I am, but despite Kurzweil's efforts, it is a very hard concept to buy into - many of the assumptions seem rather questionable.

Yet the idea of the unstoppable march of exponential or hyperbolic 'progress' is compelling, certainly given recent history. The problem is the concept is just too frickin nuts; infinite what now? upload who? My bet is they've got their numbers wrong, and that we won't be bothered by supra-human intelligence for a good while to come. I suspect 50 years from now the singularity predictions will seem a lot the 1950's future predictions for the year 2000 - ubiquitous robots and obligatory flying cars.

But the singularityists do make the very good point that we are going to make some kick-ass technology. I fully expect to play computer games with thought alone any decade now. Peak oil may well be mitigated by new energy technology, maybe the Z machine, maybe something no-one has thought of yet. Not to mention the connectedness of the humanity. Thats the kicker for me, the ability of so many people to communicate so easily. Barring total meltdown, the internet is going to (continue) revolutionising knowledge in ways we daren't dream.

Perhaps then a hybrid apocalypse - a bit of the old fashioned war and plague, but concurrent with radical shifts in energy, ai and nano-technology that render lack of resources irrelevant. With such technology and massive human collaboration and communication, assuming we survive the initial experimentation, new systems of organisation would inevitably emerge, displacing existing economic and social systems. With some luck we could work out a way stabilize and even reverse the damage done to the ecosystem, and maybe even figure out how to stop people dying of hunger. This process would be a very fair approximation of an Apocalypse, being a pretty much total shift in global organisation.
posted by MetaMonkey at 10:02 PM on April 11, 2006

ereshkigal45: The singularity is a wonderful concept, but I suspect the truely world-changing event for our lifetime will be not be made by a computer. After that era, all bets are off!

In the future, the rich use the one-two punch of religion and xenophobia to maintain a status quo where a thin middle class enforces the exploitation of the poor for the profit of the rich.

Oh, wait.
basilwhite wins!
posted by uni verse at 12:42 PM on April 12, 2006

MetaMonkey: The trouble with this singularity thing is that is wholly unthinkable. Humanity has a lot of practice worrying about war/famine/pestilence style Apocalypses, but the singularity is (by its very nature) inconceivable. I'd like to believe in the singularity, tech and sci-fi fan that I am, but despite Kurzweil's efforts, it is a very hard concept to buy into - many of the assumptions seem rather questionable.

The Achiles Heel in singularity theory is that it relies on a rather linear and simplistic model of the relationship between technology and society, rather than a systems model involving feedback loops.

Peak oil may well be mitigated by new energy technology, maybe the Z machine, maybe something no-one has thought of yet.

Just as an example, many of the technologies (and the singularity cultists have a narrow definition of the term) that will probably be used to mitigate problems with peak oil are at least a century old. The two babies of the group are photovoltaic and nuclear fission. But the industrial revolution was built on wind and water before it turned to coal. Urban planning for efficiency goes back 200 years with DC as one of the first planned cities. Passive solar goes back to the bronze age.

Cultures chose to innovate those technologies they find valuable, and leave stagnant those technologies they don't. As a result, disruptive techologies are something of a myth. They need some patron with the power to force implementation.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 1:16 PM on April 12, 2006