I visited a squat recently - they had a sign on the door saying, "phone this number to come in."
I figured why not? Might be interesting to have a look around.

There were 4 people in there - most of them basically OK, a couple of trustafarian girls, some guy who'd lost his job in IT and had a bit of a breakdown then there was the leader.

He quizzed me on how to stop the authorities reading his email - we talked a bit about Tor and VPN and then he told me his theory on what was going on.

Poleshifts. The north pole becoming the south pole and the south the north. This will cause massive climate change - and the current climate issues are wobbles building up to the biggy. The authorities know this is going to happen and are preparing for it. They've buried silos of seed underground, and the current creeping fascist state is there to lockdown the populace in preparation.

The authorities aren't necessarily evil - they are possibly doing what they think is best for the survival of humanity as a whole but in the chaos it's likely most of the population will be killed. Food shortages.

He advised the best thing is to get some land where you can support yourself and also in an area where the Earth crust was thick - like Africa.

I bumped into this guy again recently and he said hello. I literally ran away. OMG MY CHILDREN ARE RUNNING INTO THE ROAD SORRY.
( rob, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 9:43, 14 replies)

This is what people can get like when they smoke too much dope, unfortunately

(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 9:47, closed)

Ummm, he's kinda right
the magnetic field flips approx every 150,000 years, the process taking around 2-3 thousand. when this does happen there is gonna be huge amounts of radiation which will kill quite a lot of life and cause huge amounts of cancerous growth in everything left.
Should happen in the next couple of thousand years. The best bet would probably be to build huge underground bunkers for people to live in while the process happens.The bit about climate change and the government is bollocks though.
(Buftoon posted this on, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 10:26, closed)

There are seed banks too.
In case of crop disease, disaster or whatever.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 10:32, closed)

well yes
but the point of the conspiracy thinking is turning it into a narrative.
( rob, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 10:34, closed)

Piffle.
There's no demonstrated correlation between polar reversal and past major extinctions.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 11:50, closed)

good use of the word piffle.
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 12:20, closed)

I toyed with "poppycock" but I thought that was overstating it a trifle.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 12:31, closed)

On Stilts
You could safely use poppycock without it being to exaggerated so long as you refrained from throwing in the stilts. That would be too much.
(justin(e), Fri 2 Dec 2011, 12:55, closed)

It took me a while to see it....
www.thisiskent.co.uk/beat-walk-streets/story-11982613-detail/story.html
(dchurch bah, Sun 4 Dec 2011, 11:05, closed)

Quite
The frequency of polar reversals is far greater than that of what are considered to be major extinctions.
(rockdoctor, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 13:24, closed)

^This^
Even allowing that an increase of solar radiation would cause an increase of cancers, these would only be a threat to the creatures that develop them. As long as those creatures manage to reproduce before dying - and there's precious little reason to suppose that any tumours would be a particular impediment to that - the species would be just dandy. Hence no extinctions.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 16:27, closed)

Why would it
create radiation?
(username failed moderation, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 13:00, closed)

The Earth's magnetic field protects us from some radiation.
As the field flips, its protective effect will diminish and perhaps disappear.

Nonetheless, I seem to recall working out that you would be entirely protected from the increase in radiation that would reach the Earth's surface by remaining indoors.
(Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 13:03, closed)

Some sort of hat might be in order?

( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Fri 2 Dec 2011, 14:48, closed)