We are almost extinct -5minutefreewrite

For https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@daily.prompt/mariannewests-freewrite-writing-prompt-day-2095-we-are-almost-extinct
We are almost extinct. I saw a cartoon a few years ago that visualized our odds as a species... not based on any facts about the environment, but simply taking as a given that we were somewhere in the middle of our existence as a species. It figures we have a 95% chance of being in the last 95% of humanity.

So we've been around for 300,000 years. And times 20, that's 6 million years. So we'll probably all die off... That's not the thing I saw. Well now I have to look it up.

Anywhoodles, isn't it exciting that we're at the beginning of the apocalypse? I'm talking extreme weather events, devastating oppression, occasional hollywood scandals

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is just there to distract us.

I mean, sometimes they intersect. Like the hollywood scandals are occasionally because a famous person intersects the oppressive regime.

But also sometimes it's like "what a funny name for a baby" or "look who was shoplifting"

But sometimes it's even more insidious! Like "famous place got robbed" and the conclusion is "pay more for police" when the real answer is "make people not poor"

Like, there was a series of stories about some shops on Rodeo drive getting robbed. Famous and stuff, you know? But, like, big deal? It got more coverage than anything about all the poison in the soil that are daily added there by corporations who aren't sufficiently regulated and/or who ignore the regulations, playing the game of "profit until we get in trouble, worry about it later."

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-exide-what-we-know-20170806-htmlstory.html

Found the cartoon... which isn't a cartoon
https://what-if.xkcd.com/65/#:~:text=If%20our%20population%20levels%20out,This%20is%20the%20Doomsday%20Argument.&text=Almost%20everyone%20who%20hears%20this,wrong%20for%20a%20different%20reason.