Jim Rossignol on apocalyptic scenarios:

A common interpretation of apocalypse in fiction is that it represents the author’s wishes to radically change or destroy himself: by obliterating everything that makes him what he is, perhaps, he is reincarnating himself, what he has become, or what was going to be. What does it mean, then, when the default view of the future for a large part of any given society is an apocalyptic one? Are we trying to find a way to express a need for change?