It’s not the end of NotQuiteProfitable.com. Don’t get your hopes up.
If you have paid attention, you will have noticed by now that our corporation is focused on making a profit while consistently failing to do so. In fact, we have failed so consistently that we are at work on a series of articles on business plans that we have tried and where we have failed miserably. It’s quite a list.
This post is an update on one particular business that we considered but never even got around to developing into a full-fledged business plan. The central idea for this business venture was that there was big money to be made in the “end times” business. Considering the movies, books, magazine articles and television programs devoted to the recent Mayan calendar fiasco, we thought there might be a lucrative opportunity for us.
Unfortunately we ran into two major problems. The first is that this ground has been plowed by many others before we got here. There are not only journalists making a living off our fears of the end of the world. It seems there is no end to the creativity that can be applied to the apocalypse.
There is a company that is apparently building a network of shelters and marketing places in these shelters. Their web site warns you against cheap alternatives.
- “These flimsy, low-cost shelters will not protect you from the anticipated forces of a nearby nuclear blast, a series of severe earthquakes, intermittent submersion from a tsunami, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) blast, a CME (coronal mass ejection), extreme surface temperatures, flooding, a pole shift, the shockwave from an asteroid impact and resulting fallout, biological attack and/or pathogens, a super volcanic eruption and the ash blanket to follow, or even an armed attack from potential marauders.” ((from http://www.terravivos.com))
You can’t make this stuff up. Honest. We’ve tried.
We found several dating services to help you meet other “survivalist singles”. If you believe the world will come to an end within months, you don’t have to be concerned about whether your potential soul mate has any bad habits that will get on your nerves in a few years. Neither of you will be here in a few years so why worry? Then again, this is a choice you had better make correctly the first time since you will not have time to go back and try again.
The second problem we encountered ((You were paying attention several paragraphs ago when we mentioned there were two major problems weren’t you?)), is that most people have seen through the foolishness that some authors are trying to peddle. While there have been fortunes made in the last few years, we hope more people are seeing that “left behind” is not a description of our possible future. “Left Behind” might be better understood as describing some individuals progress through elementary school.
In the end ((pun intended)), we decided that even if there was money to be made here, we would be unable to cash in on the fears of the gullible. Our moral high ground may be an ant hill, but here we stand.
On the off chance that you are interested in a good book about the book of Revelation, check this out.