There's always a market for these kinds of people. They used to mostly be religious leaders predicting doom because of the latest social trend or local issue. I remember reading an archived letter from the middle ages by a British religious leader and he predicted the collapse of society after witnessing the Norman invasions and border raids happening. Some churches got looted and he saw it as an end times, a signal of a wider cultural decay. A line once crossed it will be impossible to come back from.

These days the internet news junkies are writing those letters.

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dash2 a day ago | parent | next [-]

The Norman invasion pretty much did collapse society - there were years of rebellions and the old Saxon order was brutally wiped out. (There's a nice Rest Is History series on this, centred on 1066.)

	▲	dmix 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe in a local historical sense but in a more meta, 'trends of history' thing it largely converged back into the middle once power stabilized, looking very similar to old power structures. Plus the church very much survived and became stronger.

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bobthepanda 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A lot of times they still are religious leaders. How many times in the past have people predicted the Rapture and tried to con people based off that belief?