Whenever that certain special brand of blatant disregard for authority (nihilism) runs rampant in cultural consciousness; coupled with an adolescent stunt in growth from misdirected angst; the collective will eventually arrive at a point of mutual loss of meaning (toxio-memetic critical mass) wherein only the belief in self-annihilation restores purpose to everyday life. There is a recursive loop effect of belief feeding reality here at the level where the hope for a seemingly hopeless future allows the collective to live out its wildest desires with the safety net that tomorrow may not arrive. Faith in certain destruction. What could possibly be sexier?
Obviously, any culture at any time can be said to have access to this mutual belief in a time-limit on cosmic cycles, but what separates the average civilization from one that has invested mutual belief in an apocalypse is measured by the level of liberation that flowers from that belief. We might view the apocalyptic mindset as a causological agency which will serve to either liberate individuals expansively or further repress them. When the collective operates in this state of mind the actions of its civilizations will consistently become the focus of prophetic fulfillment in mysticism because (of course) only severely sexually repressed religious fuckers would poison the future of collective consciousness with a viral neuro-linguistic sequence such as grandiose meaning in catastrophic events and science fantasy world endings to offer proof of god and truth beyond death.
All of this is a direct result of the overweening materialism and chemical decadence and ethical ignorance and serious fun inherent to civilizations stuck in this mindset, clinging to some indeterminate eschatology. Some of us perform best under the pressure of a deadline. Some of us do our best work the night before it is to be presented or released (i.e. consumed by others). We should extend this behavioral metaphor outwards to the collective as an entity which does not respond to carrots dangling in front of them (promises), but does respond to being chased by rabid dogs (threats). Individuals develop judgments about the nature of reality based on experiential conditioning. We've yet to witness any mutual ontologies that weren't fostered, in part, by solipsism, spiritual scapegoating, and outright bullshit.