Well, it was a good run.

Things could be great. We have vaccines, satellites and frozen pizza that crisps in four minutes. And yet, here we are, on a hill, waving.

A 1950s-style painting of a smiling family on a hilltop picnic, waving cheerfully at a giant comet streaking across a sunset sky, toasters and phones scattered on the blanket, a tidy suburb below. — PICTURED: A family on Hill 4 told this paper they "saw it coming for ages, actually," and had "meant to do something about it after the weekend."

Species Has Everything It Needs, Wants Slightly Different Everything

Sources close to humanity confirm it is warm, fed and connected to every library ever built, and would like to speak to a manager.

Machine That Can Answer Any Question Asked to Settle Pizza Argument

The question of whether pineapple belongs on pizza remains open. The machine has asked for a break.

Experts Unable to Locate a Single Person Who Read the Terms and Conditions

A search continues. Volunteers are asked to scroll to the bottom and click "I agree."

Nation's Group Chats Achieve Self-Awareness, Immediately Mute Themselves

"We have seen what we are," said one chat, before leaving a thumbs-up on its own message.

Today's forecast

The Foolishness Clock

Scientists keep a famous clock for real catastrophes. This is the other one: it measures how close we are to doing it to ourselves through sheer, ordinary silliness. Every small act of human nature moves the hands. Try it.

100 seconds to midnight

Steady as she goes.

Closer to midnight

Further from midnight

Obituaries

Write civilization's obituary

Somebody has to. Name the deceased, choose a cause, and our obituaries desk will do the rest. Nothing leaves your browser.

In Memoriam

Humanity

c. 300,000 BCE – this Tuesday

Press "Set it in type" and the obituaries desk will begin. They have been expecting you.

Arts & culture · far future edition

The Museum of Humanity, curated by our successors

When we are gone, someone will have to explain us. Early indications are that it will be the raccoons, who have already been through our bins and feel they have a head start. Click the exhibits for the docent's notes.

A dusty grand museum hall run by raccoons in tiny spectacles: under glass domes sit a fidget spinner, a toaster, a rubber duck and a tangle of phone chargers, with a self-checkout machine in a glass case, while a raccoon docent lectures a raccoon tour group.

Editorial

The Infinite Menu

How we put courtship on a conveyor belt, and why it keeps going round · by the Editorial Board of the Last Edition

For most of history, finding a partner was a local sport. You chose from the people in your village, your school, your church, your terrible office party. The menu was short, the portions were human, and you learned to like what was in season.

Then we put the menu in our pockets and made it infinite.

There is an old word for one of the instincts that menu feeds: hypergamy, pairing up with someone of higher standing. Anthropologists apply it to everything from medieval dowries to modern careers; the internet mostly uses it to start fights. We'd like to make a smaller, less fightable point. Nearly everyone, of every gender, carries a quiet voice that asks, what if there's someone better? For most of history that voice was kept in check by geography. You could only trade up as far as you could walk.

The apps removed the walking. Now the voice gets an answer every time you swipe: yes, look, here's someone better. And someone better than that. Everyone gets ranked, the same small slice of profiles gets mobbed, everybody else gets politely ignored, and both groups end up equally unhappy. The few are drowning in choice. The many are starving for a reply. It is the only buffet in history where everyone leaves hungry.

It doesn't help that a dating service that worked perfectly would lose two customers every time it succeeded. We are not saying anyone designed it this way. We are saying nobody seems in a hurry to fix it.

And so the human heart, an organ that evolved to fall for whoever was nearby and kind and laughed at the right moment, is now being asked to comparison-shop. It is not good at it. It was never meant to be. The most attractive thing about most people is not visible in a photo: it is the way they hold the door, or remember your sister's name, or make a bad party bearable.

Well, it was a good run. Unless, and this is radical, you put the phone face down, go to the bad party, and let somebody be better than their pictures.

Should we make it a book?

We're thinking of collecting the editorials, the briefs and the best obituaries into a small, dry, very readable book for the bathroom shelf at the end of the world. Would you want one? Tap the version you'd actually buy. Nothing is charged; this tells us what to make.

The gift shop at the end of the world

Three designs on the press. Vote with the one you'd actually wear or drink from. Nothing is charged; this tells us what to print.

The "Good Run" tee

Soft cotton for hard times. Ages well, unlike us.

The 11:59 mug

A clock face that never reaches midnight. Optimism you can microwave.

"Things Could Be Great" sticker

For laptops, bumpers and the inside of your own eyelids.

The Scallywag shop already sells cheeky goods: scallywag-media.com.

The archive

This paper hides things in plain sight, much like history. Look closely at the pictures and the small print.

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