The End Of Capitalism? What Lies Ahead?

So what if capitalism survives this crisis as it did the others? In that case, I see two possible outcomes.

Option 1 is that the world literally comes to an end, either because of catastrophic climate change or nuclear warfare. The planet fries, the seas boil, and all life ceases, including humanity.  [Given these apocalyptic risks, can we really afford NOT to start throwing virgins into volcanoes?] This possibility is too horrific for me to imagine. I also happen to think it’s less likely than the second.

Flashback - The Aztec Solution

Aztecs believed their cultural continuity depended on sacrifice: “All life exists because of the gods. Their sacrifices gave us life and sustenance. We must repay them through sacrifice.” Central to their apocalyptic worldview was a sense of sacred obligation, possibly similar to our concern for the environment. The Aztec word for debt repayment, nextlahualli, was also a metaphor for human sacrifice. Without constant sacrifices the Aztecs believed the sun would become “angry”, temperatures would rise, corn yields decline and their world would be threatened with imminent destruction.
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According to Bernardino de Sahagun (1540–85), victims were taken to the top of a teocalli and laid on a stone slab. The abdomen was sliced open with a ceremonial flint knife. The still-beating heart was pulled out by priests. It was placed in a bowl held by a statue of the honoured god and the body was thrown down the temple stairs. The Aztecs sacrificed 80,400 prisoners in just four days during their 1487 re-consecration of Tenochtitlan’s Great Teocalli.