Get an Early Warning for the Apocalypse – Things Are Good

If you’re worried about an impending apocalypse then this is the app for you! The Apocalypse Early Warning System is an art project created by Kyle McDonald that is a commentary on the inequities of wealth. The ultra-wealthy tend to have insider information on global events so Kyle figured that if there were to be an apocalypse then the ultra wealthy would be amongst the first to know. And what would the wealthy do? They would flee to their bunkers using their private jets, so the early warning system simply uses private jet flight data to let commoners know that the elite are up to something.

It’s a neat art project that makes wealth inequality clear in a way that we can all understand.

In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime. The current emergency level is reported on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being an indicator of a likely imminent apocalypse.
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For this app, business jets are a fixed aircraft cohort selected from public aircraft metadata by ICAO hex. The filter looks for jet records whose manufacturer, model, or ICAO type matches common business-jet families such as Citation, Gulfstream, Falcon, Global, Challenger, Learjet, Phenom, Praetor, HondaJet, PC-24, Hawker, Beechjet, Eclipse, and Vision Jet. It excludes aircraft marked military and obvious airliners or regional airliners such as Boeing 7xx, Airbus A3xx/A2xx, CRJ airline variants, ERJ/EMB regional jets, MD/DC aircraft, and other large transport categories. It is a practical type-based cohort, not proof of private ownership, passenger identity, or trip purpose.