The day may be coming when I just have to stop reading the Scott Rasmussen weekly polls. Some of them are simply too depressing. Take for example this week’s survey, where respondents were asked whether or not they thought humanity might meet its final curtain call in the near future. Say, ten to fifteen years or so. Sure, I realize that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says stuff like this on a regular basis, but rational people aren’t falling for it, are they?

Just goes to show how wrong you can be, I suppose. Among voters age 35 and under, more than half thought that it was at least somewhat likely.

Over the next 10-15 years, 29% of all voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that the earth will become uninhabitable and humanity will be wiped out. A ScottRasmussen.com national survey found that 71% disagree and find it unlikely.

The totals include 10% who consider it Very Likely and 37% who say Not at All Likely.

There is a dramatic difference by age on this question. Half (51%) of voters under 35 believe it is at least somewhat likely humanity will be wiped out in the next decade or so. Only 12% of senior citizens agree (and only 4% of seniors believe it is Very Likely).

Older people are probably more likely to brush this off because we’ve lived through a variety of claims that humanity was about to be wiped out. They generally come along every decade or two. I’m old enough to remember when global cooling was going to kill us all as a new ice age rushed in. Then there was the threat of a nuclear war. Later came the Y2K bug.

And for some reason, a bunch of people believed that the Mayan calendar predicted the end of the world Dec. 21, 2012. As it turned out, the only we wound up getting around that date was a second term for Obama. (Arguably pretty bad, but humanity still soldiered on.)

If you dig deeper into the crosstabs on this survey, you’ll find even more disturbing things young people aged 18-34 currently believe. 53% think combatting climate change requires a larger commitment by our nation than World War 2. 28% said that in order to protect the environment we need to eliminate capitalism. A full third (33%) are in favor of having the government limit the number of children a family can have.

Ah, to be young and full of enthusiasm, eh? Always look on the bright side of life, as the Monty Python troupe said in Life of Brian.