---
title: How The World Ends, According To MBSE
description: Introduction The apocalypse is approaching rapidly, according to a wide variety of media outlets. It is therefore the first responsibility of the systems engineering community to model it correctly. In a technical note published entirely coincidentally on April Fool’s Day, we contribute to that important work. Links to the technical note and downloadable SysML models
---

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# [How The World Ends, According To MBSE](https://intercax.com/blog/2017/04/01/how-the-world-ends-according-to-mbse)

 Written by [Dirk Zwemer](https://intercax.com/blog/author/dirk) | Apr 01, 2017

## Introduction

The apocalypse is approaching rapidly, according to a wide variety of media outlets. It is therefore the first responsibility of the systems engineering community to model it correctly. In a technical note published entirely coincidentally on April Fool’s Day, we contribute to that important work. Links to the technical note and downloadable [SysML](http://omgsysml.org) models are available at the end of the post.

## Modeling How The World Ends

In Figure 1, we model potentially world-ending threats in terms of three factors, the source or origin of the threat, the nature of the threat, and the target of the threat.

<https://intercax.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Basic-structure-of-the-End-of-the-World-1.png>

###### *Figure 1 Basic structure of the End of the World*

In Figure 2, we show a variety of threats, ranging from Asteroid Strike to Singularity, the subordination of humanity to artificial intelligence.

<https://intercax.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/threats-to-the-end-of-the-world-1.png>

###### *Figure 2 Threats*

Having specified the possible threats, MBSE also provides means to quantify them. The SysML model created includes parametric diagrams where we calculate the normalized risk of a threat, the product of its risk of occurrence, coverage of population and impact. The model recognizes that threats are not uncorrelated, for example, even a limited nuclear war may give rise to climate change through global cooling. Figure 3 shows a solved instance for this scenario, with the comforting result that total cumulative risk per decade is no greater than 2.6%.

<https://intercax.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Cumulative-risk-of-nuclear-war-and-climate-change-end-of-the-world-1.png>

###### *Figure 3 SysML parametric analysis, cumulative risk of limited nuclear war and climate change*

**Technote:** [How the World Ends](https://intercax.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/How-the-World-Ends-Technote.pdf)

[View full post](https://intercax.com/blog/2017/04/01/how-the-world-ends-according-to-mbse)

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