You're right, I'd probably go with the billion years of rampant hedonism too...

What would you do if you knew the world was going to end? Good question, me. Maybe we'd take up religious sincerity or some might do the opposite and give up trying to please a god that's gonna smite 'em all anyway. Others may commit themselves to debauchery of all kinds while others may seek to share their final moments with a soulmate. Some people might even wait until the last moment and then bake themselves in a giant pan of cornbread. Who knows, but what we almost always assume is that we won't see it coming until it's really too late, like due to asteroids or disease or thermonuclear war or if someone thinks it's a bright idea to make an island full of kevlar-skinned dinosaurs with lethal heat rays instead of puny forearms and "accidentally" release them upon the unsuspecting hordes of New York City. Whatever. The point is that it is very possible that in the future we could see that the world is gonna end, but it's going to happen in like, a billions of years.

You see, the Universe is currently expanding away from a central point where we assume the Big Bang had occurred. We've been doing this at the speed of light for approximately 13.7 billion years (+/- 200 Mill of course) and it is theorized that at a certain point this expansion will cease and the universe will reverse its course and begin to collapse in on itself at the same speed constant (which happens to be the current max).

You might be saying now that if the universe is collapsing at the speed of light then this light will never actually reach us until it's too late and we'll be in the same situation as the first paragraph. True, other guy, but don't you think we'll start to see the effects of a universal collapse from a much greater distance? Ha!

And so we'd be all like, "Poo! The universe is pulling a four(+?) dimensional accordion act all up in our personal space and its pretty certain that eventually we're screwed but hey I'll be dead, and my children's chillin's chill'n's ch'll'n's be just as so. So let's not worry about it and go on boldly ahead hoping that some solution presents itself at the proper time like in those cinematic fictions we like so much." Sound familiar?

Or maybe the population of Earth would be shocked into getting its shit together and devoting our entire resources to doing something, anything, against these malignant (we'll think) cosmic forces. I like this one better because it's less boring. In this scenario, humanity will probably be in war for a little while to determine which methodology is best for this current and excruciatingly unique dilemma. But then we would get all badass and the like real quick. Say we've got a billion years to first, figure out the nature or at least a working model of the universe, metaphysics, and the sort. Then we gotta determine what needs to be done to survive since obviously we won't last long sitting around on this olde rocke. After that we implement our solution and badabing, cross our collective fingers.

I hope there wouldn't be too much despair and depressing feet shuffling because what the fuck we're awesome and it's worth a shot. For example, some have even suggested a solution to this massive catastrophe even now, in our feebly under-evolved state! And that took just a few thousands years to fantasize about but think what could happen in a billion years.

One solution that some have suggested passes over completely the implementation of the technology required of course, cuz if we knew how to do it we'd do it already. So as the universe collapses and the actual physical dimensions of space decrease then by the law of conservation of energy, the density of matter and energy will increase to drastic proportions. We'd all be burned alive way before we even came close to seeing the edge of the universe, sorry. This is where it would affect stars much beyond the cusp of danger that we could hopefully see them and begin preparing. Anyway so at a certain point in time all the mass and energy in the universe will converge into one infinitesimal point. Actually, no one can contemplate how small because it will essentially be directly at the point of nonexistence. Up until this point the density of energy (which increases heat and such which is the excitement of particles) increases until infinity, which is called the Aleph or Omega point. The calculations sort of break down at that point seeing as we can't really come close comprehending a universe of 0 dimension.

SOoooo, at this point all we have to have done is determine a way to make computations using universal interactions on the particle level which will increase exponentially to infinity which might theoretically result in a sort of endless supply for our "computers" if you want to call them, to process information. After we figure that out we just upload our consciousnesses into these subatomic computers and voila! We essentially live forever as hot plasma computer brains. Easy money, let's do this Yaaaaah battle cry!

Hmmm, well hope you kept up with that. Pretty heavy junk I know and also like one of those plots that end really abruptly and make you wonder if the writer ran out of paper or something.

Anyway, someone tell me what they would do if they were going to die by fiery-death wielding t-rexes in a few weeks. I can tell you I wouldn't be worried about the tanning bed.

And if you are interested I can go through the scenario of survival if the universe isn't a closed system and it just expands forever. Comments Comets.