Actually, what is going on in the world today is what makes me think the end times is near; not just because of fulfilled prophecy, but there is only so much that can continue without God putting a stop to it. Much as I like science fiction, I begin to see that all those old stories about the future just aren't going to work. The technology we have with the moral decay we are experiencing pretty much insures self-destruction without intervention of some kind, IMO. I wonder what genetic engineering might have to do with some of the things described in Revelation.
I agree with the above too. Some have suggested there have been many times in history where people were terribly immoral, and this is just another one of those times.
Mankind is at a point where simultaneously there exists a GREAT moral decline AND a technological apex where altering so much in nature will soon be possible (possibilities which didn't exist in times of previous moral decline). For me this strengthens the theory we are probably nearing the end times.