At the close of Kurt Vonnegut's novel, we are left with a dire and desolate world, but also with a message of hope. The sheer horror of ice-nine is realized when Papa's frozen body falls into the sea. The ensuing freeze wipes out nearly all life on earth, but the narrator notes that the ants survive. Their survival is not merely an intriguing plot twist, rather it conveys a broader message. The communal mentality of the ants, and the sacrifice of one for the whole, allows the world's ants to survive. I think that Vonnegut is attempting to say that we can only weather such armageddon-type events by working together.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." ~Albert Einstein
I think it is vaguely humorous that San Lorenzo and the world fall due to a scientific discovery. After all, there is no science in San Lorenzo, but there is religion. Bokonism, the secret religion of all residents, is hidden under the mask of Christianity. The people's blindness to science ends up killing them. They die by mass suicide - not because they make an informed decision to give up hope - but have faith that their god wanted them to die.
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