Honesty Is Not Contagious
  • Home
  • Rants
  • Beerfinger
  • Things People Feel Entitled to Know
  • Fear of Others
  • Links to Greatness

Top Five Reasons The World Won't End in 2012

1/3/2012

0 Comments

 
The Mayan Doomsday Prophecy is the apocalypse de jour.  And though there's still time to cash in on the manic fear the world might end, I can't help pointing out why it won't.  Maybe it's just the pessimist in me, but I don't see the world's demise anytime soon.  Why?  

 
5.  We've Been Here Before.

Twelve years ago the world was supposed to end.  And there were a variety of options.  The Christian apocalypse sounded like Transformers meets the Passion of the Christ, and Y2K brought back the old menace Nuclear Armageddon while still making us afraid of toasters.  People could chose which global annihilation to expect or fashion their own personal potpourri, "The Antichrist will utilize the technological upheaval to seize control of the globe."  And if you were woefully unprepared just head to the local store to buy an end of days survival kit.  Personally, I always thought these should consist of a box with a bomb inside.  Open the box, boom!, ya dead... take the family with you, because who really wants to endure whatever Hell on Earth arrives?  But the point is people have always predicted the world's conclusion.  

Haley's Comet, Pat Robertson, Nostradamus, all failed to end the world.  But faith in doomsayers is unwavering. 

For example, William Miller.  In 1840 William Miller made the broadest apocalyptic prediction of all time.  Instead of setting the end firmly on one date, he bracketed it proclaiming that sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844 the world would end.  In fire.  Whether this meant the world would take the whole year to burn is open to debate.  In any event, almost 100,000 people sold all their possessions and moved to the mountains.  When the end didn't come, Miller did what every professional prognosticator does:  he changed the date.  His second swing didn't pan out either, but ever undaunted, Miller and his remaining followers formed the Seventh-Day Adventists, whose sense the end is always on the immediate horizon is apparently the basis for a fulfilling spiritual existence.  There's nothing like living in constant terror to make you appreciate what you have.

4.  Solipsism:  a philosophy for narcissists. 

To over simplify things, Solipsism is the philosophical belief that only one's own mind truly exists.  In other words, when I go to sleep the world stops... and when I die it ends.  Ultimately, this means reality is entirely a personal construct, so if you reject the idea of 2012 being the end of all time it can't possibly happen.  But before you return to your bong in a fit, keep in mind the down side.  If this model of reality is true that means no one can die in 2012. 

This seemingly supports the idea 2012 is the year everything goes down the shit pit but keep in mind the solipsist never dies.  Only the phantoms of the solipsist's imagination ever "die".  The obvious point being:  so long as you don't die the world won't end. 

3.  Politicians.

For many, this might sound antithetical.  However, hold all protests till the end.

People often assume everyone will be saved from whatever nightmare scenario eradicates this planet.  So perhaps a reassessment of what it means to "save the world" is in order. 

No one wants to see the movie where the protagonist, upon learning the world will end, fatalistically decides, "Well, we've had a good run.  Ima just sit here and watch it all burn."  NO!  When there's impending doom there's always someone to fly the untested rocket straight onto  the flaming rock and selflessly die to save us all, or into the Earth, the sun, the ocean, the solipsist, etc.  Essentially, fiction has instilled the delusion that there will be, at least, five people willing to die for the rest of us.  However, regardless of whatever intrepid motley crew sets out, the government has an Ark-like backup plan.  As such, there's always a fucking bunker somewhere... which is sort of rooted in truth.

During the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation resulted in the construction of several underground bunkers.  The sole purpose of these bunkers was to spare politicians from the nuclear onslaught they (the politicians) would probably cause. 

The point being in some scenarios only a small portion of the population can be saved.  There's only so much room in the bunker, or the space station, or whatever.  Someone is getting left behind to watch Planet X fly right up the Earth's ass.  Because at the end of the end of days, stopping doomsday isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving the human race.  In which case, we don't need everyone just the people society deems worthy.  And the (often self proclaimed) worthiest person is whoever built the bunker, the spaceship, the MacGuffin.  That way, when the end comes, some of humanity will survive.  It just might not be the people we want carrying on.

2.  Nerds.

If the end approaches as predicted, we're not going to be saved by some dude cut from stone with six pack abs and undeniable charm.  More likely, a spindly dweeb in coke bottle glasses who no woman would ever touch will be our salvation.  Assisted by his mousy female counterpart, with whom he has painfully awkward conversations, he'll devise a way to turn the Large Hardon Collider into a cannon.  After all, some other dork has been tracking the planetoid Nibiru for some time.  It's not like giant astrological bodies just appear out of nowhere.  The CERN Cannon will then be used to blast the advancing body out of the cosmos, saving the planet Earth. 

Of course, there's also Nerds' inherent skepticism which, when coupled with the scientific method, can be used to disprove the validity of any doomsday prediction.  However, the aforementioned is so much cooler.

1.  The Mayans

There is no science to back up the supposed Doomsday Prophecy, though there is plenty of pseudoscience... thanks History Channel.  But nowadays people rarely feel the need for facts.  So, although I don't expect everyone across time to think like me, I can't help pointing out Mayan architecture. 

It's fucking epic.  Have you seen Chichen Itza?  It's so amazing it inspired a chicken recipe, and that's the least of their accomplishments.  The Maya constructed pyramids and buildings as impressive as anything found in Egypt, Rome, or Greece.  Yet, we're supposed to believe these people labored for years to build these structures knowing full well they'd be wiped off the face of existence.  It may sound fatalistic, but how hard would you work on something you knew was not going to exist once you finished?  Perhaps some kind of short sighted egotism insists on a legacy, no matter how temporary, but come on.  No one is going to break their ass wide open to build something that'll be swallowed by a black hole.

But this could just be me.  Not everyone is so fatalistic.  As such, consider this:  If the Maya could predict the obliteration of the planet with pinpoint accuracy, setting it firmly on December 21, 2012, how did they not see the Spanish Conquest coming?
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    J. Rohr enjoys making orphans feel at home in ovens and fashioning historical re-enactments out of dead pets collected from neighbors’ backyards.

    Archives

    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    April 2023
    February 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011

    Categories

    All
    Essay
    In Verse
    Periodical
    Periodicals
    Rants
    Visions

    RSS Feed

    Fiction Vortex
Web Hosting by iPage