Stupid People Alert

Why do people think the end of the world is coming? Here are 10 prior moments of "revelations-like" prediction, among many. 

Reason #1 to doubt "end-of-the-world (EOTW) predictions: The social construction of time. Are we in the year 2009, or 5376 as the Jewish calendar states? Who knows? Who cares...The point is that time is invented, so any round numbers like 2000 or 1900 seem ominous to a human brain selected for seeing patterns (this article in Scientific American will give you a deeper idea of what I am talking about). Moreover, when the so-called Y2K thing was getting closer and those nutty millenialists started taking about the Christian Bible's "Revelations" (which many biblical experts believe originally was in the front of the Christian Bible, not in the back, thus throwing a loop in chronology of the four horsemen), other experts started noting that 2001 would really be 2000 years after Jesus' supposed death and would be the real time when revelations would come true. I suppose none of this matters to people, because they think numbers mean something more than they do. The calendar was really just a means to keep track of harvests, rainy seasons, times to pray (holi(y)-days) for rain and good harvests, and to try and predict the future (like when a flood was going to hit). The Mayans, I am sure, did not follow the Christian calendar as they would have had no contact with the Western world when they were flourishing as a civilization, thus, their predictions can not be meaningfully interpreted within the context of our system of time!

Reason #2 to doubt EOTW predictions: Um...hello...we don't need to predict some supranatural force will reign fire and brimstone or that some force from outside the Earth's atmosphere will reign down on us like a meteor that potentially wiped out the dinosaurs. We are killing ourselves and ecologists are getting better at giving us real dates (within a few decades) of human-made disasters. Who needs the clouds of smoke generated by a massive volcano which would throw the Earth into a mini-ice age for two to ten years and destroy our ability to farm, when we are releasing enough toxins into the air to do that for us...except, we will enter a long hot age which will destroy crops by making everything arid. Or, perhaps the ice caps in the poles melting within 30 years (a good estimate, and perhaps too conservative), leading to ocean levels rising up to 2 feet every summer. Or, the fact that 90% of Americans have deadly chemicals (found in their urine) which come from plastics and other toxins released in the water systems, found in fish, and contaminating every piece of processed food you buy? Or the fact we pump cows full of steroids to increase their output, perhaps causing girls to reach puberty faster, children to get autism more often, and other side effects likely unknown? Why does a space ship or other forces of doom have to kill us?

Reason #3: It has always failed before. The sun always rises in the East, sets in the West. That's a fact. Water contains 2 parts oxygen, 1 part hydrogen...that's a fact. Some forces destroying the Earth for no reason, or because we have sinned, or because of any reason is nonsense. Moreover, thinking you can predict it because you read some tea leaves, god talked to you, or because you see signs of the devil everywhere you look is even more insane. Anyone who reads the paper, follows the news, or pays attention at any time period probably thinks everything is really bad. Worse than before. But, go read newspapers from the '60s or the '80s and you will see a similar confluence of bad shit happening and people thinking the end is near.

Reason #4: Stupid people are behind these manias. It is clear that only a dum-dum would believe Nostradamus' predictions. Have you ever read one of his quattros? They are so ambiguous that it would take some serious contemplation and good imagination to make sense of them in real time. Or, those nutty cults that appear every decade, prophesy the end of the world, and then commit suicide. Nothing happens. We laugh about it nervously. Then, we go about our business. The real four horsemen of doom are war, pestilence, disease, and famine. You want to prevent a meltdown? Put a stop to these as best as you can.

I appeal to you to not go this movie 2012 because it is going to only embolden Hollywood to keep churning out nonsense. It is bad enough that Hollywood insults our intelligence by producing movies that are completely unrealistic beyond a shadow of a doubt. Read a book instead. Or, read the prophecy. Whatever you do, don't degrade your own intelligence.