Your thought on all this Doomsday rubbish

[Mr. Omega]

It matter not what youthink on this nonsense, for your time is short... soon my master will rise from the seas, and this world will be doomed...

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Serious: It's all silly. We don't know when the world will end. And honestly? That's the scariest part of it.

 

[BlueSinbad]

snip

To the 2012 stuff, that's based on the Mayan's calendar ending it's third year, not the end of the world, it also gets to me that people, who believe in this end of the world stuff, haven't even looked the shit up, in 2012 that will be the end of the Mayan's third year to our 2012th year....
People need to read this shit up first

Exactly! ahhhg it drives me mad! Though people just seem to like to belive any old junk, without fact checking. If only I were not burdened with a conscience, i'd maybe be one of those exploiting such people an getting rich.

Well put good sir! Fortunately you do have a conscience...as do I!

 

[tahrey]

I think either xkcd or SMBC (...Indexed? Bash?) did this better than I could, sometime before, so I'll just paraphrase their Graph/Algebra Joke.

Where N = the staggeringly huge number of doomsday prophecies that have been made to date

Number of doomsday prophecies that have proven true = 0
Number of doomsday prophecies that have proven false = N

Give or take a very statistically insignificant number of "the world's gonna end!" prophecies that intersect, entirely from weight of numbers, with some other random (but non-world shattering) disaster.

My science brain can't help but proclaim "oh and I suppose you think the MMR vaccine causes autism, water molecules have a homeopathic memory, and a 4-metre shift of the tectonic plates under the west pacific causing a magnitude 9 tremor was god's punishment on japan for somehow being 'greedy' too".

As for the 2012 stuff? Trash. We've been through lesser and greater aztec calendar cycles before. They didn't seem to coincide with any major global cataclysm THEN ... why would they NOW?
Answer: Because the makers aren't around to explain the true significance or answer questions, which gives conspiracy wonks license to make up any old speculative crap.


The problem with it is you get a cry-wolf effect, and when someone DOES actually find something that's a genuine threat to the planet, or at least continued human existence & prosperity (global warming, meteors, acid rain, ozone holes, radioactive contamination, whatever) it takes a long time for anyone to actually sit up and take notice, and even then a lot of folk will bundle them in with the "conspiracy wonk" pile. Possibly even until it's too late.

 

[BlueSinbad]

I think either xkcd or SMBC did this better than I could, sometime before, so I'll just paraphrase their Graph Joke.

Where N = the staggeringly huge number of doomsday prophecies that have been made to date

Number of doomsday prophecies that have proven true = 0
Number of doomsday prophecies that have proven false = N

Give or take a very statistically insignificant number of "the world's gonna end!" prophecies that intersect, entirely from weight of numbers, with some other random (but non-world shattering) disaster.

My science brain can't help but proclaim "oh and I suppose you think the MMR vaccine causes autism, water molecules have a homeopathic memory, and a 4-metre shift of the tectonic plates under the west pacific causing a magnitude 9 tremor was god's punishment on japan for somehow being 'greedy' too".

As for the 2012 stuff? Trash. We've been through lesser and greater aztec calendar cycles before. They didn't seem to coincide with any major global cataclysm THEN ... why would they NOW?
Answer: Because the makers aren't around to explain the true significance or answer questions, which gives conspiracy wonks license to make up any old speculative crap.

I don't think I could have put it any better, well maybe if I wasn't so lazy ;P but very well put!

 

[BENZOOKA]

It's complete rubbish. A year just like the rest of them.

 

[Hawgh]

I once had a package of oats that expired on the date 06-06-2006. Naturally, I offered it sacrifies and allegiance, lest the world expire along with it.

Anyways, doomsayers are full of it.

 

[Madman123456]

Blech... I think someday there will be another doomsday prediction and there will be enough morons to hoard food that there will be enough morons who didn't go shopping early enough to aqquire ten years supplies to start riots that will be so violent they will damage the economic system.

 

[Rayne870]

one day the earth will become uninhabitable or cease to exist as we know it, if we don't leave the planet before then we will go extinct as a species, that is just pure science. One day one of the predictions will be right but it will be less prediction and more, oh shit the sun is going to explode based on scientific readings. But the religious stuff that gets spewed out is really nothing more than people trying to accept the eventuality in my opinion. And in all likelihood any such cataclysmic event will be long after my great grand children are dead unless we get hit by a stray rock.

 

[Speakercone]

The end of the world is definitely going to happen in about 3 billion years or so when the earth is consumed by the sun.

As to religious, quasi-religious, and quasi-scientific hypotheses advanced regarding the world ending in 2012, I can only say that this is not the first time the world was supposed to end. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment for a good example. There are others, but this one is particularly instructive.

 

[Astoria]

Oh doomsday will definitely happen but there's no way to tell exactly what date it will happen. Could happen next year. Could happen in 50 or 100 years but it's gonna happen one way or another.

 

[joshuaayt]

Great, another day I'll have to lock my door and bar my windows.

I'm not afraid of doomsday, I'm afraid of people who are afraid of doomsday. Honestly, I believe people are going to get hurt over this. Then, when it all blows over, we'll concoct another fucking end of days scenario, and the cycle will repeat.

 

[maxibonito]

The thing is, the world IS gonna end eventually, and theres nothing that can stop that. whether its today, tommorow, or 20 years from now, the world will end. Scientists have proved this on numerous occasions, and the whole "it's all our fault' shtick is true. It was OUR fault chernobyl happened. It's OUR fault that the world is heating up. And if we don't get our shit together, we'll look back on the end of the world and will only have our selves to blame. unless of course the sun runs out and supernovas, or a meteorite hits us.

 

[Weirdwolf]

Meh, it's all rubbish. This world will end be it from a dying sun, cosmic radiation or impact but all this telling the future is a load of crap, the doomsday cults have been proven wrong before and will be proved wrong again.
A while ago I was talking to my daughter on the phone and her friends at high school were discussing the whole Mayan calender thing and the supposed DOOOOOMMSSSSSDAAAAAAAYYYY!!!! event, until she pointed out that "When the week ends on Saturday should we expect the world to end? We just start the week again with Sunday!" I was so proud!!

 

[King of Wei]

I'm a little confused by it all, is it the end of the world as a whole or just the end of humanity? Species go extinct all the time so if it's the latter all the hype seems kinda selfish.

But I don't believe a word of it either way. Every other generation has its "end of days" disaster, it's been happening for centuries and is going to continue for as long as we're around, it's just a part of how we are for some odd reason. I think it's because generally, we have a hard time comprehending anything past our own lifespan. Hard to put the millions of years of Earth's existence into perspective when you only live 60-100 years, so people like to think that their line could be the last one.

 

[OldRat]

I'm thinking I'll find a few of those idiots trying to build an ark or create a colony in some far reach of the worst uninhabited hellhole in the world or something (yeah, those people really exist), and then offer to buy all their earthly possessions for a pittance. Not like they'll need it if the world ends, right?
Hell, just some shmuck thinking it's the last day of his life and trying to make most of it would probably hand over his house for some cash...'
And when the year 2013 rolls around, I will drink of their tears.

Okay, yeah, maybe I won't manage that. But I will be making fun of every doomsayer when the year 2013 rolls around like every year before that. Their tears will be delicious.

 

[spartan231490]

I think that civilization will end in my lifetime. There are just too many ways it could happen that we can't really stop. Humanity will survive though, we're even tougher to kill as a species than roaches.

 

[CactiComplex]

Whether it actually happens or not, it'll be damned entertaining to watch those heavily invested in the idea try to escape it, and I reckon there'll be some pretty great parties about as well, so either way I'm good.

Do I believe it's actually going to happen? No, no I don't.

 

[nuba km]

wait the 21st of march but brink is arriving from amazone on the 20th, better get in as much play time as possible.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

These doomsday predictions are always so disappointing, they never come true.
You spend the weeks leading up to them living a debauched drug fueled orgy of pleasure and peversion only to find out you'll have to start all over again in a few years or months or whatever.
It starts to get really hard to think up new ways to debase yourself on the altar of lust and peversion.