Apocalypse predictions are bullshit.

Let me start by saying I’m not at all surprised that people are so obsessed with the apocalypse. It seems so plausible nowadays that our society could come crumbling down into a oblivion while a series of cataclysmic disasters which are long overdue completely and utterly destroy all that remains of our civilization. There’s always some sort of global catastrophe only a few stupid decisions away, and you need only turn on the news to be reminded of it. Iran is acquiring nuclear weapons (supposedly), North Korea is threatening nuclear war, the environment is being destroyed, protests around the world scream anarchy, the global economy is in shambles. There’s no doubt in my  mind that these undeniably grim circumstances conjure up images of the four horsemen in many people’s minds.

Following that happy note, let me also say that this isn’t at all a novel situation. The world has been on the brink of chaos (in the same sense as we are now) for centuries, millennia even. People have always had reasons to fear the extinction of our species falling in their lifetime – remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? (Probably not, hard to remember things you weren’t alive to experience). There was the Black Death which wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century, which certainly couldn’t have helped their positivity – can you blame our society for entering the Dark Ages given the circumstances? I’d be depressed too. Then there were the Crusades, in which millions of people were killed in the name of religion; there were the witch burnings, claims of messiahs and prophets bringing the end times, the conquest of the west (which may have been a brilliant moment for Europeans, but picture yourself in the moccassins of a Native American at the time).

And, not surprisingly, throughout these dismal events of the past centuries, people have been frequently calling “apocalypse”. Ever since history has been written down, there have been records of people claiming that, for one reason or another, the world would be coming to an end soon, so finish your to-do list and have a good meal before you’re vaporised or drowned or burned. From self-proclaimed prophets to hermits to scientists, people have predicted the apocalypse and even named specific dates and specific years – all of which have come to pass, and to no avail.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this list of predicted apocalyptic events – none of which have happened, needless to say.

It’s not just because the math was wrong, or because someone misread holy scripture, or some other flaw that these predictions failed to occur. Rather, prediction itself is the flaw. It lies within the human psyche that we must comfort ourselves about the unknown. This is the reason that fear of the dark is so common – humans cannot see in the dark, and thus we don’t know what’s out there. Same reason why so many people are afraid of the ocean – a vast dark abyss beneath one’s feet is not exactly comforting, because who knows what could be down there?

This is why we make predictions. We are lighting false candles that provide a sense of control over what is to come. But why the hell would we try to comfort ourselves by predicting an apocalypse, and end to mankind? It’s hard to say exactly. It might give one a sense of control over the future, knowing what could happen; or for religious reasons could comfort someone in knowing that the second coming will be soon, and they will be raised to the clouds (interesting to note that the vast majority of apocalypse predictions have a religious basis – which, I might add, has a direct correlation to the fact that none of these predictions have come true).

There is the one apocalypse prediction that is getting a lot of press, seeing as it’s named after the current year. The fact is, the world will not end in 2012. I can’t say this enough. The theory is so full of holes that there’s hardly anything there. You all know what it is, but I’ll give you a brief rundown – essentially, some archaeologist found a Mayan calendar carved into stone back in the 1980’s. Through “careful research” of the stone, it looked as if the calendar ended on the Gregorian equivalent of December 21st, 2012. After a massive leap over any logical analysis, the conclusion was that the world would end on that date. Why else would the Mayans stop carving a calendar at a certain point? Of course the intention of ending a calendar is a prediction of the end times, just like how the world ends on December 31st every year!

No. Further research on the Mayan calendar (I wouldn’t even call it research, it’s practically written on their headstone) shows that in the Mayan calendrical system, which very accurately predicted astronomical patterns and events, the calendar is broken up into different segments, so to speak. One of these segments of time is called the “long count”, which gets a little bit complicated (and starts to sound like a Dr. Seuss poem with words like “tun” and “b’ak’tun”), but essentially breaks the calendar into more manageable periods of time. The “end” of this calendar, which many mistakenly perceive to be the end of the world, is actually the end of a long count cycle, followed by the beginning of another long count cycle – using that Dr. Seuss word, another “b’ak’tun”.

Now, this all gets a little complicated, but basically the current long count (a long count lasts somewhere around 5,000 years) will end on December 21st of this year. The last long count ended somewhere around 5,000 years ago – point being, during civilization’s existence. Did the world end? Evidently not, because we’re all still here (premature civilization existed at that time – arguable more mature in some ways).

The 2012 prediction is also blanketed in an array of pseudoscientific “evidence” of planetary alignments, magnetic pole shifts, a planetary collision with Nibiru, a made up Near-Earth Object that crazy people with big hair insist is there despite constant astronomical observations stating otherwise. Sure, the Earth, Sun, and center of the galaxy will come into alignment on the Winter solstice this year. Is it anything to worry about? No, I don’t think so, seeing as it happens every single winter solstice of every single year. What about magnetic pole reversal? This does happen but is under some debate, because it is not fully understood, but it is strongly believed that magnetic pole reversal happens over hundreds if not thousands of years – far too slow to result in any sudden cataclysm.

The point is this – predictions such as these are serious issues because they scare the shit out of far too many people who take them seriously. The only catastrophic events that could take place leading up to December 21st are manmade, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough people take this prediction seriously, some bad things could happen. People have already committed suicide because they were convinced the world would end in 2012 – a waste of a life, really, because the world won’t end and there is nothing to worry about other than doomsayers making up stories to get their name in a paper.

It also takes away notice from the real problems we face, which is the biggest concern about this sort of phenomena. The real threats to our civilization are of human origin (for the most part), and if we don’t seriously consider the consequences of our own actions, and start predicting what we could do to ourselves, then we are in serious trouble. Climate change is real, there’s no denying it any longer, and the sad reality is people will more readily accept that a heap of pseudoscientific crap will come true than a theory based on well documented scientific observations. Nuclear war is a possibility, yet people prefer to argue over whose god is better than try to prevent it. Money is quickly being drained from the space program – the only program that could potentially lead to the advancement of our species, to expanding our knowledge of the universe and ourselves – and instead being fed into military programs and political campaigns. And, of course, shitty films about empty predictions like 2012.