I had an interesting conversation with a man on New Year's Eve, where he was telling me about how his 20 year old son completely believes that the world is going to end on December 21st, 2012. The gentleman with whom I was speaking had never heard of the end of the Mayan calendar until 4 months ago, and all he could really tell his son was just be the best person you can be whether the world ends or not.
I would like to take a moment right now to make a bold prediction about the decade ahead of us. The world will not come to an end. There, I said it. Put me on the record so that when we are all still safe and sound after this "scare", I can say I told you so. In high school I was convinced that the world was going to end in July of 1999 because that goof with the long beard and silly hat told me in a documentary that Nostradamus predicted it. 2/3 of the World's population did not die, and thus in August of 1999, I became a skeptic. Same with global warming. When it stopped getting hotter, I became a skeptic.
This is the manner in which young adults develop BS detectors, and why people become wiser as they age. To any parent out there who has a child who believes the world is coming to an end, just plant the seeds of skepticism. Perhaps even make a dollar wager? Eventually when the world does not come to an end, they will become skeptics. The Nostradamus scholar will lose a big chunk of his audience in January 2013. But he'll be back in 2018 with a new Nostradamus theory for 2020.
The last thing I said to him besides Happy New Year was; "just roll with and I guarantee you that your son will become a skeptic on December 22, 2012, and will probably feel a little bit stupid for telling people what he wrongly believed was going to happen."
When I went to see 2012 with my mother while visiting my parents, 30 minutes into the movie I turned to her and said "don't worry mom, that's not going to happen."
In November I even ran a poll on this subject.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN DECEMBER OF 2012?
A very merry Christmas (79%)
The end of the World as we know it (13%)
Minor discomfort (6%)
It is like the Amillio Estevez speech in Young Guns II, about the 3 guys playing a game of cards. Somebody runs in and says the world is coming to an end. The first man says well I best go to the mission and pray, the second says I need to get a case of muskal and six whores, and the third man says, I shall finish the game.
ReplyDeleteI shall finish the game Doc.
Great movie.
Democracy is dead, and no one cares. When Paul Martin cancelled opposition days, that was righteous. Pausing Parliament while we host the Olympics, that is downright criminal. I reach to the sky and call out Paul's name!
ReplyDeleteDec 21 2012 the earth will cross the galactic equator and nobody knows what will happen.
ReplyDeleteCould be a magnetic flip, could be a pole flip, could be a solar super-flare, could be nothing.
You must be very bright to guarantee nothing will happen when earth's history shows calamities every 26,000 yrs, which corresponds with the crossings of the galactic equator.
With any luck it will add a few yards to my drives...
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