I’m not sure it’s a “general question”, so feel free to move the thread.
There are “end of the world” predictions all the time, and we hear on a regular basis of some group of another who gathered/hide/whatever waiting for an apocalypse that didn’t materialize.
However, the 2012 apocalypse prediction went completely out of hand. Everybody heard of it, all kind of weird groups or cults came up with their own version of what would happen (and how to escape doom), there has been movies, books, TV shows,… aplenty, youtube was filled with 2012 related videos, people in many countries have build shelters, moved to supposedly safe areas, etc… and it has been going on for at least two years.
What made this particular end of the world prediction so successful? I can’t figure anything making it different from the bazillion of previous predictions, based on Nostradamus, or a bible code, or whatnot.
Ideas?
ETA : If a mod could fix the grammar mistake in the thread title, thanks in advance.
I don’t see a firm answer. This prediction is little different from any of the others, and I don’t see it getting more press than, say, Harold Camping or the Y2K hysteria. And the Y2K situation at least had some substance, that some computers would misbehave, and some did.
The Mayan EndOfTheWorld prediction might have one thing going for it that others didn’t. Experts on ancient calendars agree that the end of the Long Count cycle of the calendar does happen about December 21, 2012. This puts a more definite date on it than someone’s wild-ass interpretation of other prophecies, most of which can’t be pinned down to a specific date except in some crank’s numerologically-inspired mind.
There is a new-age idea that the ancients know more science than we do and were smarter, or were fed information from aliens. Once you buy into that mind-set, everything just falls in place for the believer.
I’m sure you know that the Mayans didn’t think that it would be the end of the world any more than we think December 31 will be just because the calendar rolls over.
The Long Count ended on June 15, 1224 and September 18, 1618, and the world didn’t explode then. Why some people think it will this time is beyond me, but I’ll bet they will again expect it on March 26, 2407.
Lookit the types that buy into this: Richard Heene, of the Balloon Boy ho-ax. He perpetrated that in an attempt to rake in the dough to finance a survivalist shelter and stock it with supplies in order to survive the end of the world next month.
I’m channeling Edgar Cayce and getting a vision of the Mayans being in possession of the records of a nomadic astronomy-obsessed cult that were the direct descendants of human beings who were charting the heavens throughout the entirety of a 260,000 year galactic cycle, and who witnessed some devastating event and have us timed to reach that location in space again around 21-12-2012.
Me, I heard the apocalypse thing for the first time in August '07, from a guy who was shit-faced drunk at the time. (I was actually walking him home so he wouldn’t get into any trouble).
I put about as much stock in it then as I do now. (Nevertheless I do remember the date of the prediction, so.)
In any event, everyone knows the end of the world is really gonna come on February 14, 2016. (Valentine’s Day. Bummer.)
It’s a popular thing, at this time, because- even though it was no prediction, the time is now. The Mayan calendar has an end. That’s next month, as I understand it.
So, even though it’s not a doomsday prediction by a bunch of lunatics who regularly deliver predictions, it’s a prediction of sorts. (By virtue of the fact that there are no more pages on that calendar.)
I have become convinced that people need there to be some sort of conspiracy theory or something to latch onto to believe in… even something ridiculous. It’s almost like people enjoy being scared and up in arms about one thing or another.
That’s what they want us to think!