Depending on which scientist you talk to, the beat has been going on pretty steady now for over 4 billion years on earth. Yes, 4 billion. Years. This figure is also roughly equal to each person's share of the national debt in the US (kidding, sort of).
Our forbears were running around killing animals 1 million years ago, and the Egyptians built some very sturdy headstones in Egypt about 5000 years ago.(maybe they were worried about this end of the world business as well). The world has been going now for awhile, like Cats
off broadway.However, we wouldn't want to let an annoying thing like facts and history get in they way of mania, marketing, and that oh so fun past time of fear mongering to the masses. In the interest of gallows humor, I am going to run down some of my favorite "end is at your doorstep" scenarios that I have lived through in my short life (well, maybe not quite as short as I'd like it to be).
1. The Cold War - This one seemed real, because, well, it was. There is nothing like riding the school bus in the morning and wondering if you'll be incinerated by the Russkis or an errant computer game by 2nd period. There was always some reason during the evening news that somebody was about to launch the missles. The screwed up part is that most of the time it was a flock of birds or some German teenager flying a plane into Red Square. (click here for that one)
2. The Late Great Planet Earth - This was a popular book when I was a wee boy. I include it here because it was my first experience with this whole "end of the world" business. Needless to say, none of it came true. If you want to see this fossilized book, check it out here: The Late Great Planet Earth
3. Global Warming - A supposedly real phenomenon. However, it has all the excitement of watching paint dry. If I am going to get stark raving mad over the world ending, I need a specific date and time, not this "we better stop or we'll be sorry in a few decades". Perhaps they didn't get the memo that peoples attention spans are getting shorter, not longer. We can barely remember who we texted 30 seconds ago, let alone worry about it being 4 degrees hotter on average on July 2025. Besides, I think we'll all have enough time to evacuate the "coastal areas". It only takes a few months at most to build a boat.
4. Dec 21st, 2012 - Now, as my fictional friends in the acting world say, this one has some "legs". My friends who go to the Boom Boom room say the same thing. Anyway, we got a date, we got a time. If we only had a location, like the Starbucks on 30th and 7th Ave, this one would be the creme de la creme of end 'o the world predictions. Apparently the Mayans, the Chinese and the Hopi Indians all settled on this date as the real deal. They must have compared notes using prehistoric Skype. They are serious this time man, no really. Anyway, I have already got my T-shirts ready to go for the day after sales. You know, the ones' that say "I survived Dec 21st.....blah blah"....
5. Y2K - This was probably the most amusing of them thus far. Thinking back, it was either a marketing campaign for The Matrix, or an attempt by the Tech industry to build a huge tech spending bubble and....oh yeah, that actually happened. Anyway, the theory went that we had all become dependent upon computers and machines and that they would one day turn us(so done to death right?) The reason why was that all the old computer code that current systems were built on was not equipped for the millennium date change(yeah, yeah, thats the ticket!). This prompted huge spending to fix the "problem" and much fake hand ringing. Predictions ranged from complete shutdown of air traffic, computer networks, power grids and that annoying backing alarm on delivery trucks. However, when Dick Clark dropped the ball that year, none of it happened. Bill Gates was laughing all the way to the bank. As inventor of the internet, Al Gore knew the whole time there was no problem, he just kept it to himself while he worked on An Inconvenient Truth
6. Nostradamus - This old hack from 500 years ago had so many predictions, that some of them were bound to come true. Like an astrologer, if you say things vague enough, and repeat them often enough, people will want to believe you. Some of the predictions may also seem sorta, kinda right. He also reminds me of the broken clock on the wall....its still right at least twice a day.
If you out there in the network of nebulous electronic ether have some others, feel free to let me know. I'd love to see what you think.
Until next time, stay loose, breathe deep, actualize.... and....be careful out there.
