You’ve probably heard the goofy nonsense that the world is supposed to end in December 2012. These predictions are based on ancient Mayan prophecy (and if the ancient Mayans were so good at prophecy, then why didn’t they foretell the collapse of their own civilization?*) and even worse bases of thinking.
So of course Hollywood is making a movie of it. Variety reports that Roland Emmerich (who made Day After Tomorrow and the equally specious 10,000 BC coming soon) has sold his idea of global apocalypse in 2012 to Sony pictures, which has greenlit the blockbuster.
I’ve been planning to debunk this garbage for a long time, and now I guess I’d better get on it. Enthusiasm for this doomsday-of-the-day will probably start ramping up for real now, and it’s bad enough already.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what do policemen, doctors, firemen, and debunkers all have in common?
They wish they were out of work. But they never will be.
*I changed the text a bit after reading the comments below. While I think that Ethan’s reaction is ridiculously overblown, part of his basic point is correct; Mayan descendants are still around, and so my original statement was incorrect. I changed it to reflect that; but my own sentiment is correct as well: if the Mayans were so skilled at prophecy that they could predict the end of the world more than a millennium in advance, why didn’t they see the end of their own world coming?
