T - 366

According to a popular meme, we have one year to go. The world will end exactly one year from now, just a little after the winter solstice of 2012 (also known as 21.12.2012). The Mayan said so, the Internet says so and even Ronald Emmerich, the great documentary director said so. So who are we disagree?

The problem is to begin with, that the Mayan never said that the world will end. All they said is that their 4Th era will end and the 5Th one will begin. They actually see it as a cause for celebration, in very much the same way that we saw the beginning of the new millennium as an opportunity to party and replace our IT equipment.

Update: Actually some say that the end of an era is the end of the world, which means that the Mayan civilization is similar to the Western civilization in one respect: we can't seem to be able to agree on anything.

Some epocalyptians would say "Yeah, but look at what happened in 2011. Natural disasters, revolutions, economic collapse, the death of Steven Jobs". I agree, it was quite an eventful year, but how is that related in any way to the concept of "the end of the world"? Well, It isn't. Economic hardship always causes political unrest and natural disasters happen frequently at various magnitudes in various locations around the world. The sad truth is that the only difference this time was that it happened in one of the most developed countries in the world, so we got live video streams.

I can predict what's going to happen in 2012: some people will die, but more will be born. Some leaders will get elected and reelected, others will be lose their positions. Some people will still struggle to get enough food to eat, others will have to struggle with the choice between the McLaren MP4-12C and the Ferrari 458. Many people will find the answers to all of their questions in god, while major scientific discoveries will be made. Apple will release more products that their names start with an "i".

Maybe I am wrong and the world IS going to end exactly one year from now, but I do have good news: 2012 will be 2.74% longer than 2011, so we have one more day to party.