Speech

December 21, 2012. Some of you might know the date as the winter solstice. But most of you probably know this date in which the world is going to end. People have been freaking out about the world ending because of some prophets, ancient calendar, or even an internet web program. For me, I don’t buy it. You have to remember that nothing can predict the future; all of these “predictions” are mere coincidences. Plus, why bum yourself out that you only have three years of your life left?

Prophets are people who have been supposedly contacted by some god or goddess. These prophets had power in foreseeing the future, and could determine the fate of certain events. Upper-class members of a society would ask about wars, relationships, or other domestic issues. The prophet would then go into a trance and let their host god take over their body to send a message to the questioner. The prophecies would be surprisingly accurate, and the prophets would be consulted and everything that they ever said would be recorded in a book. The biggest problem is that the only way to predict a sure future is to tell the story of the past. Many people have found that many ancient prophets were just saying what happened in the past with vague details. The vague details could fit a multitude of different prophecies, so that the prophecy could come true in many different situations. Many prophets generally told their prophecies underground, why? Scientists have found proof that either gases from the fault lines under the temples, or the lack of oxygen caused these prophets to go into a trance state.

The best known reason for the sudden doomsday ideal is that the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012. The Mayans were known for their incredible time-keeping records, obsessing to the point that their calendar is more accurate than ours. If the Mayans were so accurate in determining different events, such as the “white gods” (Cortez), or different catastrophes that occurred all over the world, why couldn’t they determine their own fate? In cases such as the overpopulation of the land, droughts and destruction of the environment around them, if they couldn’t even see far enough to prevent their own demise, what allows them to be accurate in naming our future as well? Another interesting point brought by the Mayans, is that on December 21, 2012, the Earth will align itself to the center of the galaxy, something that hasn’t happened in the last 26,000 years. Apparently when everything is aligned, catastrophes will occur one after the other, creating an apocalyptical sensation. If this cycle occurs every 26,000 years, how come humans are still alive? The answer is, even though Neanderthals died out, because of lack of adaptability, Homo sapiens has survived countless of genocides.

The most recent correlation is the Web Bot. Created in 1997, the Web Bot was designed to project stock market trends. But, by using a similar program, the Web Bot was used to predict events that will occur in 60-90 days. The most famous event it predicted was that in June 2001, a catastrophic event would take place in 60-90 days. That of course being the September 11 attacks, in which shocked most people that followed the Web Bot. But in order to criticize the Web Bot, you have to learn how it predicts the events. The Web Bot takes a snapshot of many different words across the world, and then analyzes that information to predict the different events that could happen. The Web Bot might seem spectacular at first, but it’s just a program, it can only predict things that humans have predicted it. For example, the Web Bot was able to predict the September 11 attacks, by extracting keywords from websites, kind of like Google. So what does this mean? It can’t predict things that people can’t already predict, so the end of the world? I think not, sure the Web Bot could help find terrorist attacks, but the Web Bot can’t predict the end of the world.

December 21, 2012, is this really the end of the world? I really don’t think so, much of the predicted prophecies are either extremely vague or the credibility is completely lacking. The Mayan Calendar, although strangely precise in some ways, the Mayans couldn’t even predict their own downfall, so how are they able to predict ours? The Prophets, even though they have been historically correct, they were relatively vague, and could fit a multitude of predictions. The Web-Bot, a program that can predict but can only predict things that humans can predict. It’s impossible to pin point what’s going to happen in the future, so there’s no reason to fear the end of the world.