NASA, inundated with questions about a transparently ridiculous apocalypse theory centered around December of 2012, has had to establish a website to prove, through science and reason, that the world will be just fine next year. This is not a joke, someone at the agency, who in normal circumstances would have better things to do, has compiled a response to all of the completely insane ideas people are putting forward. You can find it at www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html.
The 2012 theories have been gaining a surprising amount of traction with people, and I am at a loss to figure out why. The last time mass hysteria gripped people was the Y2K bug, which at least had some incredibly flimsy logic behind it. Sometimes, when computers clocks are poorly designed, bad things do happen. Witness the clocks on Sony's PS3 rendering the console inoperable for one day last year due to a bug, or current iPhone alarms not working properly on New Years Day. Of course, everyone who had anything at stake in 2000 realized this, and tested and adjusted their clocks accordingly, but there was theoretically some potential problems. To assume that nobody would prepare for them was insanity, and the theories went out of hand, but at least something about that made sense.
Eleven years on, we have the newest disaster which will not actually destroy us all. The source for the madness is a very complicated Maya calender known as the Long Count. The Mayans had many calenders, all based on various astronomical events, but this particular cycle ends on December 21, 2012. On December 22, 2012, the calender rolls back to day one, and starts over again. That's how calenders work.
Crazy people, however, have decided this means that the world will end and everything will be destroyed. No, it won't, because the long count has rolled over before over 5000 years ago and we're still here. People who have dedicated their lives to studying Mayans have said that the belief that the end of the world coincides with the end of the calender represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the culture. Modern day Maya people regard the date as insignificant. From this we can conclude that nobody who has any sense believes this nonsense, and that the ancient Mayan people would, if asked about these predictions, likely reply with the Mayan equivalent of "You are completely insane, please get away from me."
So why won't people stop talking about it? In some cases, some people have something to gain by promoting it. Roland Emmerich, the director behind "2012", wants you to watch his film, and also wanted to make a film that responds to his talents - he's quite adept at blowing everything up. Keep in mind, however, his best known works include "Independence Day," and to the best of my knowledge Will Smith has never had to blow up aliens in reality. It is a work of fiction, designed to make things explode. It is not a prediction of the future. Others want to sell apocalypse survival materials to morons. It is, at best, a cash grab, though it is one based on the ramblings of people who shouldn't be trusted with a butter knife. It is high time that we ignore the people who believe in the theory.
