2012

So there's this movie coming out next week, an end-of-the-world disaster flick based on the fact that the Mayan (or Aztec, maybe: I can't remember which and I'm too lazy to check) calendar ends in 2012. As a movie premise I suppose it's all right, and I can understand other people jumping on the bandwagon to make some bucks, but even that presupposes that there are people out there who take this whole "the world will end in 2012" crap seriously.

Sadly, that presupposition appears to be spot on. That baffles me. Or rather, it reaffirms my belief that most people are idiots. The fact that the Mayan calendar system ends in 2012 is an interesting tidbit, and is a reflection of Mayan religous beliefs, but that's all it is. And it makes sense for the Mayan calendar to end when it does, because it ends when the Mayans believed the world would end (no point in having it run any further if no one would be around to use it, right?) The Mayans no doubt sincere in their belief, but that doesn't mean they were right. After all, they also believed that cutting out someones heart and burning it nourished their gods.

It's actually kind of depressing that any modern person would fail to immediately dismiss the Mayan prediction as the superstious nonsense that it is. It's too bad my conscience won't let me become a con man. I could start an end times cult and get rich. One guy did it for decades, moving the 'end time' back every so often so it stayed in the near future. And his followers bought it!