Unless you’ve been living under a rock or in a cabin in the back of beyond for the past year or so, you know that the so called Mayan Apocalypse occurred on Friday. I don’t know about you, but to me this post apocalyptic world looks a great deal like the one that existed before the apocalypse. How can that be?
Well, first of all, the Mayans never predicted anything other than that their calendar would need resetting. Yes, that’s right, they did not predict the end of the world. Saying that because a major cycle on their calendar ended means they thought the world would end is ridiculous. That would be like saying that the world ended because we passed December 31. After all, that’s when our calendar ends every year, isn’t it? (We don’t have any larger cycles in our calendar. The year is the biggest one.) But even if we pretend that centuries or millenniums are inherent cycles in our calendar, which they aren’t since we could just as easily use different year numbers with the same calendar, the end of a century or millennium is not a prediction of the end of the world. But guess what. When 1999 rolled around, there were crazies predicting the end of the world, and not just due to the Y2K nonsense, either! And guess what, the world after that apocalypse looked a great deal like the world before it, too!
I could spend many thousands of words debunking doomsday claims, but I won’t. Others have done so at length and it would be easy to find them using your favourite search provider on the interwebs. Instead, I’m going to ramble on some about why listening to doomsayers is dumb no matter what their track record.
Even if I thought a particular doomsday scenario was valid, I wouldn’t bother worrying about it. I have a good reason for that. If I worried about the possible doomsday scenarios that I know to actually be possible, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy life. (Yes, there ARE things that could end the world. And they are a great deal more likely than ancient prophecies or Nibiru or the universe dividing by zero due to an arbitrary number used by us to mark time.)
Of course, it might seem pointless to enjoy life when the End of Everything™ might be staring us in the face, but think about it. Any one of us might die at any time. It might be due to a known or unknown health issue, age, a motor vehicle accident, a natural disaster, or any number of other causes. Indeed, my own personal death is much more likely at any given instant than the end of the Earth as we know it, let alone the universe itself. And sure, I do worry about that from time to time. After all, I don’t want to die. But being constantly worried about it would be pointless. I am alive now, after all, so why shouldn’t I enjoy it. The same reasoning applies to an apocalypse. If the apocalypse comes and I die, how is that any different for me personally than if I died due to a heart attack or some psycho murders me? In fact, it might be more exciting! So the fact that I might not survive the apocalypse is certainly not something to be any more concerned about than general survival anyway.
Now consider that an apocalypse might not be 100% fatal. Certainly many scenarios such as a celestial impact or even World War III could allow for survivors. If you suggested to them that the world had ended, they would likely agree with you. After all, everything they knew would be gone or substantially transformed. This would especially be the case if the event led to something like a 99% reduction in the human population of the planet. For the people that do not survive such an event, it does not matter. They no longer exist to care about it. But for those who do survive, life goes on pretty much as it always has, just with more hardship.
Obviously, then, one should be prepared for an apocalypse that one manages to survive, right? Well, sure, if you have some way of knowing it is coming. But being prepared is not going to guarantee survival. Your wits are going to be more important than your initial preparedness. In fact, the usual recommended preparedness for any disaster probably suffices to ride out a survivable apocalypse. Things like having nonperishable food supplies, clean water, and a few other useful supplies. Also, having a plan for escaping the city you live in if the roads are impassable would be helpful. But then it is down to your wits and pure luck. Either you are going to be smart enough and lucky enough to survive or you aren’t. Worrying about either before it happens is not likely to be helpful. Mind you, some sort of wilderness survival training would not necessarily be a bad thing, but falling into a psychosis over the possible end of the world is not going to help you survive past the fall of civilization! Indeed it is most likely going to be the level headed people who were not panicking about the end of the world that survive and thrive afterward!
In short, preparing specifically for the end of the world as we know it is pointless. The same preparations that make sense in case of a natural or man made disaster will give you a reasonable chance of survival if there is a world to survive in and you make it through the initial event. Beyond that, just like before the event, your survival depends on luck and your wits. Hiding away in a survival bunker or other typical scenario is not likely to be helpful. Your survival will be more likely in a tribe than on your own!
Sure, it’s possible that a sufficiently prepared nutcase will survive the apocalypse and thrive afterward, but it is far more likely that groups of survivors setting up shop in convenient places will be far better off in the long run, not least of all because they will have a social support network and possible reproductive partners!
Now, let us consider whether you would want to know the end is coming. If the actual end is coming, I personally think I would rather not know. I don’t know that I would handle the strain of knowing particularly well. Sure, if there was something I could do to improve my odds of survival, I might like to know about that so I can do it, but what are the odds that an event so dire would leave me standing? No, I think, just like with the spectre of my own impending personal doom, I would rather not know when the end of the world is coming, if it is going to happen in my lifetime.
Upon reflection, the never ending crop of doomsayers might actually be doing us all a favour. For every apocalypse that fails to materialize, most of us become that much more insensitized to doomsday predictions. Perhaps, then, when a credible source announces the end of the world, we might fail to take it so seriously that mass panic ensues. After all, the world didn’t end last time, did it? Or the time before? Or the time before that? Odd as it sounds, these crazies might actually be doing us a favour!
Welp, that’s enough rambling on doomsday. Remember, it failed to occur on Friday and it will almost certainly fail to occur on its next scheduled appearance.