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Information is Beautiful - 2012: the End of the World?
- rjurney 17y agoY2K in a different number system - at least we're consistent in prophesying apocalypse.
- roundsquare 17y agoIf only they had more stones the world would have lasted longer!
- noonespecial 17y agoI think it was actually because of the base 20 number system they counted in because of the fact that they had 10 fingers and 10 toes. If only the six fingered man had taken a break from killing Inigo Montoya's father and lent them an extra order of magnitude...
- RevRal 17y agoPeak oil... religious fanatics... pollution... nuclear war... an out of control climate... gigantic tsunamis... nuclear fallout... disease... rising sea levels.... Sorry if I left something out. I feel like one of those comedians saying as many slurs possible. Needless to say, we're plunging into some interesting years. 2012 just feels so... pivotal.
- fnid 17y agoAsteroids, comets, alien invasions, the singularity (aka robot invasions)...
- RevRal 17y ago"Our simulation gets turned off" can be tacked on too, but I was trying to think of things that are real, current, problems. Or more probable in the near future. My main point is that 2012 onward will be interesting without mystical interpretations of the celestial.
- thomaspaine 17y agoYou could say the same thing for 2009, 2010, 2011...
- RevRal 17y agoYes, every year will will be pretty interesting without "mystical interpretations of the celestial." I guess I failed to ask myself if 2013 will be more interesting than 2012. And the answer is, yes.
- gloob 17y agoPeak oil... religious fanatics... pollution... nuclear war... an out of control climate... gigantic tsunamis... nuclear fallout... disease... rising sea levels.... Peak Oil would be the end of the world in the same way that the cod crisis destroyed Canada. Pollution has been around for centuries and hasn't offed us yet. The threat of nuclear war is pretty much the only thing that stops real wars from happening between great powers. An out-of-control climate isn't something you talk about in the present tense, and won't be seen for twenty or thirty years if it happens at all. Tsunamis have been around as long as the oceans. Nuclear fallout at a civilization-threatening scale could only result from a nuclear war, which I just dealt with. Disease has been around for billions of years and medicine is getting better, not worse, at keeping people alive until they're in their mid-eighties or so. Rising sea levels will mostly inconvenience third-world island nations, if they become a problem at all. My prediction is that 2012 will be a hilarious year, because so many people will be so worked up about it.
- davidw 17y agoSounds like a great list of topics to flag.
- henrikschroder 17y agoNever mind all the times people have predicted the end of the world before, this time it's for real! I'm fascinated that people don't lose hope even though the track record is so bad.
- philwelch 17y agoIt's kind of like the anthropic principle: of course all predictions of the end of the world have been false, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
- stavrianos 17y agoI'm fascinated by your use of the word "hope"
- lemming 17y agoEnd of the world malarkey aside, Information is Beautiful is an excellent blog - really nice information design.
- vijayr 17y agoCheck out his book, Visual Miscellaneum. Not all visualizations are good, overall its a nice book though.
- FreeRadical 17y agoThe solar storm part is scary :/ (especially if you've seen the Nicholas Cage film 'The Knowing'.)
- adnam 17y agoA guy I knew actually quit his job last year to prepare for this event.
- jamesbressi 17y agoYou should start a blog & vlog on this guy. I have a feeling he would be a goldmine for you ;)
- rick_2047 17y agoActually the 2012 is not always discussed as the end of the world. If you look at the article it also proposes the possibility of a major change in society. The completion of cycle in the mayan calendar, I think, indicates just that. End of the cycle of one society. My bet, maybe robots will do all our work and we would become all spiritual, some people may say the time frame is too short for this but it doesn't have to be abrupt. 2012 may mark the start in some way. May be the first positronic brain will be completed on that day. sigh... hopes
- Hexstream 17y agoI should start making up bullshit doomsday predictions to ensure the people of year 2500 have something "fascinating" to think about.
- Anon84 17y agoWe're supposed to believe a doomsday prediction made by a society that couldn't even predict (or avoid) it's own demise?
- roc 17y agoWell, purportedly, it's an astronomical/mathematical prediction of doom from natural causes, made by a society with very advanced math and astronomy. Whereas their own society was brought down by sociological/biological causes, which we have no reason to expect they would be particularly adept at dealing with. Not that I believe a word of the 2012 nonsense. But logically your critique doesn't hold much weight for me, despite sounding truthy.
- run4yourlives 17y agoWhat a ridiculously concise way to handle "omg the end of the world" nonsense "argument" by argument. It's amazing how silly some theories become when they are compared visually.