The end of the world has been predicted no fewer than 44 times.  Every apocalyptic sect that has come along the pike has stated that the world will end soon and that the best way to prepare for it is to give the leader of the sect all your worldly possessions.  Somehow the followers never get around to asking what the leader needs with cash if the world is about to be over…

Much of the recorded work in the western world on the end of the world focuses on arcane Biblical calculations.  Some think they know the day and hour that the Messiah is coming back.  All who have attempted such a prediction have proved to be wrong thus far.

There are some certainties about a global

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if not the world’s end.  For instance, we know that it is likely that sometime in the next couple of million years a super volcano will erupt in North America.  It will be at Yosemite and after the eruption rains down fire and concrete upon the populace, an ice age will come and wipe out most of the rest of the world.

There will almost certainly be a man made plague at some time in the future.  Either some well meaning scientist or some crazy dictator will release a swarm of life seeking nanobots on the populace.  There may be no way to stop them from killing us all because they will be a silicon based life form and not susceptible to antibiotics.  There is a chance that an electromagnetic pulse such as was depicted in the movie Matrix might wipe the little machines out but there is also a chance that all computers and electronic equipment would be wiped out as well.

The latest craze is to take a date from the Mayan calendar namely 21 December 2012 and hold it up as the end of the world.  It may have been the end of the rock the Mayans happened to be writing on.  Or it may be  just the end of an epoch and therefore time to party rather than time to die.   Some, desperate for an Apocalypse of any kind, have noted that a reversal of the earth’s magnetic poles might occur about this time or that an alignment of stars and planets might happen near the fateful date. 

The world will end for each of us one day since all who are born are fated to die.  But it is more likely than not that on December 22, 2012, we will each of us wake up with a hangover.  For any that do believe that the world is ending, I volunteer to take all your worldly possession off your hands.  Don’t thank me.  I’m just doing my part.