So Will 2012 Be Just Another Year?

[Darat]

Was 1939 'just another year'?

It's all relative isn't it - for our corner of the world it was very significant, for say the USA folk not so significant and probably for some folk living in the Amazonian rainforest it was the most significant year ever since it was the year they had more food than any other year before or since!

 

[UndercoverElephant]

A thread in R&P, discussing 2012 "predictions", started by someone other than UE; and yet UE unilaterally decrees the scope and nature of the discussion?

I must have missed the announcement where you became a mod, UE. If you are not interested in one aspect of the discussion, it's entirely your prerogative not to respond to certain posts. You don't, however, get to limit what other people might say, nor do you get a free pass on insulting others.

Let me explain it more clearly then.

A lot of the people who inhabit this board aren't really capable of much more than parroting the words "Prove it!" every time they see something they don't like the look of. They also tend to assume that anyone who comes here who isn't signed up to their own extremist version of "skepticism" is desperately trying to convert the world to their own form of woo-woo.

Some people are continually responding to me as if what I was doing here is trying to convince skeptics to become believers. I am not doing this, for reasons already explained: I think it is a futile activity - it won't work.

If in fact the only thing people are interested in discussing is the status of the paranormal, and not what is actually going on in the world right now, then I'll just go away, because I can't be bothered. Been there, done it, bought the T-shirt and ended up using it as a dishcloth.

 

[Darat]

Let me explain it more clearly then.

A lot of the people who inhabit this board aren't really capable of much more than parroting the words "Prove it!" every time they see something they don't like the look of. They also tend to assume that anyone who comes here who isn't signed up to their own extremist version of "skepticism" is desperately trying to convert the world to their own form of woo-woo.

Some people are continually responding to me as if what I was doing here is trying to convince skeptics to become believers. I am not doing this, for reasons already explained: I think it is a futile activity - it won't work.
If in fact the only thing people are interested in discussing is the status of the paranormal, and not what is actually going on in the world right now, then I'll just go away, because I can't be bothered. Been there, done it, bought the T-shirt and ended up using it as a dishcloth.

Assuming I'm meant to be the "some people" - you are misunderstanding why I have posted what I have above. It is not to discuss whatever belief system you have but to point out factual errors in comments you have made.

For example claims that you know it is the end times because of world events. That is at best only a partial truth, you know these are the end times because of the document that over ten years ago mysteriously appeared on your computer which told you what was going to happen (albeit you have produced two contradictory time lines for what it told you). Folks might not realise what your predictions are actually based on if I hadn't provided that snippet of information.

 

[Agatha]

No, they weren't. 40 years ago people were worried about an imminent nuclear exchange with the Russians. The environmental movement was in its infancy, climate change was unheard of, the global population was less than half its current level and people were worried about what their distant descendants might have to cope with in terms of clearing up the ecological mess. This time they are telling you that the entire global economic/monetary system is about to collapse and that if we don't change our behaviour very quickly we might just make this planet uninhabitable for humans within the expected lifetimes of people alive today.

Yes, that's what I mean. Different doom, same doom-mongering. Then we were watching films about nuclear armageddon at school (making the whole planet uninhabitable by humans), now people watch Al Gore. The specifics may change but the doom-mongers are always with us.

Very clearly. I was born in 1968.

I was born in 1963. During the three-day week, we were in the middle of an energy crisis. Now, we're in the middle of an energy crisis. Once again, plus ca change.

The look harder, because you are seeing what you want to see instead of what is actually there.

You've posted evidence? Excellent, I'll get right to it. Just as soon as I find it. Um, can you give me a post number?

People have NOT been saying what I'm saying for the whole of recorded history. What you are saying is simply not true. This is not some airy-fairy theory that I pulled out my backside. Don't take my word for it. Have you actually watched the film I keep linking to?

No. If you have evidence for the doom you prophesy, post it here rather than pointing people towards someone else's work.

Then you have not done your research.

That's kind of the thing; you made the claims of the world collapsing by 2015, it's your research we're interested in. It's your burden of proof.

I can only point you in the right direction. I cannot make you watch the things I am linking to.

If you can't spare 80 minutes then try this one. It's only 35, and also very good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg

Please don't ask me for any more evidence until you've actually watched it.

As above, you made the claim. If you can only evidence that claim by pointing to other people's films (what do deaf or blind people do, stay ignorant?), then I'm not interested.

That's because they were isolated countries. This time it's the $US that is going down, and as part of the same process all of the other fiat currencies, including those that are currently stable, will go the same way. At the moment, people fleeing from the currencies in the most trouble are being led towards swiss francs or other "safe" currencies. The result is those currencies going up in value, which totally destroys the export capacity of the countries involved, forcing them to inflate their currencies to stop people wanting them. And THAT is game over. It means the whole system goes down when the $US goes down.

At last, some actual mechanisms! I'm not quite clear as to why a country would inflate its currency if it was wanting to increase exports. Assuming what you say is correct and the US$ "goes down" - what do you mean by this? What effect will this have on the average American who knows little of currency speculation?

I don't particularly care how you came to believe this, but any kind of scepticism is saying "prove it", not just extreme skepticism [sic]. Again, you made the claim of global social and economic collapse by 2015, you need to produce evidence for it.

 

[Humes fork]

If in fact the only thing people are interested in discussing is the status of the paranormal, and not what is actually going on in the world right now, then I'll just go away, because I can't be bothered. Been there, done it, bought the T-shirt and ended up using it as a dishcloth.

I happen not to find the paranormal particularly interesting. If you look at the amount of posts for each sub-forum, then people here discuss mostly entertainment, followed by American politics.

 

[Myriad]

Peak Oil collapse predictions do seem to have a spiritual aspect, especially with regard to accounting for skepticism (that is, the question of why some smart people agree with the beliefs, but most others disagree). By "spiritual aspect" I mean some, or any, beliefs regarding differences in the nature of cognition and perception (apart from general intelligence) between individuals -- whether those differences are attributed to random genetic influences, religious background, benefits of practices such as meditation or ritual, or outright supernatural forces. (I agree with UE, as well as with a certain Archdruid, that whether or not such supernatural forces actually exist is of no importance in that discussion.)

In the 9/11 conspiracy forum, I wrote this post comparing and contrasting Peak Oil beliefs with 9/11 Truth beliefs. Regarding the spiritual (in the sense just defined) aspects of both, I wrote:

The most striking similarity between the truth movement and the peak oil movement, to me, is how the believers explain skepticism. For example, this recent post and its comments thread, on one of the more interesting peak oil blogs The Archdruid Report, discusses the question of why the public, skeptics, and experts are so blind to the crisis and only the enlightened fringe can see the obvious truth.

The Archdruid's answer delves into centuries of philosophical thought to explore the importance of initiation experiences in overcoming supposed pernicious social influences that can distort one's perception of reality. The post and its comments thread contain vivid and sometimes touching accounts of various commenters' own initiation experiences (reading a book or essay, viewing a video) that opened their eyes to the truth, that changed their entire perception of the nature of the world. Now that their eyes are open, they see others remaining strangely blind to the obvious, just as they themselves had been prior to their own "initiations." This has caused feelings of isolation, strained family relations, and frustration at slow progress in awakening the blinded-by-ideology/TV-tranquilized/distracted masses. Some express the hope that the inevitable next crisis will help wake more people up faster.

The degree of erudition in that blog post, applied to discussion of what are clearly the exact same "wake up the sheeple" and "brainwashed by Fox News" canards familiar to every skeptic who's ever conversed with Truthers, seems almost surreal (at least, I found it so). But apart from that, the similarity is striking. I highly recommend reading the entire essay and its comments thread (even though, yes, it was posted by a druid).

If I'm not mistaken, that is the sense in which UE would consider a clear widespread pre-collapse crisis in 2012 a spiritual event: one that would change many people's way of thinking about how the world works. Arguing about the semantics of whether the word "spiritual" is actually justified in that context is a bit of a sidetrack. At the same time, UE, can you accept that there are reasons people might disagree with your expectations for 2012-2015, apart from being distracted by that semantic issue?

After I have time to watch the Crisis of Civilization video (requires a different computer), I'll comment on the other thread, about what I think the weaknesses in the Peak Oil collapse arguments are. The peak oil vs. 9/11 truth post I linked to above explains, among other things, why those arguments, whether they might ultimately prove true or not, are difficult to address.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[dafydd]

Let me explain it more clearly then.

A lot of the people who inhabit this board aren't really capable of much more than parroting the words "Prove it!" every time they see something they don't like the look of. They also tend to assume that anyone who comes here who isn't signed up to their own extremist version of "skepticism" is desperately trying to convert the world to their own form of woo-woo.

Some people are continually responding to me as if what I was doing here is trying to convince skeptics to become believers. I am not doing this, for reasons already explained: I think it is a futile activity - it won't work.

If in fact the only thing people are interested in discussing is the status of the paranormal, and not what is actually going on in the world right now, then I'll just go away, because I can't be bothered. Been there, done it, bought the T-shirt and ended up using it as a dishcloth.

So I'm supposed to believe everything that people tell me? Do you believe everything that governments and bankers tell you? You do not, you question it.

 

[realpaladin]

If we think about the whole history of life on Earth, and the current state of the global ecosystem, then what is happening is really a crisis on an evolutionary scale. What has happened is that evolution has produced a creature which has a completely new sort of survival strategy: pure brainpower. Never before in evolutionary history has a creature depended entirely on using its massive brain to dominate the rest of the ecosystem, and as a result of this we have ended up in a position of total dominance over everything else that lives on this planet. The crisis we currently face is the end result of this strategy being employed in a sort of "total war" by humans against the rest of the ecosystem. That's what nature designed us to do, but we have become too good at it.

When the first amino acids combined to form life there was also something 'completely new' to dominate the planet. It has taken it's time to do so.

But the manner you are speaking suggests the same Frankenstein-complex with technology and society as people had when the first trains started to storm around at 20 miles an hour.

The outcries of 'a human body can not stand that speed' and the papers on more wars because of the better logistics where ubiqutous.

Also, you are freely mixing temporal scales here; millennia and centuries v.s. weeks and months...

Face it 2012 will be another year where we grumble and where the younger generation, who has been spoonfed to the max, is annoyed by the fact that they can not sit on their behinds but have to figure out what to do next.

In the immortal words of the Talking Heads: Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

 

[Nosi]

UndercoverElephant

I believe that historians will look back on 2012 as something like the year everything changed - the pivotal moment of a process which began on 9/11

I don't agree. I have no idea what you mean by the highlighted part. 911 was a terrorist attack. It did not inspire a worldwide 'new way of thinking'. Even the Black Death didn't do that.

The Internet is my take on what changed the world. LOL CATS were carpetbombing a poor defenseless big blue marble. Computer's tiny cousins, the cell phones? In totalitarian nations like North Korea, cell phones and computers are somewhat rare. In developed countries you are probably not less than 40 feet of the suckers at any one time. This is REAL! Fifty years ago Joe Lower Middle Class would be rushed to the nut hut if he talked to himself. Today a cellphone is suspected, and talker is ignored. Is there one in your pocket?

 

[Nosi]

More catastrophic in terms of human suffering, but there is nothing all that unusual about humans starting wars, unfortunately.

As hard as it is to believe with a certain solder and 16 slaughtered people, violence of mankind is in fact going down. In the past it was perfectly acceptable for solders to have "fun" with the occupied nation's civilian population. Today it is an atrocity and a war crime.

Burning cats in public would probably get you the 'tar and feather treatment' today along with a stiff fine or even prison .

In the middle ages burning black cats alive was a merriment.

Considering today's kill power, it's just as well.

 

[dafydd]

The Internet is my take on what changed the world. LOL CATS were carpetbombing a poor defenseless big blue marble. Computer's tiny cousins, the cell phones? In totalitarian nations like North Korea, cell phones and computers are somewhat rare. In developed countries you are probably not less than 40 feet of the suckers at any one time. This is REAL! Fifty years ago Joe Lower Middle Class would be rushed to the nut hut if he talked to himself. Today a cellphone is suspected, and talker is ignored. Is there one in your pocket?

What?

 

[Nosi]

The highlighted part is where you are going wrong and not making any friends here. You have to show us why we have to believe it with old fashioned stuff called evidence. Just saying that you are smarter and more perceptive than us is not the way to go about it.

Some calamity may indeed befall UndercoverElephant thus maybe he is proven right and wrong. An economic collapse in the country you are living in is a lady dog. Greece is an example of economy going to the sty. If you had a stash of something worth having, you would be better than neighbors in the streets. Get to another country in a slightly better state, a bit of gold may meet your need.

Gold can pack a lot of value in a relatively small package in today's value system.

 

[Nosi]

It seems quite unusual in terms of weather too. Here in MN, we were practically robbed of winter. And it's beginning to look as though we might get robbed of spring too.

Anyway, glad to see you are still on the web UE.

The weather is flaming bonkers. Then again, when isn't the weather flaming something somewhere somewhen?

Here in the high desert God took a white crap on us. People were going "What the flaming is going on? A foot of snow?" Cars were rolling around with white 'hats'. "The snow room is ->

"

 

[Nosi]

Can you remember how big and impressive the Sears towers were when you stood at the base?

If you look at them from space they are not even visible.

The same thing goes for the 'changes' and 'difficult times' we are now experiencing.

We notice them because we are in the middle of them; in the view of the next 100 years or so... this year may have 1 or 2 historical markers and that is about it.

What there is, however, is a yearning for 'living in special times'; the 1940's through to 1960's 'changed the world' and brought new and exciting times.
And people stood up and bla bla bla Apple/Coca Cola commercial voice bla bla bla those unique bla bla bla...

And now the people living now also want to be part of 'special times'.

It is temporal pareidolia.

Humans left earth.

 

[Nosi]

We know what you think. My Mam used to say 'Do you know what Thought did? He stuck a feather in the ground and thought that it would grow.' What about some evidence?

Maybe feathers are rendered useless. Thought trees do grow, and connect with other idea trees until a network of them covers the globe. From thought, spoken word, printed word, and electronic seeds fly here to there along with the dross such as porn.

 

[Nosi]

What?

Information is flying further and faster than it has ever BEEN DREAMED it could.

Contanents? Mom in China can talk to son in Mexico in but a second.

SPACE isn't safe from cell phone power much less mere air.

 

[Godless Infidel]

Has any year in the last million been just another year?

History is fickle. Turning points in history can be attributed to a point today, a moment last year that lead to the moment today or the moment next year that these things will lead to. It's useless speculation to predict which bits will make the history books. What's deemed important in the books 5 years from now will be different than what is deemed important 50 years from now. The year everything changed is all of them.

The only real difference between 2012 and 2011 is 1.

 

[dafydd]

Information is flying further and faster than it has ever BEEN DREAMED it could.

Contanents? Mom in China can talk to son in Mexico in but a second.

SPACE isn't safe from cell phone power much less mere air.

What does that have to do with an alleged immanent collapse of civilization? I have no idea what that last sentence is supposed to mean.

 

[realpaladin]

Humans left earth.

Good for them.

 

[realpaladin]

Information is flying further and faster than it has ever BEEN DREAMED it could.

And still it does not matter.

The basics governing crowd behaviour have not changed.

But now, instead of needing a bullhorn and stencils, they can whatsapp.

The world will only change if people change fundamentally.

The reason that Egypt worked was because people already wanted this, not because they had tech toys.

Your phone is nothing special if all you can push through it are empty chants and slogans.

As for the weather... that too changes, with or without our help. In a few billion years it will have been very hot, followed by very very cold.

If you want to be special, then do something special. And buying an iPhone is not special.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Internet, being a bit of a trailblazer what with my setting up first connections in some African jungle areas using sattelites, in the 1990's, but unless the smug kiddo's do something else with it than sending gigabits of OMFG LULZ NYAN etc through it, nought is going to be changed by them