Culture Blues

The Skeptic’s Survival Guide: 2012 For Beginners

Robert Bast tells me that I need to buy some land. Two thousand feet above sea level, preferably. As far inland as possible. Not near any nuclear power plants. Or volcanoes. And on this land, I’m going to want to build a bunker. That’s where I’ll want to be on December 21^st, 2012, when the world ends.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

A few weeks ago, the intuition that we’re all going to die in a fireball crept over me. When it happened,  I was relaxing in my austere work cube, procrastinating over a pile of TPS reports, occasionally lighting a cigarette from the burning pile of government bailout money that I supervise. An average day for me – mister big city middle class, wiling away my days, getting fatter and older. And yet, I’m suddenly overcome with thoughts of falling sky, rising ocean, pandemic virus, food riots, terrorism, zombies, and all that other Roland Emmerich shit. These disturbing thoughts invade my peacefully mundane day-to-day.

I was spurred to action. Immediately calling upon the forces of Google, I posed that wonderful robot (whose increasing intelligence might also contribute to the eventual eradication of humanity) a very simple question.

How will I survive the end of the world?

The search leads me to Survive2012.com, the internet’s most comprehensive guide to how we’re all going to die in three years. Operated out of Australia by Robert Bast, Survive2012 launched in 2000, presumably after the new millennium failed to sate humanity’s guilty craving for a doomsday. Since then, the site boasts over 5 million visitors. It was also ranked #314 in the book “505 Unbelievably Stupid Webpages.”

Survive2012 is a godsend for a neophyte like me. Bast has created a list of twenty-two ways that the world could end, scored them, and ranked them. To give you an idea: number five on the list is Religious Apocalypse, number twelve is Super Volcano, and number fifteen is Time Travel Error (nice job, McFly). One, or some, or all, of these disasters could happen in 2012.

At this point, you might be wondering what the big deal is about 2012. Obviously, it lacks the uniqueness of a millennium change. Why not 2015, or even 2009?

Because of the Mayans.

You might remember the Mayans from such films as Apocalypto, directed by notorious crackpot (and alleged 2012 believer) Mel Gibson, where the Mayans face the waning days of their civilization. Apocalypto is also an allegory for the decline of America or the Christian end-of-days, depending on who you read. Aside from getting lionized by Mad Max, the Mayans were also notable for their societal contributions, developing important early techniques in agriculture, mathematics, architecture, and human sacrifice.

They laid the foundation for the way we live. It’s only logical we be interested in their calendars. The Mayans had a bunch of them, inherited from their ancestors – Aztecs, Olmecs, etc. But, for our purposes, we’re just going to lump all ancient Mesoamerica cultures together so, if you’re a professor of ancient history, or if you can understand words from a Wikipedia article better than me, you might want to turn away from the next few paragraphs as they’re probably going to insult your intelligence.

The Mayans devised a sophisticated system of interlocking calendars – they had a 260 day calendar that interlocked with a 365 day calendar. The two calendars combined to form a cycle that would repeat every 52 years – typically longer than your average Mayan was alive and kicking. The end of the calendar was usually a scary time for the Mayans, as they were forced to go to lame parties with their friends and, of course, they never had dates, so instead they just stood around reflecting on all the shit they didn’t accomplish in the last calendar cycle, and hoped like heck the Gods would see fit to grant them another 52 years.

Anyway, the 52 year cycle was great for forecasting seasons and remembering birthdays, but not so great for recording history. To that purpose, the Mayans devised a “Long Count” calendar. The Long Count calendar ran all the way back to what the Mayans believed to be man’s creation date – approximately 3114 BC. To give you some mythological perspective, the Mayan creation date would come about 1,000 years after lonely Adam pulled out a rib to create himself a girlfriend.

The big fuss about the Mayan Long Count calendar isn’t so much where it begins as where it ends. If you believe the Mayan creation myth, then we’re actually the fourth world. That means there were three other worlds before ours, but the Gods deemed them too screwed up to keep around, so they shook the celestial etch-a-sketch and started fresh. The Mayans back-dated their Long Count calendar to begin at creation and it ends, presumably, when our run is over and it’s time to make way for the fifth world.

The Long Count calendar ends on December 21^st, 2012. Or December 23^rd, depending on whose interpretation you favor.

We’re basing the end of days on a bunch of savages that probably just ran out of carving space in the calendar cave. Who cares, right? A whole lot of people, apparently. As a culture, we’re fascinated by the end of the world – the new millennium, Nostrodamus, Independence Day. We lucky Americans have just spent eight years under a President that believes in the rapture. The apocalypse is an industry, evidenced by the support for mom-and-pop bunker sales, the Left Behind series, and Roland Emmerich’s movies, the next of which, 2012, is all about the next big thing in cataclysm.

2012 stars John Cusack as a family man who outruns meteors in a RV. As usual with Emmerich, cities are destroyed in glorious fashion, people make impassioned speeches, and scrappy humans like us manage to survive against all odds. The marketing campaign for 2012 features a viral site – The Institute for Human Continuity. It’s a glossy, make-believe version of what Robert Bast’s Survive2012 site really is – a resource devoted to making sure some of us make like John Cusack. The IHC also offers a survival lottery (presumably to secure your place in a fictional bunker) and is currently holding an election to determine who will lead the post-2012 world. I nominate myself, but this is a decidedly premature action on my part; there are tests involved, and I fail them miserably – I can’t outsmart the computer in a strategy portion that reminds me of Free Cell, and I haven’t read enough (any) Daniel Pinchbeck to pass the knowledge section. Winner of the election receives an all expenses paid trip to the Mayan ruins – where it all began.

After browsing Survive2012, skimming some Wikipedia articles, and watching the 2012 trailer a half dozen times (explosions are awesome), I believe that I’m ready to begin taking on the apocalypse. I consider posting some of my initial questions to the insanely active Survive2012 forum (it boasts over four thousand registered members), but I’m intimidated. I decide to take my inquiries directly to Bast.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from him. While he runs a site devoted to the end of the world, and has authored articles such as Dragons: Were They Once Real?, I don’t get much of a tinfoil-hat vibe from him. Instead, I get the feeling that Bast is a more sincere Roland Emmerich, a smart guy on the fringe, attempting to cash in on our hunger for extinction.  The site is littered with promotion for his upcoming book. The first item in Survive2012’s FAQ is:  Are 2012 authors just trying to make a quick buck? You can read Bast’s answer here (it’s essentially, “yes, but is that so wrong?”).

I shoot Robert Bast an e-mail. I confess my skepticism. I describe myself as a “someone who lives in a major population center, is in relatively good shape, but is generally middle-class and soft.” I ask him some ignorant questions about the Mayans (how high could they count? etc). Finally, I ask him about an asteroid hitting Earth, which Bast ranks as the most likely doomsday scenario. How could the Mayans predict such a thing? Will it hit New York?

He replies four hours later.

Here, Bast sets me straight on the Mayans:

“The Mayans counted years in the billions and trillions, so they certainly could count higher. The calendar was never a paper one like we hang on the wall, so they didn't run out of space either.  Their Long Count calendar started thousands of years before their culture began, and ends hundreds after their demise... suggesting to me that they didn't create it.

Halley worked out when the famous comet would return by observing the sky and computing everything by hand. Not so easy, it involves taking into account the gravitational effects of every planet it passes. Some French mathematicians did the same. There is no reason why the Mayans or Egyptians couldn't also predict the return of a comet, even one with a period of a 1000 years. It's about the only possible tragedy they could have predicted for us.”

Later in the e-mail, Bast reassures me that he (and most of his forum members) shares my status as fluffy and middle-class. This is when he gives me the advice on where to build my bunker. I ask if he’s got a bunker of his own, and Bast tells me that he’s got the land picked out, about two hours drive north of Melbourne (where Robert lives), but that he can’t yet afford a bunker. He’s working hard and saving money.

After reading that, I don’t feel so bad. If the internet’s foremost expert on 2012 (an honorary title I’m bestowing on Bast) doesn’t have his bunker ready yet, then there’s still time for me. Forget The IHC’s phony election – I’ve got three years to prepare. I might make a bad post-2012 leader today, but I’m going to keep working at it. I just set aside the first $50 for my bunker. I can survive this. And I’m going to take all of you with me. As servants.

Well, ok, only four of you. The bunker I’m looking at has limited space. 

 

PROGRESS:

Preparedness:  Extremely Low

Disasters Researched:  0

Bunker Fund:  $50

 

IN THE COMING WEEKS:

Jeff goes bunker shopping, explores the various causes of humanity’s demise, and social networks the apocalypse.

Tagged as: 2012, end of the world, human sacrifice, john cusack, skeptic's guide, skiing the K-12