Thursday, March 25, 2010

The 2012 meme


I thought this photo was so funny!

From Mac Tonnies' blog, one year ago today:

I took this low-quality cameraphone picture in a Barnes & Noble. Personally, I'm grateful for the 2012 phenomenon: it's helped focus much-needed attention on issues pertaining to the near-future and our role as planetary stewards.

I'm ultimately agnostic regarding whether anything remotely "weird" occurs on December 21, 2012. My guess is that the fervently New Age crowd is in for a disappointment (which will, of course, be duly incorporated into its existing belief structure for fear of fracturing the entire edifice).

But if thinking about the future by way of the 2012 meme catalyzes interest in making the future a place where we might actually want to live, I'm all for it. And perhaps the ancient Mayans would have agreed.


(Mac sent me this image in an email, a year ago today. It was actually posted on his blog on March 26th)

12 comments:

Red Pill Junkie said...

Oh, I'm sure that by now the 2012 section has tripled in size.

I'm agnostic about it, too. But that doesn't negate the fact that a peak in solar activity is forecast to happen in 2012 —although NOW some articles are using 2013 instead, no doubt to separate the 'woo' from the 'real' science ;)

So, imagining that a particularly powerful solar storm could fry the electronics of a discrete percentage of our communication satellites (how many transactions are performed on-line, how many millions are transferred from one bank to another via satellite?), and also cause a geomagnetic storm that could blow several hundred electric transformers —how many days can one stand without electricity? a day or two, how about a whole month?— is something about which I'm genuinely worried.

Our current global economic system is at a very fragile state right now. It wouldn't withstand another blow, no matter how tiny it would at first.

Trish and Rob MacGregor said...

Remember all those books about the Y2K?

Green-Eyed Momster said...

Just stopping by to say "Hi!" I found your comment to Stacey very interesting and I love this post of yours.

Anonymous said...

When disaster is averted, people disbelieve any danger and dismiss the worried as paranoid fools. When disaster strikes, people demand an explanation and hail the worried as brilliant sages. 2000 is a sticking point with me as I spent a chunk of life back then exterminating the Y2K bug. Much of the critical computing infrastructure at that time was based on millions of lines of ancient, poorly written spaghetti code and it could have catastrophically failed had nothing been done. If the public knew all that *might* have happened, the Y2K issue might be viewed as more a tribute to teamwork than the poster child of prophetic hype.

2012 will come and go. The books and movies are simply playing into public fears for profit and when the next apocalypse is predicted, they will follow. However, if the planet continues to be trashed, a truly apocalyptic scenario is someday and may already be inevitable. As more people are personally affected by climate weirdness and other problems, let us hope “caring” will become an increasingly widespread meme.

Deep Thinker said...

I can survive without lights and such, but the internet and my phone...that's another story!

Tristan Eldritch said...

I remember a few years ago the 2012 meme was really under the radar - people knew it mainly via terence mckenna, and I remember Grant Morrison using it in his wonderful comic strip The Invisibles. Nowadays, it feels like the meme's been kinda sucked dry - by a double wammy of Hollywood and New Age shysters.

Mike Clelland! said...

As I said in the photo caption - I thought the photo was funny!

Beyond that - Mac's outlook is as good as any...

Mike C!

Anonymous said...

That photo IS funny.

Just think-- by January of 2013 if nothing happens, all those books will be "obsolete." Which is kind of hilarious.

I don't know if anything will happen. I expect to be "disappointed" (or relieved?) though.

Red Pill Junkie said...

"Just think-- by January of 2013 if nothing happens, all those books will be "obsolete." Which is kind of hilarious."

And they will be still offered at bookstores, with a nice 25% discount ;)

Red Pill Junkie said...

Looky here! Michio Kaku shares my fears, y'all:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/19371

Kartott said...

This photo sparked an email conversation between Mac and I, regarding Daniel Pinchbeck - I had read his book "2012: the Return of Quetzalcoatl" (its the book with the green jacket at the top of the rack in the photo). Mac was only just beginning to read it. We discussed the role of consciousness in shaping reality. He asked me about my meditation experiences; he was particularly interested in the "Helper" beings I see when in deep meditation. (I posted about them on my blog: http://postreason.blogspot.com/2009/04/helpers_21.html).

Brizdaz (Darren) said...

I'm a Daniel Pinchbeck fan after reading his book "Breaking Open The Head" (I highly recommend it),and I have "2012: the Return of Quetzalcoatl" coming from Amazon (which as Kartott pointed out is the green book on the top shelf),so I'll reserve my judgment on 2012,until say,December 22,2012.-)