I agree with Tyler re: the doomsaying, such as the hand wringing over Fukushima. The world will end after people stop predicting its demise in their own lifetimes. Doesn't it strike anyone as a bit arrogant to assume that the world will end in our own lifetime--as though the universe revolved around us--instead of some random time after we're long gone? Think about all the thousands of doomsayers who came before us who predicted the end of the human race (or even of the planet) decades, centuries or millennia ago. Why is it that none of the doomsayers ever predict that the world will end after they're gone? I'll be the first--human civilization will come to an end long after I'm gone and by that point no one will even remember who I am, nor care about any predictions I made, even if they were accurate. I am but an infinitesimal speck in the universe and I'm fine with that.
The really sad part of the whole shebang is that the folks who are predicting the end of the world in 2012 because of some misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar will mostly be unfazed by its continuation long after 2012. It will be as though they had never made any prediction and any attempt to point out their stupendous miscalculation will be treated as incivility rather than basic sense. No matter how many thousands of times the doomsayers get it wrong, their pronouncements must be accepted as gospel or you're the asshole. To that and other inanities I raise my middle finger, not because I think I'm better than anyone else; quite the contrary--it's only because I recognize the fact of my ignorance, and that of every other human being, even the "prophets." To the gargantuan universe (or multiverse), we puny mortals are irrelevant (see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for confirmation of this).
Sorry, tangential rant over, carry on. No harm done, I hope.
