Everything you've never wanted to know about the Mayan Apocalypse

Because I have a blog entitled "We're All Gonna Die," however intermittently-active said blog might be, many people have asked me whether I believe the Mayan Apocalypse will happen this Friday. The short answer is "Hell no, I'm no dummy. I think we're all gonna die as a result of man-made errors, not cosmic coincidences. (Duh.)" The long answer is that I actually know very little about the so-called "Mayan Apocalypse" aside from the fact (is it a fact?) that the Mayan calendar allegedly ends on December 21, 2012, and that some people believe that this will trigger (or coincide) with some kind of cataclysmic and/or cosmic event. So my response is typically, "Uh no; our calendar ends every December 31, and so far that hasn't caused any apocalypse." Which seemed clever and pithy to me (if I do say so myself) until I read that NASA is using the same reasoning to dissuade people from believing in the impending Doomsday. After I learned that, my reasoning seemed more on the rocket scientist level. (Fortunately, I just read that NASA thing today, so I haven't let my (supposed) genius go to my head for too long.)

In any case, I hoped to write a big ol' blog entry about why people believe that the world is going to end tomorrow, and what specifically is supposed to happen at the end, but the more I look into the issue, the less sense everything makes. There's not even one narrative that explains everything; it's all a mish mosh of paranoia. What seems clear is that (1) the Mayans most certainly did not believe the end of their calendar cycle was the end of the world (it's just the start of a new cycle...), and (2) all the prophecies that do foretell the end of the world are so insane as to test the limits of credulity, even among the gullible.* Among the various things that people believe will happen include a planet called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris approaching the Earth, threatening widespread destruction; a NASA conspiracy to cover it up; the Earth passing through a "galactic synchronization beam" (triggering what?); and more. And more.**) Assuming NASA isn't just trying to cover up the planet hurtling towards us, the following video makes a decent (if unimaginative) case for cutting the crap already. (My favorite part is when they talk about all the scientists discussing the doomsday on a Google hangout.)

So that's about all I have to say about that.

------

Disappointed that tomorrow isn't the end of the world? Have no fear. Gawker offers some hope for us all:

So if the world's not ending tomorrow, when will it end?

• If we can slow global warming enough, we'll get another Ice Age in about 50,000 years.
• By 500,000 years from now we'll most likely have been hit by a meteor with a diameter of 1 kilometer or more.
• Within a million years we're likely to see a supervolcanic eruption of about 113 million cubic feet of magma.
• In 100 million years we will probably have been hit by a meteorite the size of that which triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs.
• By 800 million years from now the carbon cycle will have been disrupted, lowering carbon dioxide levels to a point at which multicellular life is no longer sustainable.
• In a billion years the oceans will have evaporated.
• And in 7.9 billion years the sun will expand to 256 times its current size and likely destroy the earth.

--------

*NOT EVEN NORTH KOREA BELIEVES THIS SHIT.***
**Mental Floss lists the following possibilities for what might allegedly happen tomorrow [Via LiveScience]:

We’ll be toasted by a massive solar storm; Earth’s magnetic poles will flip-flop catastrophically; Planet X (a non-existent “rogue planet”) will smash into us; the planets will align in a way that ruins everything...or there will be some kind of massive global blackout, possibly due to an unprecedented alignment of Earth and Sun.

***Allegedly. In cursory searching I could find no other source to confirm this allegation.