To think that those people who seem genuinely concerned about the apocalypse need to get a grip?

[wannaBe]

Seriously. No-one really believes this, do they? Not really? it's up there with Santa and the tooth fairy - it's not real. And yet I've seen posts from people on here saying they are genuinely worried!

Even if it were real, you won't know about it because... ... ... you'll be dead!

I agree with everything EllieArroway says. I suffer from anxiety so I do know how it feels when your mind picks up on something and runs with it. The fact is nothing anyone says or does will make any of you feel better, that won't happen until 11.12am on Friday :)

I got the vibe from posts she made LeQueen has anxiety issues relating to her position in social standing and appearances.

We could get hit by an asteroid on Friday - we could get hit by an asteroid at any time

We aren't going to get taken by surprise by asteroids though. The overwhelming likelihood is that we'd see it coming, using telescopes, satellites etc. So we couldn't get hit by an asteroid on Friday. If it were close enough to do that it would be easily visible and we'd all be standing outside looking at it.

It wasn't all that long ago that I managed to convince myself that I had a brain tumour because my coffee & tea started to taste really bitter for no apparent reason (it was because my milk had started to go off). I KNEW I was being utterly ridiculous - but that didn't stop me being close to tears for several hours.

Anxiety has nothing to do with common sense or intelligence - it's an illness that causes obsessive & intrusive thoughts. So, I do honestly feel for people who are panicking about the end of the world - without exception they've all acknowledged that they know they are being irrational, but can't help it.

It's the pedlars of this crap that piss me off - the tin hat brigade. You can tell the difference because the anxiety sufferers are saying, "Yes, I know I'm being daft..." while the loons are trying to justify the whole thing with their version of the "facts".

Eldritch - According to Bill Bryson (!!!) we probably wouldn't know about it in advance. We might do, if we happened to spot it, but the likelihood is that we wouldn't.

I don't know. I'll find the passage where he (quoting an astronomer) says this.

moisturiser

Thank you - I think many times people forget they are "talking" to humans when typing online.

Too many times I have been reduced to floods of tears by things people have said to me online that you know they'd never say in real life. I realise I might react oddly but I have been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and dyspraxia.

I've also been told I have probably got more than 1 personality disorder, also ADHD, Aspergers, OCD, etc.

When you say things online you don't always know the person behind the screen and there's a chance that what is said could impact on that person very negatively indeed. I read this thread and thought:

^XYZ says I need to get a grip.
I must be mentally defective.
I must be more irritating than I thought.
Christ it's no wonder I have hardly any friends.
Are they all lying? Do they think the same?
I hate myself for being me...^

You can see as well, that if that poor nurse had gone online, she may well have read what people said (because we know people did say things) and that may, in some way, have helped her make her decision.

Anxiety's hell on Earth. When you can't sit still and watch a TV because you're convinced there's an imminent disaster coming, that you can't quite put your finger on but you're just sure it's there and going to happen .. When you can't walk to Tescos without panicing about what people might think when they see you, how you might feel, how you might make a mistake .. When you get so frightened that you deliberately scrape your arms against walls outside so that you have something "real" to feel, so that you can feel grounded..

It's not fun, it's not a choice - and it has no correlation to intelligence in any way.

It's just a human response to a belief that you are in some way unsafe, and the only way to calm it is to feel safe again. It doesn't need to be a "true" belief or anything, but the important thing is that if it feels or sounds some way believable to you, and you have no "evidence" to know the belief is untrue, it can be very real and very anxiety inducing.

It's not always a disorder either in that it is really just a state of mind. Pyschologist said it only become a "disorder" when it seriously interfere's with one's daily functioning.

OK. Page 253 of A Short History of Nearly Everything:

"I asked them (two asteroid experts) how much warning we would receive if a similar hunk of rock (to the one that wiped out the dinosaurs) were coming towards us today.

"Oh, probably none," said Anderson breezily. "It wouldn't be visible to the naked eye until it warmed up, and that wouldn't happen until it hit the atmosphere, which would be about one second before it hit the Earth. You're talking about something moving may tens of times faster than the fastest bullet. Unless it had been seen by someone with a telescope - and that's by no means a certainty - it would take us completely by surprise".

Aha, interesting Ellie. If right, I s'pose that's better than knowing you've got 3 weeks left before asteroidaggedon.

The 21st is the winter solstice but that is as far as it goes astronomically-wise

Presumably in the southern hemisphere, where I believe the Mayans lived, it is the summer solstice. So talk of it being the darkest day etc is a load of old bollocks. And anyway, so close to the equator there is v little variation in the length of day between summer and winter.

Thanks on Diamond - I know his views aren't uncontroversial within archaeology, but they are accessible and fairly rational. Agree completely that we now know what happened to most 'vanished' civlizations, and it wasn't in the main apocalyptic, but dull and attrition-based.

We don't know about the Permian extinction, or even the Cretaceous extinction, though theories abound, but there's no way we should assume another extinction event is imminent. Geologically, 65 million years ago is fairly recent.

Oh, Eldritch I was hoping you were going to say, "No matter what Bryson says, that's wrong because.........." This no warning thing has always worried me . But, you're right - it's better than sitting around for three weeks watching the sky - or hoping Bruce Willis will save us .

Sorry sieglinde - reading back I see I was sort of answering two people not very clearly there - you just for the Jared Diamond mention, and icingontop with the whole vanished cities/natural disasters thing.

It's all very interesting though, this panic, it does make me wonder why we seem to be prone as a race to making up disaster stories about ourselves - starting with Plato's Atlantis.

I'm it the NWO camp. I don't think we are going to be hit by a stray planet or anything like that but I do believe that the worry this causes to people is the perfect opportunity to start to form a NWO.

I blame MN and introducing me to ATS. :o

OFRS is packed.

Interesting question: if you had 3 weeks to live before an asteroid hit, what would you do with your time?

Well, I wouldn't bloody swim with dolphins. Fat lot of use they turned out to be.

Probably just eat a lot of chocolate and read crap on the internet TBH.

I love this picture of james Randi that's been doing the rounds.
With the 2013 Mayan calendar SPLUTTER
Nonplussed.

No, I've never got the whole dolphin thing either. I'd rather break into Battersea and play with the puppies. Far cuter.

I don't honestly know what I'd do. The thing is, you could only fulfil your ambitions etc if you were the only person who knew the world was ending. If everyone knew, we'd descend into complete chaos very quickly & I'd probably be too scared to go out!

But, I think (if I could) I'd have loads and loads of sex with just about anyone, eat total crap & get stoned. Haven't done any of that since my teens & I seem to recall it was quite fun .

What would you do?

One of the early links on this thread was to the Wiki page about one of the people who started this asteroid apocalypse nonsense:

The idea was first put forward in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk. Lieder describes herself as a contactee with the ability to receive messages from extra-terrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system through an implant in her brain. She states that she was chosen to warn mankind that the object would sweep through the inner Solar System in May 2003 (though that date was later abandoned) causing Earth to undergo a pole shift that would destroy most of humanity

I just love that "though that date was later abandoned"! Tells you all you need to know about people who claim to be able to predict the future, Mayans or otherwise.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Bloody dolphins.

The pole shift thing is interesting, because that does happen. I wonder what effect it would have on us, though, really?

so are you all saying you think the world might end on friday at 11.12?

Sex, take up smoking, sex, food, booze, sex, home truths to a few select wankers if I could be bothered, messages of love and affection to all those I love, hightail it to somewhere rural and beautiful to die in peace.