Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

T G I Friday the 13th


This is the third Friday the 13th of this year.[1] Numerologists and other superstitious people probably will attach some meaning to that. There is none. For many people, Friday is the end of the work week. For that reason it may be different from other days – more drinking and other celebratory behaviors that do not mix well with driving, digestion, consciousness, et cetera. For me on the other hand, Friday is the beginning of my work week. It is not the beginning of my pay week, just the beginning of several days of consecutive work. The beginning and end of the calendar week are arbitrary.

For similar reasons, calendars begin and end at points that are largely arbitrary. there is no predictive value beyond the expected astronomical events – solstices, planetary motion, and such.

Full moons, 13ths, Fridays, . . . do not predict luck, or anything else. Fridays do result in more drinking and thus more accidents and general stupidity, but that has to do with the end of the typical work week falling on Friday, not with anything more than that.

This does not stop a bunch of people from believing that the end of an old calendar, from a civilization that has little current presence, is predicting the end of that civilization, the world, or whatever.

Arguments supporting this dating are drawn from a mixture of archaeoastronomical speculation,[3] alternative interpretations of mythology,[4] numerological constructions, and alleged prophecies from extraterrestrial beings.[5][2]

Translated into English, that means that they are all anti-science people. People who do not understand reality. Although, I love the use of alleged to describe the ET prophecies. If they hadn’t thrown that in there I might have considered this to be a fact.

But, What if they are right?

Maybe they are right. The simple way to find out is to look at the other otherwise unforeseeable events predicted by the same method.

And the calendar predicts . . . nothing. surprise.

What about Nostradamus? Did he have anything to say about 2012?

Nothing there, either. Not that one should be used to contradict the other, since both are examples of fairy tale reasoning.

For anyone planning to commit suicide because you believe the world is ending, psychiatric help is available. However, if you do decide to provide a graphic demonstration of your stupidity kill yourself, put me in your will. That is Rouge Medic Rogue Medic. It’s not as if you expect that anyone else will get any of this stuff and I did recommend psychiatric help, so I am trying to help. Maybe I should set up a tip jar thingie with pdfs of wills already filled out except for the name of the sucker gullible fool dearly not-yet-departed.

What this really needs is a Mystery Science Theater 3,000 2012 version. Maybe this will be as unintentionally comic as The Day After Tomorrow or 10,000 BC. Here is a link to a review of 10,000 BC by Lawdog. Maybe he will do something nice for 2012 if he is feeling masochistic and desperate for blog fodder. If you like explosions and are turned off by thinking, this may be just the movie for you. Hmm. Maybe I should have started with that. Reach out to a whole different audience of semi-literate reader. Oh well, too late now.

If you want to watch an apocalyptic film, waiting for The Road is probably a much better idea. Cannibalism for Thanksgiving. That probably makes more sense than you will find in all of 2012.

Happy Friday the 13th.

Footnotes

^ 1 Friday the 13th
Wikipedia
Article

^ 2 2012 phenomenon
Wikipedia
Article

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