Posting this here from my article. I set a post to be made at 11:12 AM GTM tomorrow if the world is still here. I hope we make it! This article was included in an award-winning issue of my college paper.

_________________________________________________________________________

Starting this New Year, perhaps the last thing we want to think about is that this is our final year to live. At risk of bringing a sad mood to this paper, the following must be included.

Dec. 21nd, 2012 is to be the last day for Earth. It has been a good run; in the last fraction of the planet’s history, the human race had made quite a few amazing accomplishments. We have harnessed electricity and we can communicate with each other from anywhere on the globe. Travel that once would have been impossible now takes a few hours by plane or by rail. It is as if we have managed to all come together under one flag, that of Earth, just in time for it to be destroyed.

Yet, this cannot last, for during human kind’s history, a group known as the Mayans accomplished something of their own: they learned that the Earth would end on December 21nd, 2012.

Now, let us not forget the other grand achievements of the Mayan people. They played amazing sacrificial ball games, where either the winning or losing participants died, and it may have been an honor. Today, tourists still flock to the outstandingly detailed pyramids and ziggurats that they constructed. They had substantial knowledge of the cosmos, and integrated that knowledge into works including their pyramids and, more notably, their calendars. Continue reading →