There are many natural phenomenons that have the potential for serious consequences. But as I have either studied them, or encountered people who have, I learn that 'popular thought' on the subject is very often inaccurate, incomplete, and based on junk science.

Yes, an asteroid could hit us, but the odds of it happening are very slim. Yes, the earth's magnetic fields have switched in the past, but it has been a very long and complex process. Yes solar flares can cause problems, but at an 11 year cycle, but we have seen this before.

Sometimes it helps to look at things a different way. For example, there was a time when people were deathly afraid of traveling faster than 96.54 kilometers per hour because that meant they would be going 1.609 kilometers per minute. Not very scary, or understandable. But if I fess up and say that it was Americans who had this fear, and it was 60 miles per hour and 1 mile per minute!

Sigh, just because the numbers look 'special' does not mean that they are.

Consider December 21, 2012. Yes, 12/21/12 looks special, but if you translate this into the Jewish calendar, the date becomes:

Tevet 8, 5773

Hard to see any special numbers there.

And we could get hit by a buss if we walk out the door to, but we still do.

cosnider therapy or getting a new hobby that does not have anything to do with morbid fascinations like this.

Paranoia is a dangerous thing and if you dont get a handle on it, even the act of drinking water will be full of 'what ifs'. Live this life now. Enjoy it whilst you have the chance.

Quick news flash.
We are not living in the time of the Oracle at Delph. Doomsaying has been going on for years and never amounted to anything. How can any of you get a grip on your depression if you spend all your time worrying about internet perpetuated false-hoods.

Then, the poster should throw a brick threw her TV, stop reading the paper or internet, don't go to the bookstore, don't go to the movies and I guess say off the internet.

I have a friend on DS from Malaysia. She says the 2012 movie is so popular you can't tickets for days. She says many peoples Hindus, Muslims, and others highly believe in it.

It's the media's fault. They are fueling this situation and if one can't see that one is brainwashed..

Remember tthe expression "Media is the Message."

The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.[1]

McLuhan proposes that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.

For example, McLuhan claimed in Understanding Media that all media have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways; for instance, a passage in a book could be reread at will, but a movie had to be screened again in its entirety to study any individual part of it. So the medium through which a person encounters a particular piece of content would have an effect on the individual's understanding of it.

Some media, like the movies, enhance one single sense, in this case vision, in such a manner that a person does not need to exert much effort in filling in the details of a movie image. McLuhan contrasted this with TV, which he claimed requires more effort on the part of viewer to determine meaning, and comics, which due to their minimal presentation of visual detail require a high degree of effort to fill in details that the cartoonist may have intended to portray. A movie is thus said by McLuhan to be "hot" (intensifying one single sense) and "high definition" (demanding a viewer's attention), and a comic book to be "cool" and "low definition" (requiring much more conscious participation by the reader to extract value).[2] This concentration on the medium and how it conveys information rather than on the specific content of the information is the focal point of "the medium is the message."

Hey Pennyphone, thanks for bringing up "The Media is the Message" with Marshal McLuhan.

I remember that from HS, as one of the nuns was very together, and introduced us to some of these concepts. Now, lol, it is a bit different, cuz we can fast forward, or repeat a scene repeatedly, so we don't have to view the whole film over again. It gives us more power to be aware of the director, producer, and writer's objective.

I have heard that advertisers often incoporate mini-flashes or subliminal messages into the more obvious message. I'm not sure whether it's true or not, but that, in itself would be a form of brainwashing, wouldn't it???

However, the apparent message certainly gets the point across that if we buy the product(s), we will be happier, more beautiful, more informed, more, more, more......and that seems to work well enough on the masses!
Even without any subliminal messages, it oftentimes appears that we masses are just mindless cattle, and will buy anything physically and mentally.