The question was "If a cataclysm destroys modern civilization, and perhaps even makes humans extinct, what will be the root cause?" I was glad to see that my answer was the most popular one. All the other ones are closer to bunk: than the truth.

The truth is that whatever happens will be the choice of the planet: and part of the planet is the human factor. It Is As Simple As that.

So while people are pointing to 2012 as the end of the world on the advice of a bunch of people who aren't around anymore: hat is actually happening?

people are giving up hope. People are giving up hope and using the old round calendar to decide: well: it ends here. and the subconscious consensus grows by leaps and bounds.

Whether or not humans accept their status as part and parcel of the entire earth package: we are. We are not te entire biosphere, but: neither is plankton. neither are wolves or tres, clouds, iron or television. It's called a biosphere because all of the discrete elements make up ONE element. The paradigm shift has been termed a choice for the collective of humanity: it is.

The era in history termed the Rennaisance was a burst in human achievement in thoughts and ideas. but now that some linear time has pased on the old gregorian calendar: it is much easier to see the flaw in judgment of the rennaisance thinkers: the basic attitude was that MANkind had the capability to make HIMself the master of his environment: to make Mother earth a docile servant that would do HIS bidding. In a sort of greed for experiences brought on by Rennasiance realisation: MEN went out of their way to create more inventions, and their goals were inevitably created to contribute to the unsustainable mess we have created: and that is human beings dominating the earth, ruling over the earth instead of learning to live in harmony with nature.

Some wil go on arguing this point. there are many hurdles yet to cross: but i venture to say that it is an outright LIE that humanity CANNOT survive past -- LONG past the year 2012. the date is just a date. denial of human choice is ultimately an act of INDIVIDUALS.

As is acknowledgement and the choice to accept the power of human choice. it has been called a sacred power.

And there will be those whose hearts are truly weary with the suffering that human existance has been who will reject the power of human choice and choose to cling to prophecies: and prophecy DEFINITELY prohibits inhibits and crucifies human choice as a factor.

There are people who simply accept and love mother Earth: they love the planet on which they live, they love the ground upon which they walk. This is not a bad thing: yet one can imagine the straining of religion addicts to find a way to reject that love: to look for any way they can to say that the love of the earth is in some way wrong, irrelevant or evil..

But they're just wrong. let's acknowledge them: too: and acknowledge that tension builds momentum. Human evolution IS occurring: it simply is and now humanity is AWARE of its own evolution: which hastens the process.

This phenomenon has been called "Quickening" among other things.

If a cataclysm destroys modern civilization, and perhaps even makes humans extinct, what will be the root cause?"

That was the question put to me and frankly i was glad to see that my response was winning.

so i guess that's why no one emailed me. but fuck waiting.

anyway: if a cataclysm destroys modern civilization it will be because humans subconsciously willed it to happen. (but it won't.)

all this Long Count ending jazz is about is a paradigm shift, a leap in human conscious understanding of its own evolution. (i find it a little ironic that so many people are sitting around waiting for a bunch of people who couldn't make it on earth to let us know when it's OUR turn to go.)

maybe they stubbornly refused to meet the demands of the universe and evolve, even to the pint of realising that they were done, but others would be around and they said "let's fuck them over."

Whatever their point we are the people here now.

MY POINT BEING is that people are assuming that the end is coming...it's a little arrogant. it's arrogant, it's short sighted, it's a weird combination of arrogance and self-effacing humility.

There's a paradigm: people whose attitudes average out cynical, negative or fatalist will judge the agurments of those who disagree with them as optimist, overconfident or naive. People whose attitudes average out optimistic and confident about the future tend to judge the skepticism of those who disagree with them as fatalistic, naysaying or just a bummer.

There has been a middle way FOREVER. Compulsive liars in any walk of life invariably get caught.

I daresay if there is any reason to abandon hope for the future, consciously or SUBCONSCIOUSLY, then it ain't 'cause "everyone else is doing it."

There is a conceit that goes along with the Reannaisance view of the world that humanity has become creepingly more conscious of: it has polarized humanity to a great extreme. Polarities are part of nature: however: as sure as there is a North and South magnetic pole: as sure as there are man and woman.

or to put it another way: the question that I will pose instead of answering the question above is: if humanity were to avert cataclysm and continue moving on for another one, two, or three thousand years of recordable history: what would be the means by which we would leap the 2012 "hurdle" (which I'll remind the assembled that NOT EVERYON ON EARTH HAS HEAD OF.

And i will also, in praising and respecting the ancestors, remind us all that the Maya were the Maya.

that's not a bad thing: maya in some cultures is the name of a Goddess: Maya rhymes with Gaia...and what if I AM saying that just to be cute?

I daresay that we could forseeably at this date run the risk of following in the exact direction as the Maya by doing things exactly as they set before us on their stone calendars. We run the risk of behaving, out of fear of the judgment of the rigid and famously closed minded people in history, of DENYING that there has been a TRACE of human evolution since the Maya were here. or we can look below our feet and above our heads at Gaia,. the biosphere, we can look below our feet and above our heads and into our mirrors and ask questions about solutions instead of collecting bets on just how the world will end.

Do you see what i am getting at?

We can ask questions like:

what changes could be made between now and 2012 to make human life more comfortable? i am SURE that R. Buckminster Fuller's genius can point us in some directions, or even simply inspire us to higher cognitive leaps in that direction.

the Jurassic Park films are films about man made biological disasters. Butthe author uses Jeff Goldblum's character, the Chaotician, to make an important point: we stand on the shoulders or giants.

No one is in danger of having too much compassion or too much intellect on this planet. You see this vast resource, the internet?

WHERE is the information?

Where is it?

Where?

We all stand on ths shoulders of giants. All the great geniuses of recorded history and all the cultures that existed who have died still are ready to serve the current generation. i percieve that a great FEAR stands between human beings of the current era and breakthrough realisations: after all: Einsten is dead, Copernicus is Dead, marie curie and albert Scweitzer are dead: and it is death that is what we all fear as we gaze at all the possibilities of the zeropoint. but it's just not necessarily the end. a lot of people want to live and have something to live for. i daresay that those who invest a great deal of time in making pursuit of intellectual passions seem weak, and dry are not as much friends of the earth and the future as they could be, and perhaps by that token should not be taken quite as seriously.