Date: March 10, 2010
Title: 2012: The Profits of Doom
Podcaster: Bill Hudson
Organization: http://2012hoax.org
Music by Kevin McLeod: http://www.incompetech.com
Description: Bill Hudson with 2012hoax.org discusses some of the people and organizations promoting a “2012 doomsday”, and their motivation: Profit
Bio: Bill Hudson is an amateur astronomer in California. He has spent the last decade looking up, and is involved in astronomy outreach programs in the California central coast area. He became involved in debunking the “2012 doomsday” hoax after being asked about it by school kids. He is the publisher of 2012hoax.org, a wiki that seeks to document and debunk all of the doomsday rumors surrounding the year 2012.
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by an anonymous donor.
Transcript:
This is Bill Hudson from 2012hoax.org.
In my previous episodes of the 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast, I challenged you to get out and begin actively debunking the “2012 doomsday”, I provided you with tactics and tools to do so, and I gave you some impact statements to get you motivated.
Today I’m going to talk about our opponents. I call them the “Profits of Doom”, and that is “Profits”, as in “making a profit”.
There are various sites and organizations that are using 2012 in order to generate income. Probably the leading offender in this area is the History Channel. Where it used to be possible to turn on the History Channel and see shows about… oh I don’t know… HISTORY… you know, stuff in the past… they have recently gone down the path of sensationalistic programming, and are now apparently producing shows that use fear-mongering as a tool to generate ratings. The last time I checked, I found seven separate shows from various series that they are producing, that mention 2012, or have 2012 as the primary topic. Some of them have disturbing and scary titles such as “Decoding the Past: 2012 Doomsday”, or “The Nostradamus Effect: 2012”.
These shows give the impression of being documentaries, complete with a deep-voiced actor, narrating calmly and dispassionately reciting the various things that are claimed will occur in 2012. In fact, the show repeatedly asks various rhetorical questions but leaves them unanswered, meanwhile deeply slanting the content of the shows toward the idea that these events will occur.
As an example, here is a clip from the opening sequence of one of their shows:
It is a doomsday that is foretold in the Mayan calendar, the Chinese oracle of the I Ching, even an internet-based prophetic software program. Two-thousand twelve; a date that is prophesied as the end of the world. But is there any science behind this dire prediction? Could ancient oracles truly predict the future? The answer could affect us all, because history shows a surprisingly good track record for those who say Doomsday is almost here.
Needless to say, just about every statement in that brief clip is wrong. The Mayan calendar does not foretell a doomsday, and neither does the I Ching. The web.bot ‘prediction’ is simply a massive case of GIGO, which is “Garbage in, garbage out”. 2012 is prophesied as the end of the world, but those predictions are modern, not ancient. The answer to the rhetorical question is that there is no science behind these predictions, and no, the “ancient oracles” could not predict the future. The track record for “those who say Doomsday is almost here” is 100%… 100% wrong, that is. The rest of the show is no better. They spend 90 to 95% of the time promoting the ideas of various doomsayers, with only a few brief clips of scientists who are trying to say that the whole thing is a load of hooey. If you watch carefully, you’ll see that the scientists are literally cut off in mid-sentence. This is a consistent pattern throughout these shows. Another tactic that is used frequently is that a scientist will introduce a subject, but then the show will cut over to various people identified as a ‘researcher’ or ‘author’, people like Lawrence Joseph, or Daniel Pinchbeck, or Patrick Geryl, none of whom have any scientific credentials, and all of whom promote various apocalyptic events in 2012.
Of course the “profits of doom” are not limited to the history channel. Another trend is hawking various “2012 guides” via the internet. These products are pitched with the typical fear-mongering, making statements implying that the government knows what will happen in 2012, but they’re lying to you about it. Of course, if you look around carefully, you will discover that these sites are selling these ‘guides’ on commission, frequently using the internet middleman ‘Clickbank’. One of the more infamous products sells for around fifty dollars US, and is promoted on clickbank as “taking advantage of the hottest topic for the next few years”, and promising up to 75% commission! The product is then merchandised by various independent websites, or via twitter, with any sale netting the ‘affiliate’ (that would be the person marketing the product) up to thirty-seven dollars per sale! I signed up for email updates from one such site, just to see what they were saying. Here’s an example:
2012 predictions include the effects of space events, droughts, wars, pestilence and disease. We have predictions of comets and rouge planets entering our near Earth space to either collide with our planet or turn it upside down … literally. It has happened before. There is scientific evidence that has taught us that the tropics were once in the Arctic and cold climates were in the south. Super volcanoes, massive earthquakes and cloud skimming tsunami waves, along with disappearing land masses and land appearing where none has existed to our knowledge before. UFO’s and alien races from somewhere else in the solar system, and the global effects of New World Order and the arrival of the Anti Christ on all of humanity. From outer space to our local skies and all around the world, 2012 predictions hold significance for a multitude of reasons.
Where will you be when December 21, 2012 arrives? Hopefully, you will be prepared and have a plan to survive because 2012 predictions aren’t growing dim or lessening but increasing and gaining more unarguable emphasis with every passing day. No one will know which of these predictions will be the correct ones until the long awaited day arrives.
Once again, that was an email I received from one of these sites.
So not only are the big media outlets using 2012 to promote their bottom line, but a whole cottage industry has sprung up which is using FUD (what the computer industry calls “fear, uncertainty and doubt”) in order to make a few bucks.
Of course, any mention of the ‘Profits of Doom’ can’t pass without mentioning some of the more egregious examples such as Patrick Geryl. Let us be clear: Geryl is not a scientist, he is an author. He has no evidence supporting the claims that he makes. For example, Geryl claims that the Mayans were the descendants of Atlantis (and so were the Egyptians), and that various ‘coded messages’ exist in things like the dimensions of the pyramids that indicate massive solar storms in 2012. Geryl claims that a massive solar flare will occur in December 2012, and that this will engulf the earth in a powerful magnetic field, which will then tip the core of the earth over 180 degrees, so that the core is rotating in the opposite direction of the rest of the planet.
By the way, we discuss this specific claim at 2012hoax.org, along with the math, showing that this claim is impossible. Yet Geryl is getting rich selling books making this claim. Not content with this, Geryl wants the world governments to pony up a billion dollars in order for him to set up his ‘survival outpost’ in the Sierra Nevada mountains of southern Spain. Geryl even had the audacity to threaten a lawsuit against Roland Emmerich, because he claims that Emmerich stole his idea for the movie from Geryl.
I have tried to speak clearly about these people. Let me now be very frank: These people do not care about the effects that their money-making schemes are having on other people. They only want to make their sale. They have no concern about people who become depressed or anxious about 2012. They only care about making money. Their behavior fills me with contempt and disgust, and I will do everything in my power to shine a light on their money-grubbing scam, because this is nothing short of fraud.
Until next time, this is Bill Hudson with 2012hoax.org
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365 Days of Astronomy
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