Come and Gone

So I'm riding under one of those "The world will end May 21st" posters on the subway. It makes me kind of sad to think of the former MTA employee spending his pension on the posters. But of course some people will go on believing in any malarkey that comes their way.

It occurred to me though that this end-of-the-world prediction might be a one-trick pony. Never before has so much attention been focussed on a biblical prophecy of a specific end of the world date. Humans do have the ability to learn, or at least evolve (see: Seventh Day Adventists). So maybe the worst that will happen is we'll get a bunch of vegetarians out of it.