Bruce the Doomsayer on History Channel

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita (Bruce the Good Mosquito), gets credited on Brad Meltzer's Decoded: 2012 for predicting that the world will end in 2012. Once again, the History Channel does not seem to be able to actually talk to the man. We believe he is in a CIA bunker.

We were finally able to hear Bruce's voice, but at TED. Here is the video:Bruce Bueno de Mesquita predicts Iran's future | Video on TED.com. Not exactly doomsaying, but interesting. There is another video on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that is at least funny.

We just ordered Bruce's last book: The Predictioneer's Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future. There is a lot of info in this book that would let you do what Bruce does, predict doom. We have our own end of the world prediction software half written!

Oddly, the key part of Bruce's technique is game theory. We would have preferred pseudoscience or religion. We would have been happy with throwing the finger bones of a hanged man too. This math stuff gets in the way of fear, uncertainty, and doubt you need for proper doomsaying. How do you get people to run naked and screaming in the streets when the result is 2.3.

Spilt Llama Milk

In the blog, Science Not Fiction, the author talks about the Mayan end of the world scenario being upset by the new evidence that the end of the Mayan calendar is wrong. In fact they stated: “Sorry if that hurts book or video sales.” Well, I thought they were talking about me, so this is what I wrote to them:

Apology accepted! But don’t cry over spilt llama milk or overcooked Guinea pigs, the Mayan calendar extending 50 years or so will be a boon. That’s 50 years more of second guessing!

If the Mayan calendar is already over, that just means the Christians and other cults can own the end of the world.

I’d prefer vengeful aliens myself. Seeing really cool aliens in my final moments would be a great way to end the world. Much more fun and like the movies, a hero will likely save us. With Mayans and Bibles, your odds are not nearly as good.

So far my book sales have been great. I have not sold any copies, still in the throws of final edits, but that’s pretty good sales considering. Nearly as good as the odds of a massive solar flare or the explosive release of methane from the arctic permafrost or a cat vectored Pneumonia – I expect the media (Fox) to call it Pnurrmonia.

I hope the end of the world be interesting! Something to tell your grandkids.

It is always great to post comments to blogs. It gives us a warm fuzzy to imagine that anyone reads the comments.

Ending the World, May 21st, 2011 Again!

There are so many doomsayers. Today we bring back an old date with a new baby-boomer (add that to your urban dictionary). Allison Warden, does her doomsaying from a Subaru. My guess is that you need the all-wheel-drive to get to Heaven. 

Allison is not the originator of doom, just a follow of the master doomsayer, Harold Camping. Remember Harold? We have written about him before. Harold was one-upping the Mayans with his date to end the world a bit earlier.

I read about Allison at The Washington Post. Josh Shaffer wrote about her in a great piece that I am sure will get a pulitzer. Of course, only if the world really does end. You have to get a posthumous Pulitzer if you interviewed a doomsayer that was correctly predicting the end of the world, right?

Anyway, we decided to head to the website that Allison was pushing by having it in huge letters of her white Subaru. Head to http://www.wecanknow.com and let us know what you think.

We saw all the books and general doomsaying and decided that they seem to have their act together. So much so, we thought they would be a great source of information and decided to ask a few questions. Here is the letter we sent:

Greetings. 

I am writing a book on the end of the world and Armageddon. It is called, "The Boy's Book of Armageddon".  I really believe that there is a great need for the young to understand that they will never grow older and the reasons why. 

I was wondering if you would comment on your own experience writing about the end of the world. 

In particular, how do you deal with the comments from children? What if they are afraid they will not be chosen? 

What's your message when people see the end of the world as an excuse for shedding their mortal coil early?

In a similar way, do you find that there is a tendency to procrastinate and just wait for May, 2011 and not fulfill their earthly obligations?

In terms of your prediction that the world will end in fire, do you base this on God's covenant to Noah that flooding will no longer be used as a device to eliminate the Godless heathens? Or, is your concept based on the various violent scenarios in the New Testament? 

Your opinions are important to me. Thank you for your time. 

We will update you when they reply.

Meet the Doomsayer: The National Geographic Channel

The History Channel and the Christian Broadcast Network are not the only doomsaying channels. Following the money, National Geographic is doing a whole day of fear and destruction. Here is a small sampling of Saturday, October 9, 2010:


10:00am Explorer: Electronic Armageddon; The effects of a high-altitude magnetic pulse could have on infrastructure  by destroying the electronic grid.

11:00 am Naked Science: Polar Apocalypse; Cimate change affects sea levels.

12:00pm Aftermath: When the Earth Stops Spinning; Humans strugle to survive as the planet ceases to turn, throwing the climate, oceans and atmosphere into chaos.

1:00pm Aftermath: Swallowed by the Sun; The Sun ages and the world struggles to survive.

2:00pm Aftermath: Population Zero; Envisioning what Earth would be like if all 6.6 billion humans suddenly disappeared.

3:00pm Doomsday: Book of Revelation; Bible scholars and theologians help present a depiction of the Apocalypse.

4:00pm 2012: Countdown to Armageddon; A Princeton geologist travels the globe to decipher an ancient Mayan prophecy that predicts the end of the world.

5:00pm Nazi Mystery: Twins From Brazil; A town filled with blond-haired, blue-eyed twins deep in the Brazilian outback may be the result of efforts made by infamous Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.

We'll be watching these programs with great interest. We want to see if we got it right. At Boys Books we are about to publish The Boys Book of Armageddon and I want to get the facts right. It is in the editor's hands, so we only have a few days before we go into print production mode.

Despite the eminent book publishing, we are quite interested in the National Geographic's doomsaying.

What about the sponsors? Kohler, the faucet makers, are hawking a really cool carbon fiber kitchen faucet. The Hyundai car company is pushing their Sonata. Despite no pushing their cars. Yellow Pages, yes Yellow Pages, are pushing http://YellowPages.com site. our list is rounded out with Di Giorno, makers of frozen pizza, and Travelers insurance. There are others, but we will stick with these.

Oddly these three are sponsors during the show Explorer: Electronic Armageddon. This is odd because none of these products will be useable after an electronic Armageddon. Internet is dead, car electronics are destroyed, and faucets don't work unless there is electricity to run our water pumps. Seems a little odd to us that these companies would sponsor a show about the end of the world.

We don't understand much of the economics of sponsored doomsaying. For the most part, they are getting it all wrong. Where are the freeze dried food companies, the abandoned missile silo real estate salesmen, and what about guns and ammo? I'm not going to be interested in a new car with 2012 right around the corner (unless we get the lease and that's free money when the world ends). Faucets seem silly unless they are fitted on a rain barrel with a radiation filter. Frozen pizza is fine, but only for the first couple of days as you can't keep it frozen.

The only guys that got it half right were the Yellow Pages. They showed a guy looking for classic car parts. Perhaps the understand that an old car without the fancy electronics will survive an electronic magnetic pulse.

Travelers, the insurance company, also gets a couple of points for effort. Their tagline is, "Take the scary out of life." They run this same commercial for other gloomy television programs. We seem them a lot during the History Channel's sweeps week when they too are pushing the end of the world. But imagine the problem, your car gets totaled by a meteorite, electronics fried from a solar flair, or eaten by demon. Is the Travelers company going to still be there to pay the claim?

Back to the programming. National Geographic seemed like a very science-oriented organization. But Bible and Mayan doomsaying seems a little beyond their charter. We are ok with the Sun going Nova, Russians exploding bombs in the atmosphere, the Earth not spinning, and humans vanishing. 2012 and the Bible seem out of place for a company that brought us through puberty with pictures of naked Africans (and why did they never cover naked University of Berkley students too).

As much fun as all this writing is, we need to get back to watching the doom and gloom. We have set the Tivo to record the episodes on Nazi twins and 2012. Sorry, by the playoffs with the Texas Rangers is far more important to us. Should they loose, there will be rioting in the streets and civilization is truly doomed. Everyone know that the Tampa Bay Rays are the Antichrist.

Should Scientists Be Doomsayers?

Should scientists be doomsayers? Why can't scientist just report the numbers? Seems like they sell more books when they report on results with a little color, like,"The end of the world as we know it."

They say scientists shouldn’t be out doomsaying. For heavens sake, they are putting good Christian doomsayers out of work! Scientist should just report on the ice-cube and polar bear shortage. Leave the doomsaying to the experts.

Our opinion is that it is a free market. Let’s not have any of that Tea Party socialism talk! We don’t go around saying that the Tea Party is putting hard working Fascists and bigots out of work. This is America–at least for a couple more weeks before something a scientist predicts kills us all.