Minola Grent

News Editor

Photo Via Time

Throughout the past century, humanity has faced countless moments of fearing extinction. The 20th century was littered with wars and political uncertainty, fueling widespread anxiety. Despite the relative stability of the 21st century, doomsday theories are still rampant. The political unrest that once unsettled previous generations has seemingly shifted into climate anxiety among today’s youth. What was once an immediate short-term threat became a never-ending source of anxiety about the future. Some of the more popular apocalypse predictions include the Y2K bug, the 2012 Mayan apocalypse, and the most recently uncovered 2026 apocalypse.

While the 2012 Mayan apocalypse and the 2026 apocalypse share a lot of traits, the Y2K bug stands as an outlier and distinguishes itself as truly a product of its time. The Y2K bug was to be a technological apocalypse, while the Mayan and 2026 apocalypses rely heavily on natural catastrophes brought on by human occupation.

 In 1999, modern society found itself at a crossroad; a new century was on the horizon and anxiety was burgeoning across the world. The biggest problem that worried civilians and governments alike faced was that of computers’ softwares. When computers were first being developed, the year shown at the bottom right of the screen was simply abbreviated to the last two digits. Hence, computers understood 89 to imply the year 1989. This method was put in place as computer memory at the time was limited and very expensive. When 1999 rolled around, many began to wonder how computers would interpret the digits 00. The National Museum of American History reports that “the fear was that when clocks struck midnight on January 1, 2000, affected computer systems, unsure of the year, would fail to operate and cause massive power outages, transportation systems to shut down, and banks to close. Widespread chaos would ensue.” 

According to National Geographic, some countries, like the USA, spent billions of dollars from 1998 to 2000 in preparation for this anticipated computer error, others, like South Korea, simply allowed the new century to blossom. Regardless, both approaches yielded similar results: very few to no actual problems. In the end, the Y2K bug created mass panic and fear that society would cease to function and crumble but had no real repercussions.

12 years into the 21st century, the world feared extinction once more. At least, part of the world did. According to the Mayan calendar, humanity would end on December 21st, 2012. According to Jane Little’s BBC article on the matter, “recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us” were indicators that it would all end on that fateful day. The Mayan apocalypse was a particularly popular theory in Russia where the government had to issue a statement to calm the masses. On December 1st, 2012, The Denver Post reported that inmates in a Russian women’s prison were taken by a mass psychosis because of this apocalyptic prediction. Meanwhile, a “huge Mayan-style archway [was] being built—out of ice—on Karl Marx Street in Chel-yabinsk in the south.” In response, Russia’s minister of emergency situations assured citizens that the world was not ending anytime soon as he had access to “methods of monitoring what is occurring on the planet Earth.”

A lot of the fear spread through blogs and online discussion forums, though only a few truly believed it. According to Adriana Gomex Licon’s NBC News article “2012 and Maya prophecies: What were they thinking?”, the Mayans did not typically make fatalistic predictions. What is understood to have actually been predicted to take place on December 21st 2012 by the Maya was simply the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one: “Those who left us the calendar were visionaries who were providing clues to this ending of one cycle and the beginning of another,” writes Jane Little.

At last, 2025 rolled around and a quarter of the 21st century has passed. Yet, 1960s physicist Heinz von Foerster said that on Friday, November 13th, 2026, overpopulation and climate change will reach a point of no return and wipe out humanity. According to Time Magazine’s article “Science: Doomsday in 2026 A.D.”, Foerster calculated when humanity will be “squeezed to death” if it avoids massive disasters such as nuclear wars and continues its current large-scale food production to feed the ever growing population. November 13th, 2026 was the result obtained in 1960.

While this may sound alarming, Foerster himself debunks his theory. Heinz von Foerster specifies this date is but a warning; a wake up call. He does not truly believe that 60 years would be sufficient for such a dramatic end to take place. Time Magazine explains that “he uses his equation to illustrate in an attention-getting manner that any population that increases at an accelerating rate (as the human race has been doing) is headed for ultimate trouble.”

Ultimately, humans are resilient little parasites. According to Stephanie Pappas’ article “Will Humans Ever Go Extinct?”  in Scientific American, species generally last about a million years. Though the future of humanity is more difficult to predict because of human nature, a total wipeout would require multiple factors to align. If an asteroid with 15 km in diameter, like the one that ended the dinosaurs, ever shows up during a global pandemic coupled with unprecedented temperature rises and a nuclear war, then some worry may be necessary. Until then, humans will do well.