{Article} Miscellaneous: End of the World "21st Dec, 2012" - LOL
- The 2012 phenomenon comprises
a range of eschatological beliefs according to which cataclysmic or
transformative events will occur around 21st Dec, 2012. This
date is regarded as the end-date of a 5125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and
numerological formulae have been proposed as pertaining to this date, though
none has been accepted by mainstream scholarship.
- Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science
fiction that is concerned with the end of human civilization due to a potentially existential
catastrophe such as nuclear
warfare, pandemic,
extraterrestrial, impact
event, cybernetic
revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural phenomena, divine judgment, runaway climate change, resource depletion, ecological collapse, or some other general disaster.
- Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization
after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe,
focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later,
often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization
has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place
in an agrarian, non-technological future world, or a world where
only scattered elements of technology remain. There is a considerable degree of
blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with dystopias.
- The genres gained in popularity
after World War
II, when the
possibility of global annihilation by nuclear
weapons entered the public consciousness. According to some
theorists, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in its modern past has influenced Japanese popular culture to include many apocalyptic
themes. Much of Japan's manga and anime is filled with apocalyptic imagery. Most notably, the 1954 film Gojira (romanized as Godzilla) depicted the title monster as an analogue for
nuclear weapons, something Japan experienced first-hand.
- Tom Hanks' 2011 web series Electric
City is another story based on a
post-apocalyptic world, in which a group of matriarchs (the "Knitting
Society") impose an altruistic but oppressive society to counter the
aftermath of a brutal war that brings down modern civilisation. However, in
time, even this new "utopian" order is ultimately called into
question by the inhabitants of the new society.
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