Elusive Aliens: Are They Watchers?

The Book of Enoch is an apocryphal text that has been left out of nearly every edition of the Bible today.  However, the book was popular in the 1st century AD, and Jude, author of the canonical text of Jude, even quoted a passage from the Book of Enoch in his epistle.  The book was supposedly written by Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah in Genesis.  Scholars have only been able to date the book to around the 3rd century BC, but this doesn't necessarily mean the book isn't older.  It may also be important to note that Genesis says that God took Enoch, indicating that Enoch may have avoided mortal death altogether.  If so, it's possible he could have written the book later.  And, of course, I also realize the whole book could have just been someone's imagination.  But for the rest of this post at least, we're going to take the stance that the book is at least partially based on truth.

One of the most notable stories in the Book of Enoch is the story of the Watchers.  Here's an excerpt from chapter 6 of the Book of Enoch:

And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl. These are their chiefs of tens.

As I've pointed out in previous posts (here and here), the word 'angel' means 'messenger'.  The 'angels' and the 'Watchers' may very well be the same type of entities (or species, whatever term you prefer), but they apparently have different roles in their society.  Some relay messages, some are apparently just supposed to watch.  The fallen Watchers taught men things such as cosmetics, building weapons, writing, and astrology.  The passage above says of the fallen Watchers that "they were in all two hundred."  But does that mean there are only 200 Watchers?  Or does it mean that only 200 Watchers are fallen?  Could there be more Watchers out there?

I've pointed out before some similarities between the elusive 'aliens' of today and the angels and demons spoken of in ancient texts (here, here, here, and here).  In the past, the beings known as 'angels' typically only appeared to certain individuals.  Today, most people never see any aliens.  And last I checked, there is no ancient story of a group of angels descending on the Roman Forum and declaring, "Hey, were those angels people have been talking about all these years," and then shaking hands with the emperor.  Nor have any aliens landed on the White House lawn and shook hands with the President either.  Is it a coincidence that angels and 'aliens' tend to be elusive?

And what about these Watchers?  The Book of Enoch is not the only place that watchers are mentioned; the book of Daniel also mentions watchers (lowercased though, and Daniel does not elaborate about them).  There are those among UFOlogists today who have postulated that the reason aliens are so elusive is because they are merely here to observe.  I wonder how many among those who have considered that theory have considered that the idea that the earth is being observed is a very ancient idea?  Indeed, it seems the ancients thought they were being 'watched' too.  So could the aliens that are allegedly observing us be Watchers?  Could they be Watchers that didn't break the Watcher status quo and have continued to watch throughout the millenia?

The Book of Enoch may be folklore akin to Greek mythology.  But maybe some of these old stories are at least based on truth.  Maybe some of the best evidence for that comes from comparing ancient folklore with some of our modern 'folklore'.

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P.S. View an update to this post here.

Just a couple of quick thoughts

Have you ever noticed the media and politicians rarely ever say "global warming" anymore?  Instead, they usually say "climate change" now.

Hmm...guess that 'warming' thing didn't work out too well for them huh?  But I suppose for those that seek to profit from carbon trading, "climate change" sounds better anyways because that way, they can blame any type of weather phenomena -- whether it's a hurricane, earthquake, or snowstorm -- on carbon emissions.

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Remember back when food was just real food?  You know, before processed, artificial, and imitation foods?  Look at this advertisement below.

Are artificial foods so prevalent now that Taco Bell really felt it was necessary to clarify that their fruit drink actually contains real strawberries?

Paranormal Inspections?

I read an article today about a team of paranormal investigators in Oregon who now make themselves available to perform paranormal inspections of properties before a potential buyer purchases a property.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Before buying a home, inspections usually mean checking the foundation, roof and pipes. But, sometimes there is another area of concern, things that are a bit more intangible. When there are questions regarding...the unknown... future homebuyers will be especially glad to know that there is someone to turn to.

Investigators with OPHIR (Occult & Paranormal House of Investigational Research) in Salem, Oregon, want to make it easier for homebuyers to make sure all the creaks and bumps are, shall we say, Of This World.

The team's founder says that they do not charge for the paranormal investigation itself, but they do charge a fee to investigate the history of the property.

The article also says this:

This specialized inspection service isn't just for buyers, though. Sellers, beware! You too may have some explaining to do, should you not follow your inclination to see that your property is void of unwanted guests. "You don't want buyers coming back and saying you never warned them about the house's past," Powell said.

"Protect yourself and make a wise future investment," Powell says. "There is a good chance that homes with a reputation or negative history may be harder to sell down the road, so you could get stuck with one."

Read the whole article here.  H/T

I don't see any problem with investigating the history of a property if a buyer is genuinely interested in learning about the property's history.  If it's a very old house, the history may be very interesting, especially to someone interested in history.  But should such an investigation be a necessity? That last sentence quoted in the excerpt above sounds an awful lot like an advertisement for a service where the advertiser overemphasizes the importance of the service with the intention of making a profit.  In other words, the team claims they can help 'protect' your 'investment' if you buy their service.

I've heard of people moving into a home and then wanting to move out after realizing that it is haunted, but is it really that big of a problem?  How many houses are rented or sold everyday where this isn't a problem?  I wonder what the ratio is for houses sold where a haunting doesn't turn into an issue and houses sold where a haunting is an issue.  I don't know what the ratio is, but something tells me that the number of houses sold where a haunting isn't an issue far exceeds the number of houses sold where a haunting is an issue.

The team's founder also advertised their services to sellers, saying,  "You don't want buyers coming back and saying you never warned them about the house's past."

Could this really become an issue?  It might be a little uncomfortable for a seller to admit to a buyer that a house is haunted, but could something like this turn into a lawsuit?  Has anyone ever tried to sue someone for selling them a haunted house and not disclosing that the house was haunted?  I don't know if such a lawsuit has ever occurred, but if it has, I'd be curious to know the result of such a lawsuit.

I don't know much about this team of investigators, and they may be a well-intentioned team of paranormal investigators who sincerely have a passion for their field.  If they perform an investigation of a property's history, then I suppose they have a right to charge a fee for doing so.  But something about the idea of doing 'paranormal inspections' and a couple of the founder's statements regarding the service they perform sounded almost like a scam from the 19th and early 20th century spiritualist movement to me.

Green Screens

Remember back when Hollywood producers wanted a certain type of background for a scene and they couldn't film on location somewhere so they just built a set or put a big picture of the background they wanted behind the actors?

Well, thanks to green screens, producers can just insert a background onto raw footage now.  I used to think that green screens were mostly relegated to inserting computer generated imagery into sci-fi and fantasy films, but after watching the video embedded below, I realized green screens are fairly common in other stuff too.

TV Show Idea: Investigating Psychics

There are a lot of paranormal themed television shows out there these days.  We have shows that investigate myths and legends, shows that look for monsters, shows researching UFOs (or at least we did...bring back UFO Hunters!!), and a whole bunch of shows looking for ghosts.

So what about psychics?  I think a show where investigators attempt to determine if a psychic has a legit ability or is merely a cold reader would be an interesting show.  

So here's how I think an episode would go.  First off, their would be a lead investigator who would be accompanied by a couple of assistant investigators.  At the beginning of the episode, the investigators would do an on screen interview with the psychic.  They would ask general questions about the psychic's background and ask the psychic to describe their method of psychic reading.  After this, the two assistant investigators would each receive an individual reading from the psychic (the lead investigator would never get a reading, I'll explain why shortly).  The two readings for the assistant investigators would be preliminary data.

After the two assistant investigators have their readings, a control subject would be brought in.  The control subject would be different for every episode.  The reason for this is because if the show was a success, there would be the potential for psychics featured in future episodes to base their reading on something from an earlier episode.  To help avoid this, the reading for the control subject would be the primary piece of evidence used in determining the legitimacy of the psychic.  The preliminary readings for the investigators would mainly be used to analyze the psychic's method.  

After the readings are complete, the investigators would analyze the data.  The analysis would focus on things such as accuracy, whether or not the psychic's claims could be confirmed, how generic the claims are, and the investigators would also try to determine whether or not the psychic was responding to facial expressions and body language.  To help eliminate the possibility of a cold reader taking queues from body language or a person's appearance, the control subjects may be asked to wear a generic 'uniform' and possibly even a mask.  Alternatively, the investigators may allow the control to wear they whatever want and behave however they want and then try to focus on whether or not the psychic is basing their reading on the control subject's behavior.  Additionally, the psychic would never meet the control subject until it was time for the reading to occur.  They would know nothing about the subject's heritage, background, age, or gender.

Now someone may say something like, "But eventually the psychics would be able to gather enough data about the investigators ahead of time to do a good cold reading and then just try to wing it with the control subject."  Well, this is why the lead investigator would never receive a reading.  If the show was successful, the assistant investigators would have to change each season.  Since the lead investigator never receives a reading, he would stay on as the 'face' of the show.  That way the show would be able to maintain a certain personality and tone and still be able to keep the data fresh and new.

Most episodes would focus less on predictions of the future and more on background readings.  Since predictions for the future would probably need some time to play out, it would be difficult to really verify whether or not the predictions were accurate.  Future predictions would probably be relegated to a season finale but filmed far in advance, so as to give the predictions time to play out.  Some episodes may feature psychometrists who read objects instead of people.

Ideally, it would be nice if the investigators would state whether they feel the psychic is legitimate or a cold reader, similar to how Mythbusters confirm or 'bust' a myth.  If the results of the data are somewhat ambiguous, they could just consider the psychic's ability to be plausible.  However, this method probably wouldn't work for a show like this.  If the investigators declared a psychic to be a cold reader and the cold reader has made a 'career' out of doing cold readings, the show could face lawsuits.  Realistically, the investigators probably wouldn't be able to declare their actual opinion of the psychic's credibility on air, they would probably just have to make a few notable observations and let the viewer decide for themselves.

Also, from an investigative standpoint, it would be better if the control subject went in first without TV cameras and without the psychic knowing the subject was the control subject.  But if it wasn't filmed, that wouldn't make for very interesting TV would it?  It's possible that the control subject could go in wearing a hidden camera, but after revealing the true purpose of the visit, the psychic may decline to appear on TV and the investigators would have just wasted their time.  And if they waste too much time, it would drain their budget and they wouldn't have anything to show.

As for a lead investigator, it would be really awesome if Josh Gates could fill that role.  J

Some strange claims about a Mars colony

So, earlier today, I came across a link to an article about an alleged secret Mars colony project.  It's not the first time I've heard such claims, but this wasn't just any article about a secret Mars colony; this article was reporting about claims from a 'whistleblower' named Laura Magdalene Eisenhower.  According to the article, she is a great-granddaughter of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The first question that popped into my mind was, "Is this really Ike's great-granddaughter?"  Before I even started reading the article, I did some searching on the internet to see if I could find anyone disputing that claim.  There were 602,000 results for her name on the Google search that I did.  Admittedly, I didn't go through all of the results, but I went through quite a few pages and didn't see anything disputing that claim.  However, I didn't come across anything confirming that claim either.  Actually, most of the results just seemed to take for granted she is who she says she is.

So I finally get around to reading the article.  Now I've heard some far-fetched sounding claims about Mars colonies before.  Alternatively, I've heard some other claims about Mars that may be plausible.  But what I read in this article today was waaaaaaay out there.  This stuff isn't just your regular run-of-the-mill secret government Mars colony conspiracy theory/coverup stuff.  The article mentions stuff about the 'Divine Feminine', Gaia, Sophia the Goddess, and supposedly, Laura is the reincarnation of Magdalene/Sophia/Isis.  This lady sounds like she mixed new age concepts with the Kabbalah, some esoterica, a little bit of mythology, and some government coverup conspiracy theories and just writes her story as she goes.

So the question on my mind is still, "Is this Ike's great-granddaughter?"  But another question on my mind is, "Does it really even matter if she is Ike's great-granddaughter?"  I mean, does being a former President's great-granddaughter really add to her credibility?  I don't even know if she is old enough to have met him.  I wonder if she is just using his name in an attempt to upgrade her status from psychic/new ager to 'whistleblower'.

Anyways, if you want to read the article, go here.  I'd take it with a grain of salt though.

Some Myths and Misconceptions about History

Here are some common misconceptions and errors about various tidbits of history.

• "The Star-Spangled Banner" is not about the Revolutionary War.  It's about the War of 1812, and more specifically, it is about the 1814 siege of Fort McHenry in Baltimore.  It did not become the National Anthem of the United States until 1931.
• The Wright brothers did not invent the first airplane.  The first airplane was built by Samuel Pierpont Langley in 1896.  Langley's airplane was unmanned though.  What the Wright brothers are actually famous for is the first manned flight.
• Witches were not burned at the stake in Salem.  They were hanged.  One man was pressed to death under heavy stones.
• Cinderella did not wear glass slippers.  At least not in older versions of the story.  In older French versions of the story, she wore pantoufles en vair (slippers made of white squirrel fur).  But when French writer Charles Perault retold the story, he said Cinderella wore pantoufles en verre (slippers made of glass).  Apparently Perault confused the two similar sounding words.  On a similar note, in L. Frank Baum's book the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wore silver slippers.  Hollywood Screenwriter Noel Langley changed Dorothy's shoes to ruby slippers for the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.
• Cain, Abel, and Seth were not Adam's only children.  Genesis 5:4 states that Adam had other sons and daughters (presumably with Eve, though it doesn't explicitly state they were all with Eve).  It doesn't say how many children he had in all, but given that he lived 930 years, he had plenty of time to have a lot of children.
• In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, the monster is not called Frankenstein. Frankenstein is Victor Frankenstein, a student of natural psychology who created the monster.  In the novel, the monster was named Adam.
• The Battle of Bunker Hill did not take place at Bunker Hill.  Bunker Hill was the objective.  The battle actually took place at Breed's Hill.  
• The Battle of Waterloo did not actually take place at Waterloo.  The battle took place in a valley south of Waterloo, between the villages of Plancenoit and Mont St. Jean.  After winning the battle, Lord Wellington went to Waterloo to write home about the news.
• Christopher Columbus was not the first person to claim the world was round.  He wasn't even trying to prove the earth was round; people already knew that.  What Columbus was trying to do was convince people that the world wasn't all that wide and that it would be quicker to get to the Indies by sailing west instead of down around Africa and then east.  Pythagoras proposed that the earth was round in the 6th century BC.  Aristotle proved it was round by pointing out the spherical shadow the earth casts on the moon.  Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, ancient Greek astronomers and mathematicians, both attempted to calculate the circumference of the earth and produced nearly accurate results.  During the middle ages, Roger Bacon, an English philosopher and Franciscan Friar, wrote that the curvature of the earth explained why we can see farther from higher elevations.  Additionally, people had been sailing the seas throughout recorded history, so obviously they were not afraid of 'falling off the edge'.  Depictions of a spherical globe appear in ancient and medieval artworks, so it's not really known when it became common knowledge that the earth was round, but by Columbus' day, it was already pretty much taken for granted.
• Charles Lindbergh was not the first person to fly an airplane nonstop across the Atlantic.  He was the first person to fly an airplane solo across the Atlantic.
• Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line.  Ransom E. Olds developed the assembly line concept in 1902 for his Olds Motor Vehicle Company.  In Olds' assembly line, parts were wheeled from one workman to another.  Henry Ford improved on Olds' idea by installing a conveyor belt system.  Ford didn't come up with the assembly line concept on his own either; it was the joint effort of several of his top engineers.
• The American declaration of independence did not occur on July 4th.  The Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain on July 2nd.  The document known as the Declaration of Independence was not signed until July 4th though.  And not all of the signers signed the Declaration of Independence on the same day.  Only John Hancock and Charles Thomson signed it on July 4th.  So it seems the document announcing independence has overshadowed the act of declaring it.

You may or may not have heard a claim that George Washington was not the first President of the United States, but the ninth President.  This claim has been presented as a common misconception about history, but this claim is actually a bit of a  misconception itself.  People who present this claim say that Washington was the 9th President of the United States because there had been eight Presidents before him under the Articles of Confederation.  George Washington was the first President of the United States after adopting the Constitution.  But prior to adopting the Constitution, the nation known as the United States of America didn't exist.  The Articles of Confederation merely created a confederation of independent states (similar to the European Union today).  John Hanson, the first President under the Articles of Confederation, held the title "president of the United States in Congress Assembled."  So the claim that George Washington is the 9th President of the United States is based in truth but isn't entirely true.

Unusual Places

There are some unusual places on earth.  Thanks to satellite imagery and Google Earth, you can look for them on you computer.  Here is a video that displays some of those unusual places.



Here is a sequel to that video.



Here's a different one with some humorous captions.

A 2012 Blame Game?

A blogger going by the name George Washington wrote a post titled "Scientists Confirm the Effectiveness of The Big Lie - People Will Go To Extraordinary Lengths to Create False Justifications for Government Misdeeds" on his blog last year, citing research regarding why many Americans continued to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 even though there was little evidence to support that belief. Here is an excerpt of what he wrote:

The researchers found, as described in an article in the journal Sociological Inquiry (and re-printed by Newsweek):

• Many Americans felt an urgent need to seek justification for a war already in progress
• Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.
• "For the most part people completely ignore contrary information."
• "The study demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information"
• People get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter.
• "We refer to this as 'inferred justification, because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.
• "People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war"
• "They wanted to believe in the link [between 9/11 and Iraq] because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity.

Maybe Yogi Berra was on to something when he said, "There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em."

I could apply those observations listed above to the global warming issue too.  If you've read my post titled "The Dihydrogen Monoxide Scare," then you probably already know that I am skeptical of anthropogenic global warming.  The global warming issue has gone from being a scientific issue to being a political issue.  Despite evidence to the contrary, many people are still willing to believe that carbon dioxide, the gas that we exhale and one of the building blocks of life, is a pollutant.  Anthropogenic global warming as a political agenda is aggressively pushed by the mainstream media and certain politicians, and I feel that a great deal of the 'grassroots' support for the global warming agenda comes from people who already admire politicians that push the agenda (which is the problem with mixing science and politics) .  People don't like the thought that a politician they admire is wrong or lying to them.

Ironically, Al Gore, an advocate of anthropogenic global warming, has admitted that carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of global warming (he now claims it only accounts for 40% of the warming), but he hasn't backed away from his political agenda pushing for a global carbon tax.  Al Gore has also been caught fudging numbers in an attempt to prove his claims of anthropogenic global warming.  Al Gore has also claimed that there is a scientific consensus stating that anthropogenic global warming is true, yet thousands of American scientists have signed a petition declaring their skepticism.  And then, of course, there's that whole Climategate scandal thing.  Regardless of how you spin it, what you want to believe, or how loud Al Gore can yell it; there isn't a scientific consensus stating that anthropogenic global warming is true.  I could sit here and post links on the subject all day, but at the end of the day, I would probably just be preaching to the choir for some people, while others would continue to believe that carbon emissions cause global warming.

But I digress.  What's really on my mind today is if climate disasters were to occur in the year 2012, would the anthropogenic global warming crowd blame the disasters on carbon emissions?  I think they probably would.  Here is an article listing 10 things that global warming allegedly caused.  Danny Glover even blamed the earthquake in Haiti on global warming.  Throughout the history of the world there have been earthquakes, now all of a sudden an earthquake only happens because of global warming?

If you've read my blogs for a while, you probably know that I have a 'wait and see' attitude about the 2012 predictions.  I hope there are no disasters in 2012, but if there are, I think there's a real good chance that some people are going to blame it on global warming.  It could be just the disaster they need to try to push their agenda through.

I hope that doesn't happen though.  Hopefully 2012 will come and go without disasters or a global carbon tax.

Pawn Stars

In a post I did a while back about UFO Hunters being canceled, I ranted about the History Channel canceling UFO Hunters but letting reality shows about loggers and truckers who drive on icy roads stay on.  A single documentary about logging or truckers who drive on icy roads might be interesting.  But a whole entire series with multiple seasons?  I don't think it's that interesting.

But I also mentioned Pawn Stars in that post, another History Channel show.  At the time, I said I thought the show was "mildly interesting," but not something worth making a point to watch.  

Well, I've changed my mind.  I think the show is great.  And I do try to make a point to watch it now.  

You see, when I first heard about the show, I made the mistake of assuming that it was just going to be another reality show and I wasn't really interested in watching a reality show about working in a pawn shop.  When I wrote that previous post, I think I had probably only seen one or two episodes at the time, and I was still basing my opinion of the show on a preconceived notion.  After watching more episodes, I realized the show wasn't just a reality show about working in a pawn shop.  The show does have a reality style format, but it isn't just about working in a pawn shop; it is actually about some of the interesting items that get brought into the pawn shop.  And many of the items that get featured on the show are historical items (which I guess is how it fits in to being a show on the History Channel).  

The pawn shop is owned and managed by Rick Harrison along with his father Richard, known as the "Old Man," and his son, Corey, known as "Big Hoss."  They each help to make the show more entertaining in their own way.  Richard is a crotchety but adorable old man, Rick is outgoing and funny, and Corey is, well, actually Corey can be rather annoying, but many of the segments that feature Cory also feature his friend Chumlee, who's an employee of the shop.  Chumlee fits into the roll of 'big doofus', and often adds some additional comedy relief to the show.  

The Harrisons are knowledgeable about many of the items that get brought into the shop, but if someone brings in an item they don't know much about, they'll bring in an expert.  Whether the item is an old gun, a medieval jousting helmet, or a treasure chest, you'll get to learn something about the item and possibly find out if it is authentic or a reproduction.  You also get to learn what an estimated monetary value for the items is and watch as the shop owners haggle with the item owners for a sale price.  

So I'm glad I decided to give the show a chance.  At the moment, it's probably the best show on the History Channel.  

I still wish they'd bring back UFO Hunters though.    J

Y2K Disqualified

People who are skeptical of the year 2012 being the end of the world (as we know it) or a great awakening often cite Y2K as an example of a failed end of the world prediction.  But I think it's time they picked another  failed end of the world prediction to use an example.  Why?  Because I don't think Y2K should count as an end of the world prediction.

Sure, it was hyped like an end of the world prediction and a lot of people thought (and still think) of it as one, but I don't think it qualifies as one.  Simply put, the problem of computer programs rolling over from 1999 to 1900 would have hardly caused the end of the world (and it didn't).

For one, there was plenty of time to fix the problem before it even became a problem.  People became aware of the Y2K problem many years before the year 2000.  There was plenty of time for programmers to solve the problem, and plenty of time for organizations at risk of being affected by the problem to either upgrade the software or buy whole new systems.  Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if a cabal of software and technology CEOs didn't spread the Y2K rumors and hype them up just to sell more computers.

Even the way the Y2K problem was predicted is different from your traditional end of the world prediction.  Most end of the world predictions come from a psychic/seer/prophet, an astrological prediction, or someone trying to calculate a date based on some religious interpretation they have.  The Y2K 'predictions' resulted from someone pointing out a potential software glitch.

Another reason I think the Y2K problem doesn't qualify as an end of the world scenario is that I would imagine that even if the problem had been as bad as some people feared it would be, there would still be many people living in tribal and rural communities around the world who would have woken up on January 1st, 2000 and gone about business as usual.  While most of the world's population may live in cities, suburbs, and Western rural communities with modern conveniences, there are still a lot of people who live in rural communities without modern conveniences.  In other words, if the Y2K problem had been as bad as some people feared it would be, most of the world may have been affected, but not necessarily all of it.  Hardly an end of the world scenario if it doesn't actually affect the whole world.

And, considering that people lived without computers for thousands of years, it would seem to me that the worst the Y2K problem could have created is a bad situation.  We've become accustomed to using computers for many reasons, but they are not a requirement for life.  And, of course, we now know that the Y2K problem didn't even create a bad situation.  The Y2K problem turned out to be nothing significant.

Maybe I'm just nitpicking here, but parading the Y2K problem around as a failed end of the world prediction is just so passé to me now.  If you're skeptical of the year 2012 bringing any major disasters and want to cite a failed end of the world prediction, try to find something other than Y2K.  There are plenty of other ones to choose from (here is a list).  Y2K is overused as an example, and it isn't even a good comparison to 2012, in my opinion.  The 2012 predictions come from various sources throughout the world and even scientists have warned that strong solar storms will be peaking around 2012.  The Y2K issue may have received a lot of media hype, but that's about the only thing it has in common with 2012 predictions.

Of course, if nothing significant happens to the world in 2012, then they might have something else common.  Guess we'll have to wait and see about that though.