The title refers to an odd pattern which I noticed in the past, on ATS, when “predictions” had been made about specific days.
As long as the day itself was still comparatively distant, there would be excited speculations about what might happen, the case being argued for and
against the prediction.
Yet when the day itself had arrived, there would be virtually nothing (apart from the occasional “so where is it, then?” from sceptics).
Those who were supposedly expecting some great event to happen would have gone strangely quiet.
You would think they would at least wait for the day to close before giving up on their expectation.
But no- they were hardly even waiting for the day to dawn (there would be little discussion the previous day either).
It seemed as though the cold reality of the day itself was enough to pour a bucket of cold water over the idea that it was going to bring anything
special.
Hence “the day has arrived” syndrome.
Over the last few weeks, more than one poster starting a “2012” thread has observed that there didn’t appear to be much active discussion on the
subject.
There were threads with titles like “Losing 2012 faith?”
I think I know what was happening.
I suspect that in this case the “day has arrived” syndrome, the “bucket of cold water” effect, had been triggered off by the arrival of the
year 2012.
It would be very understandable. The expectation had been nicknamed after the year. Some people posting in 2011 were talking as though they were
expecting to notice a difference right from the first of January.
If the expectation had been attached to the whole year, then the arrival of the year itself, and the discovery that the year did not feel very much
different from other years, would be enough to provide the “dose of reality”.
Therefore people stopped talking about it.
In the last couple of days the discussion seems to have picked up again, relating to the specific day rather than the year,
It will be interesting to see if the pattern that I observed before repeats itself on the dawning of the twenty-first of December.
In that case, we could expect discussion of the subject by “2012” believers to dry up altogether on the previous evening, following the precedent
of other days.
My own assumption, I should make it clear, is that “nothing will happen” when the day finally turns up.
Of course I’m using “nothing” in the more restricted sense recommended in my thread “Don’t say ‘nothing will happen”’;
You’re not talking about events caused by human agency. You’re talking about predicted events beyond human control, such as aliens
revealing themselves, or a mass “ascension”, or the arrival of the planet Nibiru, or whatever is supposed to happen at the expiry of the
“Timewave”.
What you mean is that you’re not expecting any of these predicted events
.
In any case, as I was observing in that thread, the spectrum of expectation associated with “2012” is so varied and full of mutual contradiction
that it cannot possibly be fulfilled in its entirety.
The fulfilment of one-tenth of it would rule out the rest.
So the only real question, I remarked at the end of the thread, was whether the “2012” expectation was going to be 100% wrong or only 90% wrong.
That was the thread’s punch-line.
I was expecting indignant reaction from “2012” believers, because I thought it was obvious enough that the joke was at their expense.
However, the sarcasm was evidently too subtle for its own good, and I was surprised at the number of “2012” sceptics who failed to spot that I was
agreeing with them.
Anyone who wants to read that thread again, and see what I was getting at, can find it at this location;
Don't say "Nothing will happen"
While in the following location I described the expectations associated with”2012” and the expectations associated with the book Revelation as
polar opposites, belonging to different and incompatible belief systems. One of them necessarily excludes the other;
Revelation versus "2012"; the great divide