Glad to see some people responding positively to this idea
Let me just rectify my ranting tendencies a bit here: last night I found myself in close proximity to certain vapours which (get me?) focused my mind, and some little while later I was lying in bed, and found myself imagining the harangue I could hurl at the benighted descendants of the hippie revolution, an unfolding and articulate rant which grew more heated and confrontational as it flowed through my mind, and as I recall now finished with me calling them counter-revolutionary assholes, or something like that... and I suddenly realised how counter-productive such an angry self-righteous rant could be (no doubt with spittle flying and wild eyes glaring like searchlights into their bruised souls, an old testament prophet laying down the law... not a pretty sight, nor perhaps too persuasive) !
So I realise I must not work myself up like that, and simply engage the fellow attendees in conversation, and discuss in a reasonable way the shortcomings of their unquestioning acceptance of all and any bullshit that comes their way. How the Establishment is pleased to see them all deluding themselves right out of the game of ideas, that knowledge is power, and that integrity and self-respect requires effort and clarity of thinking... and that it's time to stop being new age sheep...
Anyway, a conversational approach, and with humour and gentleness of approach, will be the only effective way to rescue these benighted people from their embarrassed failure moment.
Also, I have to make it clear that I am an anarchist, and so I will not be organising or "leading" this effort, I will be simply attending the event (whichever place we can find as being the most likely to be worthwhile attending.... Stonehenge indeed would be a good candidate, but the "authorities" only let people in for solstices... cos you know it's like religious, innit.... perhaps Avebury instead... but we'll have to let the believers pick their party, and then "gatecrash") in a spirit of free association with whoever decides to also attend... we can meet and hang out together with the aim of engaging others present in conversation at the opportune moment(s)... but I will not be flying a flag or acting as a spokesperson for anyone but myself.
With that all clarified, let's party!
Of course, if the end of the worlders fail to organise a party, I guess a skeptical gathering to mark the Fail would indeed be a good press relations exercise.
We could call it the Skeptical Spectacle!
Does anybody know anyone who believes this? I don't and I know some pretty weird people who believe all sorts of crap. Are we sure that actual believers exist?
If you are an anarchist you ought to be aware there is no contradiction between anarchism and organisation. And not in 'taking a lead' either, as long as it is by example or freely agreed as opposed to leadership imposed from above.Originally Posted by asydhouse
Chaggle: if you want to understand the mentality of people who really, truly believe this 2012 bollocks, here's a site that may enlighten you. Obviously we are talking about individuals who are a couple of wheels short of a unicycle. Personally, given the number of people who appear to genuinely believe that the hereditary monarchy of the UK are shape-shifting space reptiles who eat hamsters, I have no difficulty in accepting that this insane idea is taken quite seriously by the tinfoil beanie brigade.
(By the way, a useful tinfoil beanie construction guide can be found here.)
I'm pleased to see that I've triggered interest in the concept of Not The End Of The World parties - keep it up, guys! Maybe I'll get my very own internet meme, which these days counts as fame, though it's infuriatingly difficult to collect royalties. Anyway, you heard it here first, folks! Accept no derivative rip-offs! Sadly, I very much doubt that the National Trust would let us have Stonehenge unless we all became Druids, which would be a bit of an own goal, no?
Still, how about Glastonbury? I've never been there, but there must be plenty of suitable venues available, and because it's Glastonbury you'd get plenty of True Believers milling around thinking something is actually going to happen, especially up on the Tor. The only problem is that the party might just possibly be gatecrashed by King Arthur, and all the skeptics would look pretty silly then, wouldn't they?
Anyway - two years to go, which is plenty of time to plan many jolly good parties. Altogether now: "It's the end of the world as we know it - and I feel fine..."
That's fair enough, Smudge... maybe I should have said, "as a lazy anarchist" with experience of attempting to organise things (in a small way), I can't be bothered to try to organise this beyond promising to be there, should anyone wish to meet up. Also, I say I'm an anarchist, and have read a couple of books, but I am not well-versed in the history and theory of anarchism (although I do know that if the working classes had listened to the anarchists when the ruling classes were cooking up the First World War there would have been no war... "what if they threw a war, and nobody came?"), but I figure being an anarchist means taking responsibility for your own actions (and does not necessarily mean I am willing to take violent action, since my assessment of "terrorism" back in the Weatherman 60s and the Baader-Meinhoff 70s was that terrorists are frustrated children hiding under the cloak of "anarchism" to appease their own urges for self-satisfaction)... and I'm happy to "take a lead" in the sense of promising to be there etc, but I will not allow anyone to devolve that "leadership" to me as a dedicated spokesperson or "organiser"... which I know does tend to happen.... so, with that clarified, let's party!
PS I'm not into any particular "ism" if the truth be known, so I'm an anarchist with the same loose-definition case-by-case fly-by-ear practice as with veganism... I tend not to eat dairy produce, but do consume a bit of cheese now and again, and I like silk and honey, etc. So I'm an anarchist who votes, despite the fact that "it doesn't matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in". If all those abstaining Democrats in the USA had voted again for Obama, as dissapointingly un-left as he turns out to be, at least he could carry on getting some good work done, instead of letting the Republicans scupper it all after only two years... on the other hand I've been voting Lib Dem here for over ten years, and look how that's turned out!)
It's turned out as the Lib Dems have always wanted hasn't it? In a coalition!... on the other hand I've been voting Lib Dem here for over ten years, and look how that's turned out!)
Well I thought they wanted proportional representation, as they manage it in Germany, which is more of a coalition of all representatives, not a big party swallowing a small party with a few token concessions... and if they were going to coalesce (?!), I would have thought Labour would have been the better bet... this unseemly haste to bow to the IMF or the World Bank or whoever blackmails countries with the threat of demoting the debt rating, or what have you... this rush with no consideration of more creative alternatives, no discussion at all, just rush to cut public services... it's nuts! And not at all what I voted for.
Anyway, as you mentioned earlier Chaggle, it may turn out that no one in Britain is that keen on this particular end of the world date... a lot of woosters are just tourists, shopping idly for novelty on the shelves of the woodoo supermarkets, so it may well be that we'll be forced to attend a little party at your bar in Andalucia after all! Perhaps we could travel down in a convoy and alert the press to the Spectacle of the Skeptical on the move!
Having slept on it, you might be right Chaggle.
A skeptic counter event to a non event might actually be counter productive by drawing attention to it! Hope that makes sense?!
O.K. Seems some support for something. I do not really mind whether it is a Skeptics event or invasion of a woo gathering. Would prefer a celebration of the rational. Maybe a combination of exhibition/event celebrating the enlightenment, nd science, and a party?
Where? Well not really bihered although out of U.K. may be expensive/difficult for some.
I think it is right that an event set up and run well could get lots of good publicity/
Anyway, am well up for something, and willing to consider getting involved in organising as long as there are others involved as well!
Got to be worth a pop. I am sure that chmapagne house could sponsor as not the end of the World must be a major reason to celebrate!
One more thought. Perhaps the location should be somewhere associated with rationalism and not wooism?
Let's do it folks!
I'm not altogether convinced that "somewhere associated with rationalism" would be ideal. For starters - where, exactly? CERN? It's a very big tunnel, but I don't think they hire it out for parties.
Also, I personally think it would be much more fun if anyone can come. When the crucial moment arrives, the skeptiks can cheer the brilliant success of their prophecy that bugger all would occur, while the believers - well, I'm not quite sure what they'd do, but with a bit of luck, they'd point at the Sun and shout: "Look, you blind fools! It's gone out! It really has!" After all, something very similar happened at Fatima.
That's mainly why I suggested Glastonbury. On that particular day, it'll be crawling with all sorts of interesting people who would gleefully turn up to anything with the word "party" attached, and probably save the cost of hiring a cabaret.
Chaggle, with all due respect, I'm not entirely persuaded that the ideal location for a party centered around an organisation called UK-Skeptics is Spain. Surely it goes without saying that the main event should take place in the UK? Then again, why must there only be one party? I daresay the Spaniards will be as pleased as anyone to discover that they haven't been eaten by flying jaguars after all. But for purely logistic reasons, I rather think that the location for the official UK-Skeptics bash, if there is one, has to be somewhere fairly central in Britain.
It also occurs to me that the precise moment when all this is supposed to happen is before lunchtime, and maybe not an ideal hour for civilised people to be knocking back the booze (though personally I wouldn't mind). So, in a very provisional way, what I propose is this. The actual Doomsday Moment is an orchestrated media event with - and I'm making this up as I type - perhaps a funeral for the world, complete with coffin, accompanied by doleful music. Then, at the exact second when the world is supposed to end, the music turns riotously gleeful, and the coffin opens to reveal a gorgeous girly dressed (though mostly undressed) as Sexy Gaia. Wouldn't that be a hoot? And then later on the real party occurs, the high point being the arrival of midnight with the world still here.
Anyway, it's an excuse for a right old hootenanny of a piss-up! And it has just occurred to me that if an event is indeed held in Spain, the town, complete with bar and hotel, that they built during the making of For a Few Dollars More is still standing, and fully functional. It has absolutely nothing to do with the end of the world, but somehow it seems like an appropriate venue. I'd fly over for that, and furthermore, I'd dress up as Richard III so you could all strike matches on my hump.
I think it's fine to celebrate Not the end of the world in the evening after the lunchtime non event. I think a large part is to make the point of 'ignore the loonies' and 'celebrate rational thinking and science'. In fact a big deal could be made of it rather like 2 mins silences, except we do it intentionally late! We ignore the actual time as it is BOLLOX. So, perhaps at 12 we suggest a 'down tools and murmer oh look we are all still here. no surprise there!' And party! Much mileage can be made of the 'hate to be an I told you so....', but, 'join the party and be glad science makes more sense than woo'.
A big daytime exibition with evening events, would be great. If do-able.
I'd like to see a mix of traditional skeptic fare and celebratory pop/rock/comedy to bring in others. This is a chance to be fun, cool and bring in new faces IMHO.
An alternate idea is to just have nationwide Skeps in pub small local events? Coordinated publicity and logo's perhaps?
Last edited by smudge; 16th November 2010 at 05:33 PM. Reason: add point
Dixieland jazz band style!
Or a scantily clad couple with a naked baby? Just so we don't come across as some kind of cheesy stag party, and to emphasize that skepticism is not a male thing, and all for the benefit of the family of humanity, as we are all genetically linked with every other living thing on this planet... especially poignant as the scientific reality of the woolly woo concept of the "holistic" or "unity of all life"... surely many woosters have a vague idea of what such concepts mean, and are thinking in purely "poetic" terms about such things (ie "spiritual" innit)... and it would be nice to emphasize what that means in reality... a nice one in the eye to the equally woolly minded fascist BNP types out there...and the coffin opens to reveal a gorgeous girly dressed (though mostly undressed) as Sexy Gaia.
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