Normally, I should be laughing my head off, because predictions of  “the end of the world” have been made by quack prophets and nutty astrologers for ever.

When their predicted dates pass without so much as a wobble on the surface of The Earth, The Sun or The Moon – as happened during the recent “Doomsday” (28 September 2015, when a reddish “Super-Moon” made its appearance in the sky,  just as,  some people believed,  had been authoritatively   “foretold”  in Revelations, the Da Vinci Code and other mystic writings) – the quacks quickly cover themselves by saying that their calculations had been rendered obsolete or inoperative  by a “weak battery”  in their smart phone, or a faulty translation of   allegedly sacred writings by Google. Or whatever!

But undeterred, they then move quickly on to the next prediction. Again, with precise details of what is supposed to happen. This last time, they didn’t have long to wait at all. The planets themselves wanted to correct history – just transfer 28 September 2015 to 24 October 2015 and add five more days, and hey presto —  you are there. Yes, between 24 and 29 October 2015,  the solar system will be recallibrated and if all goes as it should, POOM! could go the Earth.

Oh, you hadn’t heard?

Then listen well, for as my grand-daughter will have learnt from FB or Twitter by now, the coming inter-planetary re-jigging is at hand at last:

QUOTE (1): Is [The  New Planet]  Nibiru for real? Does it take Nibiru 3,600 years to complete one orbital journey? As you can imagine, the gravitational effects of a sizeable planet moving close to the inner solar system would spell big trouble for Planet Earth. Earth has been acting up lately, with an increase in earthquakes, volcanoes, global warming, blending of seasons, and more. Open your mind a little and stop believing everything our so-called scientists and NASA folks have to say. Every week NASA seems to have learned something new that was unthinkable. UNQUOTE

Yes – Nibiru exists! Only NASA didn’t want us to know about its existence. Add the appearance of this unexpected entrant into the solar system’s “Come Dancing” competition to what will happen on October 24, 2015 and what will you get? Don’t bring out your fancy orbi-calculator; there are people ready with the answers:

QUOTE 2: Get up early on October 24, 2015 to see the planets Venus, Jupiter and Mars forming a planetary trio in the eastern pre-dawn/dawn sky — until around October 29, 2015. A grouping of three planets inside a circle is known as a planetary trio. In the final week of October 2015, watch for Venus, Jupiter and Mars to showcase the first planetary trio on the sky’s dome since May, 2013. … Venus and Jupiter rank as the third brightest and fourth brightest celestial bodies in all the heavens, respectively, after the sun and moon. Therefore, you should have little trouble viewing these two luminaries at morning dawn. To view fainter Mars, though, you might need to get up an hour or more before sunrise, as Mars is some 250 times fainter than Venus, the sky’s brightest planet, and some 25 times fainter than Jupiter, the sky’s second-brightest planet. Some of you might even catch a fourth planet – Mercury – over the horizon as darkness gives way to dawn. UNQUOTE

Now, such groupings of planets have been seen before (ref. May 2013). What makes this grouping different is that Nibiru (if you read the name backwards, it gives you a text message saying ‘You are I[n A] Bin’!) may join in the dance and cause trouble: very serious trouble. But if Nibiru doesn’t cause any trouble, do not be surprised. Even NASA is waiting for the results of some “probes” it has been conducting in secret, before it can definitively lay out all the facts. But meanwhile, be prepared. For The End of the World Is nigh!

Now, when my grand-daughter asked me about the possible end of the world, I had wanted to give her the facts that are already known – for instance, that the Earth is about 4 and a half billion years old and that it’s still probably got another 7 and a half billion years before it is swallowed up by the Sun and splashed about in the form of  tiny atoms that will dance around the solar system until they coalesce again  — probably — into some form of  mini-asteroid. The Sun gave birth to the Earth, and will consume the Earth at its death. All a bit morbid, isn’t it? Especially if one is having lunch? Imagine  The Sun engaging in an orgy of cannibalistic infanticide? Terrible scenario, don’t you think?

So I said to my grand-daughter, instead: “Can I tell you how I visualise the possibilities that await the world of the future?”

She said, “Sure, Grandpa!”

I took a long gulp of Club beer. Then I started:

”Look,” (I said) “when you were born 21 years ago, mobile phones were hunky things without any attractiveness about them. Today, they are so beautiful they have become a fashion item, traded seasonally in exchange for the latest, most light-weight versions. Apps for them keep multiplying. Speaking into them has in fact become almost a secondary, forgotten usage – texting, email, instant messaging with What’sApp, selfies and video calls are what they are mainly used for. Plus, of course, music, games and browsing. If somebody who died in the year you were born were to come back to life today and you were to give him/her a smart phone, what would he/she say? He or she wouldn’t even be able to turn it on and off!

”But when I was growing up, it was much worse – we boasted if we were lucky enough to travel by lorry. To have even seen a train before  was supposed to be an achievement  of the greatest order, about which one never stopped talking. If we go on progressing technologically, without destroying the planet (by going for cheap options such as dirty energy that causes global warming)  we could in all probability achieve time-travel within another thousand years or so.

Can you imagine me being able to come and see you every time I thought I wanted to see you? Just think, ‘I want to see her’ – and if she agrees (just as one has to accept a call before a phone conversation can take place) – there you are beside her,  just like that!  We could eliminate hunger and disease from the world: you carry an energy-supplying device on your wrist, which is supplied with constant power from the sun, and whenever you feel hungry, you just rub your lips against it. You can choose to have the taste of meat, or fish, or cheese or strawberries or oranges or other fruits — whatever you desire–  by simply pressing a button on the device! Like taking a call or retrieving an email!

“Time travel would also enable us to go wherever we want, whenever we want. I hear there is a cultural festival taking place in India or Japan, and off I go. Back after six hours or so. Your cousin is celebrating a birthday in Ghana — you get there before the cake is cut! We would all become much more knowledgeable about the world, and learn to appreciate the good things Planet Earth has to offer. We could learn to  cherish The Earth  so much that we would want to do everything we could to save and preserve it.

“You said the other day that you would like to “download” all the knowledge in my head and put it into yours. Brain and neurological surgeons are already mapping the areas of brain function  and in a thousand years, I am sure they could connect the two brains of two different people  and  “Blue-tooth” them quite easily! And then, look at what is going on in DNA research. In a thousand years, we could probably Jurassic  the DNA of Beethoven or Mozart  and bring them back to life to continue giving us fantastic music. It sounds impossible, but what do you think William Shakespeare, who died only a few hundred years ago,  would think if someone brought him back to life even today and played him a video recording of Mark Anthony’s speech in Julius Caesar? To him, video would represent as magical an occurrence as using DNA to bring geniuses back to life!”

At this point, I stopped dreaming and entertained some nightmares, instead.  It occurred to me that  although  humankind has so many possibilities of a most sublime and beautiful nature which could increase our enjoyment of life millions of times over, there is  also has a very abominable side to it.  Suppose someone could breathe a word and cause all the Syrian or Afghan refugees who want to “cheat” Europeans by crashing their “party”, to burn up and die? Suppose someone could, by looking at you, turn you into a deaf-mute or delete your memory bank?

Is it not  we, this same mankind, who invented hydrogen bombs, predator drones, mustard gas, HIV and some strains of Ebola? On second thoughts, it might be a better idea to encourage The Sun to become hotter and finish us off long before our doom-date of 7 and a half billion years hence. We could probably spare a few humans a lot of suffering by not being around much longer to inflict horrendous harm on them.

For many of our inventions and the terrible uses to which we put them – suggest that we are not quite worthy of the privileged space that we occupy in the Universe, as conscious beings who know the difference between Right and Wrong.