h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is a gamble you can't lose. Just find someone who thinks the world will end next week, and bet them your life savings it won't.
You will seldom lose, and even if you do, you won't be paying. Your only risk is if there is an afterlife, and God doesn't approve of gamblers, especially ones that try and welch on a bet.

Easy, eh? I'm sorry, but you're asking for:
a) someone so certain that the world will end next week
b) that they're willing to put money on it
c) and have sufficient funds to cover your life-savings.

Easy? I don't think so. I haven't met anyone fitting those measurements recently.

And besides, imagine a situation where there was some massive nuclear holocaust or something that effectively ends civilisation as we know it without killing *everyone* (thus fulfilling the conditions of the bet to all intents and purposes), and you and this bloke ended up living in a post-apocalyptic society (as in Mad Max, The Stand, Terror From The Year 5000 etc.) and due to a lack of standardised economic system you were unable to monetarily pay back (especially since it's unlikely that the Post Office would be open) and you had to become this bloke's giggling one-eyed crony while he roved around the dystopian landscape on his horse, and you'd have to carry all his stuff.

Doesn't seem like such a good idea now, does it?

-- Yoz, not a compulsive risk-taker

"easy?" I didn't say easy. I would urge caution if you do take up a bet with someone on this, they may be bad losers. The Jehovah's witnesses used to be good for this, and you could buy property off members cheap the day before. Their elders have decided now to stop saying when it will end as repeatedly getting it wrong (I think 3 times) makes members question whether they may be wrong about other things.
Does everyone have a favourite end of the world prophecy? My top three are.
3-Sir Isaac Newton (approx 2012 I think), because he got very little else wrong.
2-St Malachy. About one thousand years ago he wrote a coded(isn't it always?) list of who would be Pope for the "foreseeable future". There's two to go by his reckoning till the last days. What I like about him is that this century, when we were due for a pope whose life would be dominated by shepherding and the sea,(about as specific as most prophecies get), an American Bishop tried to help his chances of election by buying a sailing boat and keeping sheep on it. (He didn't get the job.)
1-St Columbkille. Probably the most useful prophecy as it gives everyone else notice. He claimed that St Patrick had done a special deal for the Irish people. So they wouldn't have to face the awful events of the last days, 7 years earlier the whole Island of Ireland would be destroyed by an enormous tidal wave. I really shouldn't post this, the West coast of Ireland will probably be invaded by surfers now.

Do you want my life savings on that the world will end sometime before the year 2240? I know the likelyhood of me being alive by that time is very unlikely, but I still believe it. I was one of the few people who thought that the only reason the world might end on Y2K at midnight (Russian time) was only possible because the Russians aren't that bothered about the Y2K bug, and that several nuclear bombs would go off. So at 10:00 on 31st December 1999, I was waiting, but thankfully nothing happened. I do have a friend who is very intent on how the world will end. You should have seen her on the 9/9/99 at 9:09 a.m. She was sitting there waiting for it to happen. Again-nothing. I think we've got a maximum of 240 years to worry. Except have you heard about that asteroid that will supposedly hit the Earth, causing armageddon around the year 2030? Yelp.

my friend, LeeAnn, had a birthday on 9/9/99 and now she's pregnant. do you think there's a connection? by the way, i'm hooked on your choccies!@

There is a connection:the number 9.
Have some more choccies! *offers some choccies to alicat*. Anyone else want some?

mmmmmmmm! i think these choccies are addictive, katsy. they also seem to have magic powers. do you find that that's true?@

Do ya know that I don't think I've had any myself, even though I am a pure chocholic (yummm!!!). I find that it's very hard to resist, and if I do, I am probably ill.