Sometime between now and New Years Day there will be predictions given for 2004 and some of them will no doubt, include scary earthquake predictions. 99.9% of those predictions will never materialize, which I supposed is a good thing, as they are not given by anyone with any skill and they never present the percentage of chance beyond random.

Given it is that time of year, I thought it might be interesting to scope out another area we usually don't cover on this web page, but one we should give pause to in thinking of the "big picture" and that being predestination.

If we are in fact predestined to arrive at a certain time and depart at a certain time, then our method of departure is indeed already known when we arrive. So if we imagine that to be true, some of those on the departure list would go via an earthquake from something falling on them, or a heart attack. Carrying this thought further, we have to ask, what if earthquakes were predicted and very few people died during these events, then how will they depart in the future?

This is kind of interesting in that if we look at the reasons people depart this little blue planet that circle the Sun, we have to remember that fewer people leave to due drunk driving compared to 30 years ago. In the USA most diseases are taken care of by vaccination, so those tolls are lower too, but we can't all stay here and get old as there would be to many of us in a limited amount of space. Did you ever notice that the places which have the greatest earthquake deaths are places which are densely populated?

Some people call this the Pruning Effect. When too many people exist in a given location, a natural pruning occurs, which takes some of them elsewhere. Therefore, in our search for the Holy Grail, earthquake prediction, we have to imagine that if people don't die in earthquakes, they will die another way, but is it better, or worse?

Petra