Here's my prediction: In 2012, Starcraft II will be released in Korea. So many people will be playing it simultaneously that the entire Korean power grid will be offline. During the time it takes for the back-up generator to warm up, a meteor will hit a nuclear siulo, making the computer think that they are being nuked, and, thus, fire retaliation nukes at several nations. This, in turn, will cause those nations to fire their retaliation nukes, and we're all gonna get nuked to hell.
But you know what? starcraft II is gonna kick ass.
My serious prediction: anything any philosopher says is too vague, and we just try to apply it to anything that makes us look smart. The fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 is because, well, the person making it didn't live forever, maybe they ran out of stone, maybe they got bored, maybe there was a revolution or something, you don't always get to sit there, undisturbed, carving calendar dates into stone slabs.
If I see anyone who thinks the world will end in 2012, I will bet them $1 000 000 that it will not. In the event that it does, it wouldn't matter, for obvious reasons, but if I'm right, I'll have $1 000 000 worth of pennies to swim around in and gloat at all the people who would fear anything at all just because it's popular to do so.