alex chiang: web 6.0

Islamist terrorists will continue to plague our planet until the year 2372. How do I know this? Simple math.

Islam dates from the Hijra, or migration from Mecca to Medina. Year 1, AH (Anno Hegira) corresponds to AD 622 [source: wikipedia]. In other words, it started 622 years after the start of Christianity. Alternatively, you can think of the development of Islam as 622 years behind the development of Christianity.

People like to point out that Christians used to be pretty violent too. The canonical example would be the Crusades of the 11th through 13th centuries. After that was over, some other stuff happened, and by the 18th century, we had the Age of Enlightenment, where according to Wikipedia

religion was seen as antithetical to reason. Because the Middle Ages was an “Age of Faith” when religion reigned, it was seen as a period contrary to reason, and thus contrary to the Enlightenment.

So basically, it took between 1701 and 1800 years for Christians to become “enlightened”. Let’s split the difference and call it 1750. (The precise mathematical term for this is called “finding the average”.)

Now we can apply basic mathematic principles and see that 622 (the start of Islam) + 1750 (the length of time to become enlightened) = 2372 (the year that we’ll finally have peace on Earth).

So there’s my prediction. And to prove it, my other prediction is that Google will still be around and my blog will be archived so that future generations can see how prescient I was. Or maybe I’ll just be like Ray Kurzweil and take 180 pills and vitamins per day and get my brain implanted into a robot and live forever.

I bet you’d like 366 more years of my blogging.