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Comment by Luc | Hacker News Reader

I was not aware Pole Shift Survival was a thing. The internet really is a collection of wonderful things.

"The information on this site is for those who wish to improve their chances for survival after the coming pending pole shift."

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It is not a thing. This is crack-pottery at an insane level. From the intro: "We expect about 90 degree shift of the crust as planet-X passes earth's orbit on its way through our solar system. "

As other comments mentions magnetic pole shift though, that is a thing and happens every so often, about every 0.1 to 1 million years, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

Yes, geomagnetic pole shifting is not the apocalypse, and people who think so are either stupid or crackpots (or both), on the other hand that website does indeed contain a collection of marvellous, marvellous useful documents.

From the site:

> When will the Pole Shift occur?

> Best we can tell it will occur between May 20 and Jun 12 in 2012. See the source Zetatalk clues, and Crop Circle clues that give this final result.

Oops!

Doomsday cults missing their deadlines never seem to suffer much harm.

Well, they'd suffer more if they hit their deadlines.

Looks like they changed it to 17 Dec 2014: http://pssurvival.com/PS/2-Pole_Shift/-PS_Count-Down_Checkli...

To be pedantic, the survival for magnetic poles shifting is "go about life as normal". The magnetic poles are constantly shifting, just not very fast (~50km/year or so). Reversal would be a bit more dramatic, though...

Motion of the poles has sped up quite dramatically in the past century. That 50 km/year is up from almost zero in the late 1800's and 15 km/year in the early 1900's.

So it isn't entirely out there to worry a bit out reversal. Current thinking is that the Earth's magnetic field becomes multi-polar during reversals, but field strength won't dramatically diminish. So if it does happen, it'll complicate some things, and no doubt result in some economic activity, but won't be the end of the world.

The Earth's magnetic field and poles do change slightly, but it's not the end of the world as those guys would suggest. It's quite interesting really purely from a science and navigation point of view.

So far the only thing I've heard is that they had to rename a runway from 09/27 to 08/26 in Jersey: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-29603156

Just for clarity, they know the poles change slightly, the "end-of-the-world" view is based on the theory that once they shift a certain distance, there is a pole swap... not a shift, that causes all kinds of havoc on the ecosystem. I have never seen any good papers on the subject though, so am inclined to agree with your skepticism.

I think they are actually referring to geomagnetic reversal, believed by some to be a likely cataclysmic event, in which the poles could reverse entirely and it is supposed that the protective field would have a dramatic reduction in power for enough time to cause serious problems.

This site is literally talking about the entire planet being forced to rotate 90 degrees due to a rogue planet passing nearby. This sudden rotation would supposedly cause the crust of the planet itself to slip and rotate due to inertia.

Sci-fi fans might actually get some enjoyment from this! http://pssurvival.com/PS/2-Pole_Shift/0-Pole_Shift_Descripti...

Interesting. They decoded that from crop cycles.

Yeah, that's pretty crazy. They should have decoded it from chicken entrails.

Those are usually determined by the farmer. Crop circles, on the other hand, are usually determined by some pranksters.

Well, we see evidence for magnetic reversal in the geological record. It happened before, and a lot. Also, the strength has gone down to about 5% before. This much I'd take as fact.

What is not clear is the effect this has on the biosphere. Calculations have been made for different magnetic field strenghts during the reversal and it seems that radiation can go up. By how much and how much of a problem that would be.. well. Speculations plus calculations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_reversal (also has tons of papers in the links)

Crazy thought: What if magnetic reversals drive punctuated-equilibrium evolution?

The effect on the biosphere likely isn't vast. We can't see much effect in the fossil record and reversals have happened a lot.

Far more interesting--as in the case of climate change--is the effect on the economy, which is much more finely tuned and sensitive to change than the biosphere.

The hypothetical timescale of 1000-10000 years is based mostly on the low resolution of the data and the seeming implausibility of much more rapid mechanisms, but as the Wikipedia article suggests there are data that point to much higher rates.

Furthermore, the current theory is most consistent with a multi-polar field during the reversal, which would make magnetic compasses awkward, although probably not unusable. I used to sail in an area that had a large local magnetic anomaly (22 degrees over the course of a few nautical miles) and compasses weren't completely useless, just a tag tedious to use.

So if a magnetic reversal is about to occur there is likely to be a market for a "smart compass" or "compass as a service" that updates daily to your local conditions. Never a wind so ill it doesn't blow somebody good.

They are going to be bitterly disappointed by attempting to use Homeopathy in a trauma situation!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

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