LAST EDITED ON 07-26-09 AT 09:36 PM (EST)

The local ABC station is re-running season 2 episodes. We've seen the episodes after Ben was caught and said his name was Henry Gale. Ben had to have been told to go see what was inside the Dharma station by either Jacob or X. Soon after Ben found out about the numbers, Ecko got John to his "Question mark", the other station by the fallen plane. That's where John saw that his hatch had been observed and will lead to John refusing to punch the numbers.

That tells me all this is part of the game between Jacob and X. I believe the numbers had nothing to do with preventing a catastrophe, they just served to re-activate the "cloaking" mechanism that hid the island. Jacob was probably tired of the game that X was playing and decided to place the island out of reach. X, wanting to finish the game (probably meaning killing Jacob), had to find a way to deactivate the "cloaking" mechanism and, as soon as he did, more people got to find the island. Destruction soon followed, just as X said it always does.

It's all a game. Our Losties are the pawns as are the Others and everyone else who has ever been on the island except Jacob and X.