Author Topic: 2012: Where do you Stand? (Read 6625 times)

fae · « **on:** November 19, 2009, 10:06:35 PM »

So, there is yet another end of the world is nigh theory. Where do you stand? Do you think the mayans predicted a cataclysm, do you think a polar shift is likely, are you sitting back in your arm chair and laughing at all of the hysteria? (Did you see the movie?)

Inquiring minds want to know.

Imaginary · « **Reply #1 on:** November 19, 2009, 10:17:37 PM »

There is about a 1 in 10 that says we the people elect Sarah Palin as the leader of the free world. Just sayin'.

fae · « **Reply #2 on:** November 19, 2009, 10:29:12 PM »

And if that happens, believe me, I'm building a bomb shelter.

K · « **Reply #3 on:** November 19, 2009, 10:38:07 PM »

I don't know what, if anything, will happen on 12/21/2012. What I do know is that I'll be sitting on a hill with a snifter a brandy, an expensive cigar, and good friends.

Worst case scenario, I'll welcome the end of the world with class.

The Revolution · « **Reply #4 on:** November 19, 2009, 11:16:25 PM »

I believe the Calendar runs out.

I also believe they sacrificed people to make sure the sun would not abandon them.

The world was supposed to end so many times with so many dates before. I just wonder what people will hold on to after this one.

Narcissa · « **Reply #5 on:** November 19, 2009, 11:28:20 PM »

No one really believes the world is going to end. Nobody believes in prophecy anymore. Some say, "maybe they should," and go about the procedure just in case. But nobody feels that primal fear, that depth of the instinct-based heart of humanity faced with an ultimatum.

I'm not worried, either way.

octosquare · « **Reply #6 on:** November 19, 2009, 11:47:33 PM »

I think they had to stop making that calendar sometime. I'm pretty sure they didn't think they'd still be around in 2012, or at least they made it so long ago that they were like "wheeeeew 2012! Eh, this is as good a time as any to stop" and such.

Also I think I read somewhere that they had a 26,000 year cycle that they went along with, and 2012 or so is just when the cycle starts over. If anything, I think we'll be closer to the galactic center or something? I mean some strange things might happen, but I don't believe it will end the world at all.

007bistromath · « **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2009, 12:40:34 AM »

Ask again later.

Of course, it's a good idea to be "ready" anyway, because the existence of an Important Date means that some asshole is guaranteed to go public with his asshole plans at that time. Given the scale of instability oh... everywhere as of late, that's a pretty big deal.

Gudy · « **Reply #8 on:** November 20, 2009, 12:56:41 AM »

Quote from: fae on November 19, 2009, 10:06:35 PM

Do you think the mayans predicted a cataclysm, do you think a polar shift is likely, are you sitting back in your arm chair and laughing at all of the hysteria?

None of the above. Like with all hysterias I've come across so far, I'm doing my darned best to simply ignore it. After all, even shaking my head at the sheer, mind-boggling amount of stupidity displayed on such occasions tends to get old after a while.

Quote from: fae on November 19, 2009, 10:06:35 PM

(Did you see the movie?)

Nope. And I'm supremely uninterested in ever doing so.

</apathy>

S*S · « **Reply #9 on:** November 20, 2009, 05:00:39 AM »

Quote from: 007bistromath on November 20, 2009, 12:40:34 AM

Ask again later.

They always fucking do that. Fuck these idiots forever.

What annoys me is that the day the world DOES end, some idiot is going to claim they got it right, when really they just got it by pure chance.

LoneCoon · « **Reply #10 on:** November 20, 2009, 06:36:39 AM »

Just because a bunch of assholes are going to snap after the world doesn't end, I will be taking my standard disaster preparation precautions:

2 weeks water
2 weeks canned goods
Ammunition
Emergency medical kit w/sutures
Camping stove

MEPS · « **Reply #11 on:** November 20, 2009, 06:50:15 AM »

ATT:

The Mayan Calendar does not end on Dec 12, 2012!
There are still 14 to thru 20 baktun left!

Wiki the Mayan Calendar because I am too sleepy to explain what a baktun is. Also the Mayan calendar is not a universal and depending on the tribe the long count was utilized very different. The whole end of the world crap was conceived by a scholar who clearly did not understand the Mayan people. Yes there is the Tortuguero but it is does not say the world is going to end.

The wiki article on it actual has a very poignant quote by an anthropologist and Mayan elder saying the apocalypse is a Western conception and that we focus on the Mayan myths because our own are exhausted.

fae · « **Reply #12 on:** November 20, 2009, 06:54:59 AM »

Narcissa:

Quote from: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-end-of-world-myths.html

NASA's Ask an Astrobiologist Web site, for example, has received thousands of questions regarding the 2012 doomsday predictions—some of them disturbing, according to David Morrison, senior scientist with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

"A lot of [the submitters] are people who are genuinely frightened," Morrison said.

"I've had two teenagers who were considering killing themselves, because they didn't want to be around when the world ends," he said. "Two women in the last two weeks said they were contemplating killing their children and themselves so they wouldn't have to suffer through the end of the world."

How do you combat fear for people for whom scientific explanation is a "cover-up" ? Really, I blame the culture of fear that fox media and certain members of the U.S. government have been propagating over the past two presidential terms. Now we don't just have to fear terrorists, but our own planet.

Vel · « **Reply #13 on:** November 20, 2009, 07:50:54 AM »

People are dumb.

marpa · « **Reply #14 on:** November 20, 2009, 08:20:26 AM »

If the Mayans were such great predictors, shouldn't they have known that the Spanish were coming to fuck them and then just killed them put a spear through their heads as they were getting off the boat? I'm just askin'...

007bistromath · « **Reply #15 on:** November 20, 2009, 08:54:03 AM »

Well, apparently they did know the Spanish were coming, because they had a prophecy about a pale-skinned god from across the ocean to the East showing up right about that time. They began to realize that they may have had kind of a garbled transmission when the "gods" started shitting themselves to death from dysentery, but it was too late by then.

Peter · « **Reply #16 on:** November 20, 2009, 09:11:20 AM »

I believe those were the Aztecs, and not the Mayans.

~Peter

fae · « **Reply #17 on:** November 20, 2009, 09:34:50 AM »

Meh, what can you say. To those educated in the public school system all of the meso-american civilizations are the same. The title for that part of history class was, in fact the Aztecs and Mayans. :-p

007bistromath · « **Reply #18 on:** November 20, 2009, 10:10:25 AM »

Hrm. Well, wikipedia makes it seem like drawing a distinction between "Aztecs" and "Mayans" during that period is something like distinguishing between Rome and Europe at the height of that empire. However, it also says that the bit about the prophecy may actually be bullshit Spaniard revisionist history. So, I dunno.

TonyPep · « **Reply #19 on:** November 20, 2009, 10:16:33 AM »

Apocalypse-themed movies always make me want to revamp my emergency supplies. And then I realize I don't really have any.

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Author Topic: 2012: Where do you Stand? (Read 6625 times)