New Maya Discovery Casts Doubt on World's Imminent Demise
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You ninja'd me... kind of.Irridium said:
I was going to point out how no one, (or at least no one the cameras were pointed at), ever bothered to suggest that the reason the Mayan calendar doesn't go past a certain date is the same reason the calenders on our walls end on December 31st, 2012.
They simply ran out of room on the rock.
"Well, then why does it cover such a long period of time?" they might retort.
It's carved out of rock! Would you want to be the poor schmuck who had to do that every friggin' year/harvest cycle? No, you wouldn't. Thus you made the calender so that is would cover as much time as possible.
Here's the thing... AT NO POINT DID THE MAYANS PREDICT THAT THE WORLD WOULD END THIS YEAR.
The calendar ends. That's it. They just figured that hey, maybe that's enough calendar for now. There are plenty of predictions that are actually about the end of the world that we as a society can fixate on. What I don't understand to this minute is what made people so obsessed with the possibility that ONLY THE MAYANS got it right?
The Mayans were very advanced, for their time, but we're living in the future! I get that everyone wants to believe there was some better society in the past, but pound for pound (scientifically, structurally, medically, pure human advancement) we're doing better than any human society ever has. Yes, even moreso than the powerful Roman Empire. I guess the problem is that everyone is looking around these days and thinking, "this can't be it. This can't be as far as we've ever gotten. The best must be in the PAST! Yeah! Go Atlantis!"
The calendar ends. That's it. They just figured that hey, maybe that's enough calendar for now. There are plenty of predictions that are actually about the end of the world that we as a society can fixate on. What I don't understand to this minute is what made people so obsessed with the possibility that ONLY THE MAYANS got it right?
The Mayans were very advanced, for their time, but we're living in the future! I get that everyone wants to believe there was some better society in the past, but pound for pound (scientifically, structurally, medically, pure human advancement) we're doing better than any human society ever has. Yes, even moreso than the powerful Roman Empire. I guess the problem is that everyone is looking around these days and thinking, "this can't be it. This can't be as far as we've ever gotten. The best must be in the PAST! Yeah! Go Atlantis!"
Well, FUCK.
Does that mean I can't go insane on December 20, 2012 and try to forcibly merge Activision and EA into one big superpower that I'll use to take over the United States?
Because... since the world won't end a day later... that would be a bad thing. ... Right?
Does that mean I can't go insane on December 20, 2012 and try to forcibly merge Activision and EA into one big superpower that I'll use to take over the United States?
Because... since the world won't end a day later... that would be a bad thing. ... Right?
...I call bullshit. There may be a new discovery, but we've known the mesoamerican calendar goes beyond 20121221 for a very long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar#Long_Count
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar#2012_and_the_Long_Count
THE CALENDAR DOESN'T EVEN END THIS YEAR
We're still a digit off of a rollover on that calendar (when they'd need to make a new digit) Too bad I won't be around to see the panicked masses of idiots when nothing happens yet again on October 21, 4772.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar#Long_Count
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar#2012_and_the_Long_Count
THE CALENDAR DOESN'T EVEN END THIS YEAR
We're still a digit off of a rollover on that calendar (when they'd need to make a new digit) Too bad I won't be around to see the panicked masses of idiots when nothing happens yet again on October 21, 4772.
Do people still give a shit about doomsday predictions? What is this, the late 1800's?
The very notion that the Mayans managed to somehow predict the "end of the world" (whatever that means) is absolutely ridiculous. And just to make things a little more confusing, now we have two conflicting predictions. Oh fuck, I wonder what that could mean..
They're lousy predictions, as well. I mean, let's entertain the idea that one of those is correct, and the Mayans somehow managed to foresee some great catastrophe that's going to happen either at the end of 2012, or 7000 years from now. Even if that was true, they didn't actually say what it was, so all you really have is an end date, and the assurance that shit is going to be no more afterwards. In other words, those predictions literally have no value whatsoever even if they are true. So, why would anyone care about this? It just boggles my mind.
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The very notion that the Mayans managed to somehow predict the "end of the world" (whatever that means) is absolutely ridiculous. And just to make things a little more confusing, now we have two conflicting predictions. Oh fuck, I wonder what that could mean..
They're lousy predictions, as well. I mean, let's entertain the idea that one of those is correct, and the Mayans somehow managed to foresee some great catastrophe that's going to happen either at the end of 2012, or 7000 years from now. Even if that was true, they didn't actually say what it was, so all you really have is an end date, and the assurance that shit is going to be no more afterwards. In other words, those predictions literally have no value whatsoever even if they are true. So, why would anyone care about this? It just boggles my mind.
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Except that the Mayans had no belief that the world did end that day. That's a misintrepetation from fake scientists and...
*prepares long explanation*
Or listen to this guy instead. Saves me the time to write it all up.
Seriously. There's no uber ancient civilisation relics. There are no "real" crystal skulls - all of them have been proven to be no older than 200 years.
There was a culture that vanished in South America, but they had no special technology (no, stacking up a wall with big rocks doesn't require spaceships. Otherwise they'd be the worst spaceship pilots ever, considering we found squashed hands in thosr rock walls, where the hand or arms of workers were crushed. Oops). But...there's a lot of vanished cultures. There's dozens in europe alone. It's not special. There's no secret ancient superknowledge passed down, regardless what Assassin's Creed might make you think.
It's an arbitrary calendar. We're fussing over the equivalent of a millenium passing. Remember 2000 and the crazy people thinking the world would end? Remember how it didn't?
We're just redoing the same craze right now, with a different calendar.
I will assume that your posting is satire. I'm not 100% sure, because there are a lot of people that think AIDS is the worst disease ever, or people that believe our current economic problems are particularly noticeable on a historic scale.
There are things that might wipe us out, but those are far more insiduous. Here's one you'll never even think could be a danger:
Plastic.
Yes, seriously. There's already a country-sized patch in the ocean, filled with plastic. And slowly, it's falling apart, ripped into tiny particles.
These microparticles are currently accumulating and poisoning the foodchain. Right now. Proven over and over. This might, long term, screw us in ways we can't even comprehend right now. And we will do nothing about this, because everyone likes the convenience.
There's others, like the way we ruin our food with chemicals that are proven to be damaging long term, or the obvious one (nuclear missiles).
We're killing our future with a hundred different needles right now. It needs no prophecies.
The problem is that it's easier worrying about THE MAYAN PROPHECY than working to improve various things. Especially because most of the things we should do are eco-friendly things, and that is something that sounds "leftish" to most americans, and thus won't be done.
Partisan stupdity screwing us again, but what else is new.
The Maya used two calendars, the Short Count and the Long Count. They are both cyclical, and the Long Count calendar, the one ending in December, has ended before and restarted, and ALWAYS ends with disaster, then things start over. So yeah, murals will depict things continuing to happen after the Long Count cycle ends, because it's just a refresh button.
Still fucked.
Still fucked.
Wha-? No way! I am completely surprised!
All this end-of-the-world, and coming of the Beast crap is gettin' on my nerves. I remember back when June 6, 2006 was supposed to be the End. Yeah, well... It didn't happen. The world will end whenever it, and the rest of the Universe decide it does. I doubt there's anything we can do about it, and I really don't think we need to.
Hopefully, by the time the Earth is in really serious "Ah, snap! Even Bruce Willis can't save us!" danger, we'll have established ourselves on different planets. My guess though, is that the Sun will just fizzle out, we get rocked by a 5-mile wide asteroid (or meteor?), or the Universe collapses and blows up again.
One things for sure, though. We'll be there in some form to see it, and man... it'll be pretty.
All this end-of-the-world, and coming of the Beast crap is gettin' on my nerves. I remember back when June 6, 2006 was supposed to be the End. Yeah, well... It didn't happen. The world will end whenever it, and the rest of the Universe decide it does. I doubt there's anything we can do about it, and I really don't think we need to.
Hopefully, by the time the Earth is in really serious "Ah, snap! Even Bruce Willis can't save us!" danger, we'll have established ourselves on different planets. My guess though, is that the Sun will just fizzle out, we get rocked by a 5-mile wide asteroid (or meteor?), or the Universe collapses and blows up again.
One things for sure, though. We'll be there in some form to see it, and man... it'll be pretty.
They proved a guy named jesus was nailed to a tree a couple thousand years ago...Daystar Clarion said:
The catch is, it would seem, that the best version of the story is that on that particular day, the earth will line up with a number of celestial objects and their combined gravity will be sufficient to do something terrible.Therumancer said:
The problem with that particular theory, is that precise scenario has already occurred countless times and our planet seems relatively secure being an inconsequentially small rock orbiting a medium star in the backwater region of our particular galaxy. The most commonly cited reason why they world will end that day (the sun, earth and galactic center line up) is especially silly considering that has happened every single year for as long as the earth could be called a planet.
To me it isn't an example of "told you so" or wanting to debunk anything. It just seems like a very silly thing to get hysterical over. I mean, I could get shot in the face on the way to work tomorrow. Or I could break a leg when I walk to the bathroom. Or any of a thousand million terrible things. But we don't worry about any of those things and we could reasonably affect at least some of them.
I suppose that's the part that gets to me. The great scary thing is both hilariously unlikely and utterly outside of our control. You'd think that's a perfect example of things you don't need to worry about.
Wow, amazing.
I'm sure all the doomsday conspiracy theorists will take this new data into account and adjust their predictions accordiHAHA, no they won't.
I'm sure all the doomsday conspiracy theorists will take this new data into account and adjust their predictions accordiHAHA, no they won't.
also in that room was found a scribe that translate to "for the lulz" so really this is the first appearance of a troll in human history
the Mayan's were famous for this they would build cities and what not and then they would move and leave everything behind and then they would hide in the bushes waiting for Spaniards to come by so they could troll them
the Mayan's were famous for this they would build cities and what not and then they would move and leave everything behind and then they would hide in the bushes waiting for Spaniards to come by so they could troll them
Eclectic Dreck said:
I tend to disagree with you in part, because the theory your espousing is based on what modern people, with modern knowlege, think could potentially destroy the earth, and then debunking their own theories. The Mayans were a group of people who couldn't even make sailing ships, work with steel, or numerous other things. They did not have the detailed knowlege of physics to make such conjectures, because if they did, they would have pretty much conquered the world with all of the doors that would have had to be opened along the way.
Looking at the people in question, you have to consider what could have destroyed the world in their understanding. Things like astrophysical phenomena, polar shifts, and the like aren't really on the table. These guys didn't even have contact with North America (or know that it existed really), never mind have visited or studied the magnetic poles.
If your going to interpet an apocolypse here, you have to understand that the Mayans probably believed it would be something supernatural, the return of gods, dead walking the earth, ancient banished monsters breaking free from their prisons, etc...
Given the rather humble capabilities of the Mayans and the simple fact that they didn't build most of their own cities and such, one has to also question how much of their astronomy was actually theirs, and how much they scavenged, were taught by someone else, or whatever else. Assuming you aren't just assuming some freak abillity to pinpoint stars by looking at the sky, but given the age of some of the stones and such that "impress" with their placement, it's quite possible the Mayans never put them there.
Hence my comments about ancient astronauts, as looking at the "Facts" it's possible that what the Mayans were actually looking at was when the people that actually built, or helped build those cities would return, and a lot of the information the Mayans had came from them, leading to the whole disjointed nature of the civilization. Barring supernatural causes here of course with vengeful gods, demons, or the return of magic and a new "cycle" ala Shadowrun.
As I've said before though, I don't expect much to happen, and a lot of these questions to never be properly answered. My basic attitude is that if there were higher tech visitors exploiting the Mayans, and leaving behind a "trickle down" effect, they don't seem to have been spending a lot of time hiding themselves. We've dug down deep enough where you'd expect whomever it was to have lost some pocket change, bottle caps, disposable lighters, pieces of machine scrap, or whatever else since they weren't hiding "special ops" style apparently. That's the problem with ancient astronauts uplifting humanity, playuing the role of gods, etc... in most arguements, if they weren't hiding by definition, by now we would have found some fairly concrete proof. I mean if we know enough geology and construction to boggle about stone from one side of the planet being on the other, and the perfect mathematical presciain of construction to ask the questions, you'd think we would have found more, and enough evidence where no conspiricy you can think of would be able to cover that many sources.
I think, given that the world ended for the Mayans quite a long time ago, using the perception and available knowledge of the modern era is quite sensible given that such people often tend to believe that some event might occur on that day that would cause the end of the world.Therumancer said:
The truth of the matter is of course that there is little way to determine exactly what was meant by any particular thing. Even though the Mayans ended relatively recently, we know little thanks to a combination of simple difficulty in finding and working archeological sites and the fact that most things of note where stolen or destroyed long ago.
But, if we assume that the Mayans believed the world was going to end on that date, then it isn't so strange to assume they had a reason. A thousand years ago a great many people were sure the world was going to end thanks to a big round anniversary date. Twelve years ago a great many people were convinced the world was going to end because memory restrictions often forced the use of two digit dates. While the world notably did not end on those dates it illustrates something important about such things: even if the reason is silly there is at least a reason.
If you discard the impossible (I'm going to lump the visits by aliens or anything else like that into this list on the basis of implausibility on all fronts coupled with an utter lack of evidence save for the fact that certain things seem like they'd be really hard without modern technology), what means did the Mayans really have to divine such things? Tracking objects in the sky is a relatively trivial feat performed by all but the most rudimentary civilizations. It would seem sensible then that the motion or position of stellar bodies could certainly be used as a basis. By contrast, without inventing a compass nor having any knowledge of magnetism in any demonstrated or theorized capacity, anything pertaining to magnetism of any sort is out of the question. In a culture that didn't even routinely utilize a ferrous material, even accidentally stumbling upon something is unlikely. Other phenomenon, such as political struggles, wars, plagues and famines are difficult to predict with any precision beyond a few months or years even with modern means and thus, in keeping with throwing out the absurd as above, this can be discarded as well.
So, if the Mayans did predict the end of the world centuries before it happened, it stands to some form of reason that it would be based upon the only routinely predictable thing available: the motion of visible objects in the Zodiac. Even without understanding the fundamental motions and forces in play plenty of civilizations came to the conclusion that such things were predictable. So much so that the date in question has long been held as an auspicious one. December 21st is the winter solstice. In the northern hemisphere it is the shortest day of the year and has been marked for celebration for thousands of years by many cultures. Beyond that, there is little notable about the date. No known comets are going to be visible at that time of year nor are there any spectacular meteor showers on or around that date. Plausible threats would include of course large chunks of rock, solar flares, gamma ray bursts and so forth. Unfortunately, the former would not have even been noticed without the benefit of equipment well beyond the known Capacity of the Mayans to build. Large chunks of rock have to be really large or otherwise spectacular to be noticed with the naked eye and even potentially world ending rocks have to be incredibly close before visible even on powerful telescopes. Gamma Ray bursts are the least likely of the three given that the phenomenon isn't even visible without highly specialized detection equipment that has only be available for a few decades.
Thus we come to a relatively startling conclusion: the only thing of significance about the date of 21 DEC 2012 is that it would be the shortest day of the year for the Mayans. A notable moment as described earlier. But beyond that little fact, there is little to base a prediction of the apocalypse upon. Any likely candidates (war, famine, plague, space rocks, etc) were well outside their power to predict. Hell, the story doesn't even have a coherent mechanism for the end of the world as I've seen everything from the above list to polar shift, gamma ray burst, asteroid strike, ejection from the solar system due to earth/sol/galactic alignment, a heretofore unknown planet, star, or other massive object causing the same etc.
The reality is simply that all we have is a date. An auspicious date. Much the same way that 1 JAN 2000 or 1000 was an auspicious date. Historically at any rate, assuming something will happen on an auspicious date (versus any other date) has been a fools game.
There's no primary historical evidence which even corroborates the existence of the Christ, let alone any which supports the claim that he was martyred.8-Bit_Jack said:
On topic:
Hopefully the tin-foil hat brigade can now abandon their ill-informed misconception that the Mayans predicted the end of the world. Of course they could have just researched the principle behind the Mayan solar cycles & the long count calendar to begin with, & avoided looking like quite such complete pillocks, but when have facts ever bothered their tangled loopy little fantasies?
That's the thing, unlike for John the Baptist, there are no Roman records concerning the existence of the Biblical character of Jesus the Christ. Bearing in mind how obsessively bureaucratic the Romans were this is a massive problem for any Christian with even a vague grasp of Roman history & process. However, if you genuinely disagree then please cite your source.8-Bit_Jack said:
eh, I'll take your word for it. I'm working off a history textbook and another book I can't recall the name of. more importantly, I just don't care who was nailed to which tree for what reason. all I care about is shiny roman armor. Fuck yeahcatalyst8 said: