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This is how the world ends... apparently.

HBNDonutHBNDonut Registered User new member
edited August 2007 in Debate and/or Discourse
Yeah so this is my first post on these forums, but a friend told me to come here because I would get a lot of feedback on this topic. First of all there is this:

Doomsday 2012

I read this today and it really got me worked up and worried. It's a big read, but I'm sure some of you will find it interesting at least. I'll summaraise it here as best I can;

OK, first off you have these dudes called the "Mayans" who were like Astronomers and invented a big crazy detailed calendar thousands of years ago. When you do all the mathematics, this calander expires on approx December 21 2012. There has been lots of conspiracy theories about this and lots of ideas as to why this date is significant. But then I heard about this big astronomical event that is about to happen to us...

Now first off, I dont believe in religion or prophecies or anything like that. I think, maybe, the Mayans were really really smart and awesome at predicting universal outcome through astronomy... anyway;

Our Solar System is not in a fixed position in the Milky Way Galaxy, as you may know. We move around as the galaxy moves around. On December 21st 2012 our solar system will do something it has never done before. It will pass from a position "above" the Milkyway's centre of mass - to beneath it... This is going to do all kinds of crazy unpredicted crap to us, electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc...

Also, the Sun begins a new solar cycle in the year 2012. At the start of the Suns solar cycles (which happen every 11 years or so) there is a lot of explosive reactions from the sun, shooting billions of tonnes of super heated gasses and chemicals into space.

Normally, we are protected from these reactions from the sun by some sort of wierd magnetic field which has a big crazy name. But not when we move to our new position in the Milkyway. We're going to burn to death. And there is nothing we can do about it, guys.

Also, it may also just be coincedence, but look at a lot of our political timescales and scheduled events like dealing with global warming etc. You'd be surprised at just how often the year 2012 is mentioned. That could just be me making stuff up, but I think the world leaders know something that we don't.

Anyway, yeah. Im really freaked out and disturbed and I know Im going to have nightmares about this tonight. Discuss?

HBNDonut on
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    RainOPainRainOPain Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I hope it haunts your dreams for the next 4 years

    Edit: This is a pretty good model for why your first post shouldn't be a new thread

    RainOPain on
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    DocDoc Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2007
    Every few years they say the Mayan calendar is about to expire. Then nothing happens and they go "oops, mathematical error. Its will really be in X years."

    Doc on
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    FunkyWaltDoggFunkyWaltDogg Columbia, SCRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    The "science" is hogwash and the Mayan calendar stuff is just crap. Don't worry about it.

    FunkyWaltDogg on
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    thorpethorpe Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Let me put it this way: I wouldn't start stockpiling sunscreen.

    thorpe on
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    FirstComradeStalinFirstComradeStalin Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I have a feeling this is mostly based on fake astronomy.

    "above the center of mass" seems impossible. It's simply a distance away, there's no all-powerful gravity that decides what is up and what is down.

    Also, solar cycles that we are protected from by our magnetic field that will change because of shifting our completely arbitrary position?

    FirstComradeStalin on
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    ege02ege02 __BANNED USERS regular
    edited July 2007
    You really need to read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World.

    He talks about exactly this kind of pseudoscience crap and why it is so popular among (stupid) people.

    ege02 on
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    HBNDonutHBNDonut Registered User new member
    edited July 2007
    I have a feeling this is mostly based on fake astronomy.

    "above the center of mass" seems impossible. It's simply a distance away, there's no all-powerful gravity that decides what is up and what is down.

    Also, solar cycles that we are protected from by our magnetic field that will change because of shifting our completely arbitrary position?

    No, not the centre of mass... I dont know what it's called exactly, if you read that article I linked to, it does a 10x better job of explaining the situation. We will no longer be protected from the superheated gases from the sun because the magntic field changes direction or something like that. (Sorry, Im not that smart when it comes to science)

    HBNDonut on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    My calender expires on the 31st of December 2007 and it's much more advanced than the Mayans'.

    SpongeCake on
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    slurpeepoopslurpeepoop Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    HBNDonut wrote: »
    I have a feeling this is mostly based on fake astronomy.

    "above the center of mass" seems impossible. It's simply a distance away, there's no all-powerful gravity that decides what is up and what is down.

    Also, solar cycles that we are protected from by our magnetic field that will change because of shifting our completely arbitrary position?

    No, not the centre of mass... I dont know what it's called exactly, if you read that article I linked to, it does a 10x better job of explaining the situation. We will no longer be protected from the superheated gases from the sun because the magntic field changes direction or something like that. (Sorry, Im not that smart when it comes to science)

    Long story short, it's all crap.

    This D-Day will pass just like the thousands of other "end of the world" days suggested by religions, cults, science, pseudoscience, random nuts, and Y2K.

    slurpeepoop on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I don't get why everyone who believes this hogwash naturally assumes that the Mayans - who believed the sun was controlled by a giant bird-lizard-snake - knew infinitely more about the science of our planet that we do today.

    SpongeCake on
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    DiscGraceDiscGrace Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    The Earth's magnetic field results from the rotation of the Earth's molten metal core, not from its angle relative to the barycenter of the galaxy or magical Mayans or something. The field flips/reverses polarity every ... couple hundred thousand years, I think? But the fossil record pretty clearly shows that life has somehow managed to blunder through.

    tl;dr: DON'T PANIC.

    DiscGrace on
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    thundercakethundercake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I think that people are scared because of a lot of things... the current political climate, chemicals in food, the hole in the ozone later. I tend to interpret these end-of-days theories as a manifestation of all that worry and sadness. It's almost like people really -want- the world to end or something =/ Or they feel that it's inevitable given the amount of instability in the world today.

    I remember December 25 1999 vividly...everyone was so scared, and yet when the moment came, everyone just felt a little silly for worrying so much. Even if the world is in danger, there's absolutely nothing you could do about it, and worrying won't help anything.

    Above all, never trust the internet for science. ;)

    thundercake on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    People want to believe that they were special enough to be born into the period of time when the world ends and are willing to pretend that all the signs point to this being the worst period of time EVAR, carefully ignoring massive plagues, famines and wars that have wracked the last thousands of years of human history.

    SpongeCake on
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    ThreelemmingsThreelemmings Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I don't want the world to end 3 days before Christmas.

    I want my presents!

    tSponge: The Mayan's know everything!
    It's the mystery factor. It seems like people always want to assume there's someone who knows more than them so that way they feel empowered when they find the "secrets."

    Threelemmings on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I guess that's the trick behind all conspiracy theories, the less people who believe in them the more extraordinary you are for being one of the few who are able to see the "truth".

    SpongeCake on
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    MerovingiMerovingi regular
    edited July 2007
    If our solar system really was moving and changing positions in the galaxy wouldn't we see the effects gradually occur over a long ass period of time rather than in instant, in a couple of years? I find it hard to believe that we'll cross this "line" in the galaxy and then suddenly go *poof.*

    Merovingi on
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    saggiosaggio Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Well, I read the first few paragraphs of the article you posted, and the guy is correct: the Mayans and the Aztecs (and I think the Olmecs as well) had three different calendars. The one that every talks about (regarding the doomsday prediction) is the "long-count" calendar - which is fairly interesting, I suppose, since it's not a calendar that starts on a day and then measures all subsequent days in relation to that original day, but it starts at some point in the future and then goes backwards. That's how you get that completely arbitrary date in 2012 (I've heard various days/months, but always 2012) - you start there, and then work your way backwards.

    As far as the calendar ending...It doesn't end. All it does is change from being 12.x.x.x.x to being 13.x.x.x.x - not that big of a difference. But, apparently, the change was regarded by the Mayans as something akin to a shift to a new age, or epoch, or whatever you want to call it. I like to think of it as the dawning of the "Age of Aquarius" - it's a real point in time when certain astronomical phenomena will change position, but anything more (like sudden world peace, or free ganja) is just stupid hippie mumbo-jumbo. Don't pay any attention to it.

    saggio on
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    JaninJanin Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Merovingi wrote: »
    If our solar system really was moving and changing positions in the galaxy wouldn't we see the effects gradually occur over a long ass period of time rather than in instant, in a couple of years? I find it hard to believe that we'll cross this "line" in the galaxy and then suddenly go *poof.*

    This. Moving around in the galaxy presents as shifts in the observed positions of distant stars and other galaxies, not "electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc". Assuming the OP isn't simply trolling, they should take a look around Bad Astronomy.

    Janin on
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    ThreelemmingsThreelemmings Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Actually, if I remember correctly, the whole calender is in fact cyclical. It's less the "end of the world" and more "the end of an era/beginning of a new one."

    Someone correct me if I'm wrong, of course.

    Threelemmings on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Rational thinking is overrated.

    SpongeCake on
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    The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited July 2007
    SpongeCake wrote: »
    Rational thinking is the purview of witches. BURN THE WITCH!!!

    You know what I love most about the OP? The way the word Mayans is in quotes, as if he doesn't even realise they were an actual civilisation, and thinks they're obscure enough that no-one else has even heard of them. That's just a barrel of awesome right there.

    The Cat on
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    deowolfdeowolf is allowed to do that. Traffic.Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    HBNDonut wrote: »
    electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc...

    Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

    deowolf on
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    JaninJanin Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    SpongeCake wrote: »
    I don't get why everyone who believes this hogwash naturally assumes that the Mayans - who believed the sun was controlled by a giant bird-lizard-snake - knew infinitely more about the science of our planet that we do today.

    For some reason, people love to imagine ancient civilizations with some sort of super-advanced knowledge. Constructs such as the Pyramids and Easter Island moai used to reinforce superstitions of the Long Count, Atlantis, or "natural" medicine.

    Janin on
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    slurpeepoopslurpeepoop Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    deowolf wrote: »
    HBNDonut wrote: »
    electric power will short circuit, days and nights could get shorter/longer, water in the northern hemesphere will spin clockwise down the plughole instead of anti-clockwise etc...

    Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.


    I have seen shit that'll turn you white!


    NINJA EDIT: Won't the Aztec calendar (which is held in high regard just like the Mayan one) end a year before the Mayan one?

    NINJA EDIT 2: Holy shit! Trying to look this crap up leads to the most tin foil hat conspiracy sites I've ever seen! UFOs, Atlantis, and the calendar together for the first time, for the last time!

    slurpeepoop on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    The Aztec universe ends a year early for daylight savings time.

    SpongeCake on
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    slurpeepoopslurpeepoop Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    SpongeCake wrote: »
    The Aztec universe ends a year early for daylight savings time.

    Well, that's nice of them to think ahead so we don't waste electricity.

    Also, I think we're missing the real mystery folks. Screw this stupid-ass calendar, we need to see if wearing a tin foil hat for extended amounts of time blows out the rods and cones in your eyes.

    Why else are all these conspiracy sites so goddamned ugly? Seriously, Japanese kids will get epileptic seizures from going to these sites.

    EDIT: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
    Brian Scott, born in 1943, was chosen for "Transformation"
    by The Host, an Old Man with white hair known as the religious leader
    of God's Other Children.

    Brian agreed to accept a "Quantum (sudden) evolution to mind level Ten" in 1971, when he was 29.
    He believed that this process, called The Play of Life, TM
    would somehow save mankind from destruction,
    but he knew few details.
    The Host's Play of Life began in 1971 and will end
    on December 24, 2011 AD--a 40 year term. This time period is also
    the "tenth and final descent of Voltar's People."

    This is a bit from a "serious" site using "science" to prove the end of the world as fortold by the calendar. Atlantis and UFOs are in that story somewhere too.


    Note to the OP: This is the kind of crap you get involved in when you seriously start to believe the stories on the cover of the magazines at the grocery store checkout lines.

    slurpeepoop on
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    VeegeezeeVeegeezee Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    It's fun little exercise in modular arithmetic, anyway.

    Veegeezee on
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    SpongeCakeSpongeCake Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Veegeezee wrote: »
    It's fun little exercise in modular arithmetic, anyway.

    I don't think the words "fun" and "modular arithmetic" belong anywhere near each other.

    SpongeCake on
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    deowolfdeowolf is allowed to do that. Traffic.Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Is the long-count like the long-snap? Is there a special guy you need to bring in to do it?

    deowolf on
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    slurpeepoopslurpeepoop Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    deowolf wrote: »
    Is the long-count like the long-snap? Is there a special guy you need to bring in to do it?


    Yeah, duh.

    Read my earlier post. The Host had to transform some schmuck with a quick shot of "quantum evolution to mind level 10"

    Geez, don't you read The Sun?

    slurpeepoop on
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    themightypuckthemightypuck MontanaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    We live in a golden age. We should enjoy it. Everything today is better than it was in the past for the majority of people on the planet. Maybe we are just freaking out because we have it so good.

    themightypuck on
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    ― Marcus Aurelius

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    deowolfdeowolf is allowed to do that. Traffic.Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    deowolf wrote: »
    Is the long-count like the long-snap? Is there a special guy you need to bring in to do it?


    Yeah, duh.

    Read my earlier post. The Host had to transform some schmuck with a quick shot of "quantum evolution to mind level 10"

    Geez, don't you read The Sun?

    Right, sorry. I didn't mean to ruin the interwebs for you. Wonder what one of those guys is worth in free agency.

    deowolf on
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    TrevorTrevor Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Too bad the Mayan people expired a hell of a lot sooner than their calendar, or else this might have a tiny bit of credibility.

    Trevor on
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    Che GuevaraChe Guevara __BANNED USERS regular
    edited July 2007
    Doc wrote: »
    Every few years they say the Mayan calendar is about to expire. Then nothing happens and they go "oops, mathematical error. Its will really be in X years."

    Actually, I'd heard that the Mayan calendar was based on the transit of Venus, which has a very regular and predictable cycle which repeats every 243 years.
    Wiki wrote:
    Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena and currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. Before 2004, the last pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The first of a pair of transits of Venus in the beginning of the 21st century took place on June 8, 2004 (see Transit of Venus, 2004) and the next will be on June 6, 2012 (see Transit of Venus, 2012). After 2012, the next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.

    I saw the last transit in 2004.

    It was probably one of the most beautiful, humbling and awe-inspiring sights of my life watching the sun rise that morning.

    As for any Apocalypse mumbo-jumbo bloo abloo abloo.

    I always liked to imagine that:

    End of the World = Beginning of the Universe

    There's supposed to be this Golden Age that lasts until the End of Time, right?

    Che Guevara on
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    MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Didn't we have a Mayan calendar looniness thread less than a week ago?

    Maybe I'm thinking of SE++.

    MKR on
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    AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    And if we get lucky, we'll get dragons standing on volcanoes.

    AngelHedgie on
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    randombattlerandombattle Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Doc wrote: »
    Every few years they say the Mayan calendar is about to expire. Then nothing happens and they go "oops, mathematical error. Its will really be in X years."

    Actually, I'd heard that the Mayan calendar was based on the transit of Venus, which has a very regular and predictable cycle which repeats every 243 years.
    People often forget that the Mayan calendar that everyone gets all fussy about when it comes to this is not a paper chart that has a set end point.. It is in fact a circle. It doesn't really end because you are supposed to start again from the beginning once you hit the "end".

    They probably just figured "This shit is huge and heavy.. Why bother making this twice as huge if we can just loop it around. It's not like we are gonna think the world ends on that date..."

    randombattle on
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    IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Wasn't the idea behind the calendar that every world dies, to be replaced by a new world?

    Leaving old worlds behind is a fairly common theme in Native American mythology.

    They really like to emerge from things, especially.

    Incenjucar on
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    FirstComradeStalinFirstComradeStalin Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Doc wrote: »
    Every few years they say the Mayan calendar is about to expire. Then nothing happens and they go "oops, mathematical error. Its will really be in X years."

    Actually, I'd heard that the Mayan calendar was based on the transit of Venus, which has a very regular and predictable cycle which repeats every 243 years.
    Wiki wrote:
    Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena and currently occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. Before 2004, the last pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The first of a pair of transits of Venus in the beginning of the 21st century took place on June 8, 2004 (see Transit of Venus, 2004) and the next will be on June 6, 2012 (see Transit of Venus, 2012). After 2012, the next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.

    I saw the last transit in 2004.

    It was probably one of the most beautiful, humbling and awe-inspiring sights of my life watching the sun rise that morning.

    As for any Apocalypse mumbo-jumbo bloo abloo abloo.

    I always liked to imagine that:

    End of the World = Beginning of the Universe

    There's supposed to be this Golden Age that lasts until the End of Time, right?

    What does the transit of Venus entail? Like lights in the night sky, or more subtle stuff?

    FirstComradeStalin on
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    Che GuevaraChe Guevara __BANNED USERS regular
    edited July 2007
    Incenjucar wrote: »
    Wasn't the idea behind the calendar that every world dies, to be replaced by a new world?

    Leaving old worlds behind is a fairly common theme in Native American mythology.

    They really like to emerge from things, especially.

    Unfortunately, 'the World' is usually destroyed in the mythologies.

    The Hopi Indians, who say their ancestors came over on a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, have a mythology that goes back through four destruction cycles.

    I think Hindu mythology records like 7 or something, with a bunch more to go.

    Che Guevara on
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