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The World Ends in 2012
Bionic Monkey
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
To be more specific, why won't it? My mother-in-law is freaking the fuck out over this bullshit Mayan calendar crap, and I remember reading a very logical reason on here for why the calendar ends then that doesn't involve the end of the world.
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why does she say it will?
like, what is the cause of the end of the world
Tell her the Mayan calendar is cyclical like a clock, and just like when a clock hits 12 am it's a new day, when the Mayan calendar hits 2012, it's a new era. The start of a new era is boring, so it's much more exciting to just instead make that THE END, forgetting to reference that after reaching 12, the clock keeps on ticking.
See if that calms her down any.
Not that once time eventually got there that the world would end, but that they just haven't thought that far into the future kind of thing.
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I don't know. She's watching these end-of-the-world shows that are talking about 2012 being the end of the world.
And to be more specific, I read a logical reason for why the calendar ended then, like it was some kind of reboot, or they just didn't bother extrapolating further, or something else.
Next time she freaks out, just say: Y2K.
EDIT: Just noticed that betting my life on the fact that there won't be an end of the world isn't a very high-risk bet. Either I win or it's the end of the world.
Sorry, I suppose I should have made it more clear that I meant in comparison to what we have today.
http://www.adishakti.org/mayan_end_times_prophecy_12-21-2012.htm
One interesting thing is that the calendar actually ends on 12-21-12. If you add them all up it comes out to 9 which is also an end of a cycle. I wouldn't say it means anything, but is kind of interesting.
But when the Mesoamerican themselves had to deal with that, they just added another decimal place. For instance, when specifically referencing the year AD 4772, they used two additional decimal places in their counting scheme to make "room" to add more years.
It'd be a hell of a coincidence if their counting system just happened to line up with a polar shift or something, but it'd be just that -- a coincidence.
If that's not good enough, just tell her it's like a calendar that only goes to 999, and resets at 1000 back to 0. It doesn't mean anything, it's just set up that way.
But yeah, any time my friends bring this shit up, I ask if they actually use the mayan calendar. None do, so I tell them to focus on their own calendar.
God this sounds like the 23 enigma...
Kin = 1 day
Uinal = 20 days
Tun = 360 days
Katun = 7200 days
Baktun = 144000 days
A Mayan date like 6.3.3.8.0 would be 6 baktuns, 3 katuns, 3 tuns, 8 uinals and 0 days. A full Mayan cycle is 13 baktuns, which means it would end on 13.0.0.0.0, which would be 1,872,000 days from the initial date of 0.0.0.0.0, or more commonly known as the "Zero Date". Through some crafty archeological work, most experts agree that the Zero Date is August 11th, 3114 C.E. on the Gregorian Calendar.
What's interesting, however, is that the Zero Date was initially of little relevance to the Mayans because their calendar system was based on its end rather than its beginning, meaning that the 2012 date was chosen first, then the cycle was retroactively applied to give the current date.
The Mayans and other Mesoamericans were concerned on many levels the concept of emptiness, death, etc., which may help explain why they were the first to develop the number 0 and have still the only calendar system that incorporates it. Their astronomical observations are often based on the voids between star movements, like the the northern void where Polaris now resides today. 2012 marks the end of another age, but why was this date chosen in particular, if it is to be assumed at all?
The most conventional explanation is that on this date the winter solstice sun aligns through the "dark rift" in the Milky Way galaxy, a rare phenomenon. Why this phenomenon is significant has its origins in Mayan mythology, namely the Sacred Tree, an image heavily referenced in their culture. Astronomically, the Sacred Tree is represented by the intersection of the band of the Milky Way galaxy with the ecliptic of the sun. This intersection is considered the doorway between life and death, among other things.
It must be assumed that the Maya were able to predict the precession of the equinoxes, which is becoming increasingly more accepted amongst archeologists. It's not too surprising, seeing as their calender can be used to predict just about everything else. The relationship between the ecliptic and the Galactic Equator is one heavily referenced in Mayan mythology, so it's not much of a stretch to assume that the Maya would set the end of their calendar to correspond with what they viewed as a significant celestial event.
The band of the sun passing through the dark region in the Milky Way represents a passing through the void, resetting the relationship between the worlds of the living and the dead. What most conspiracy and apocalyptic types fail to understand, however, is that this event doesn't hail the end of the world so much as it is the resetting of the cosmos so that a new age may begin.
Because that's what you do when you get to the end of your calendar.
Source Terrence D'Altroy, professor of Anthropology at Columbia University, specialist on South and Mesoamerican cultures.
now, compare that to the number of times the world has ended.
If she won't let go of having an irrational belief, maybe you could try to get her into the view of 2012 in Terrence McKenna's novelty theory or some of the "new consciousness on earth" new agey bs instead. At least she won't be freaking out as hard then.
Also, get ready for her to do it again before 2027, because that's the new date those types are already shifting towards.
When you think about it, it's quite a literal bet.
As for the OP and the Mayan Calendar thing, I'm pretty well just going to echo what everyone else here is saying and note that it's either the end of their calendar or the end of an era. If the world was really going to end, who gives a shit anyhow? It's not like you can do anything about it. I guess we'll find out.
Oh man, maybe that's when mankind reaches a sigularityAWOOOOSH!
I never finish anyth
I never finish anyth
Because when the Mayan calender is done it's going to start over, just like other calenders.
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But seriously, what everyone has said before. And if she brings up Nostradomus, two things:
1) Vague predictions are a lot more likely to come true. On top of that, Nostradomus made countless predictions, and only a few of them came true.
2) He predicted the world would end in 2012, which he mostly likely took from *drum roll* .... The Mayan calendar!
That could be a blessing in disguise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47_YACSvSBA
I tend to agree with this. It's really no more important than the turn of the millennium in our calendar (1999 to 2000)
From Wiki:
According to the Popol Vuh, a book compiling details of creation accounts known to the K'iche' Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world. The Popol Vuh describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 13th b'ak'tun.
The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.
You think that's bad?
It's my 30th birthday. As far as I'm concerned, that is the end of the world.
Snappy avatar pacbowl, btw
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Thanks. Scanned it myself over a decade ago. Figured it would come in handy at some point. :P
Fixed.
Except not, because he said "the turn of the millenium in our calendar," meaning when the number "1" on the calendar changes to the number "2."
Then again, the movie may help. The Day After Tomorrow was so damn stupid it was seriously used as ammunition by global warming deniers, so maybe 2012 will do the same thing to people worrying about the calendar flip.
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I do wonder, though...I've never seen anything that explains exactly how the world will end.
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The Western calendar starts at 1, not 0. A millennium is 1000 years long. 1999 is the 999th year of the 2nd millennium, 2000 is the 1000th year, 2001 is the first year of the 3rd millennium.
I was waiting on New Year's Eve 1994 and it never happened.
Or did it?
It wasn't really a blooper. Every country had anywhere from 10 to 18 days lost when they adopted the Gregorian calender. Before that, it was even worse, when, in the Julian calender, it could be Sept. 2 in somewhere like Tuscany but Sept 15 in Zurich, due to the local placement of the leap days, weeks, and months in the old Julian Calender. Part of the drive to adopt the Gregorian calender was to standardize Feast Days, as well as allow for greater trade between regions.
As for the Mayan thing, if she's really new-agey, pull out Nostradamus or some other quack and show her all of their failed predicitions. Alternately, there's always Von Daniken to fall back on. Just say that the aliens return on 2012.