To be mind-numbingly honest, I don't see how anyone could buy into this nonsense in the first place. Are some people's lives so mundane that they feel it nessecary to belive this bull? Or should I just give up on society because they're all this stupid?

I'm sorry, but I just don't get it...

Don't hold your breath, humans will kill themselves off though in 100-200 years, we don't need anything supernatural to ged rid of people

It's as if people are constantly looking for some armageddon to come end their lives. Are we that bored as a society that we should slurp up every doomsday theory that pops up?

man-man:
People please, the Mayans weren't amazing astronomers (everyone had an eye on the stars back then, and there were other civilisations who were more advanced in the field) and they just had a calendar that went round in cycles, every so often it reaches the end of a cycle and goes around again.

The 2012 date is one such time, when it reaches the end of the largest cycle they defined. This has happened numerous times already throughout history without the world ending, extraterrestrial contact or anything freaky happening. This whole thing is roughly equivalent to archaeologists a century or three from now digging up my desk organiser and going "oh god, this calendar ends on December 31st, which by our calendar is next week, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

Now please, stop the lunacy and look at it with a little skepticism, nothing world-ending has happened for 4.5 billion years thus far, in all likelihood nothing will continue to happen straight through 2012.

If you're interested: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

The part in bold isn't exactly true. While nothing has happened that has obliterated Earth, there have actually been a couple "Armageddon" type events that have happened on this rock of ours. The latest being the comet/meteor that hit the Yucatan Peninsula and wiped out the then-dominant life-form...dinosaurs.

I think it is certainly VERY possible that there will be some sort of doomsday event that will wipe out most of humanity on Earth at some point. The only real question in my mind is whether it will be something naturally occurring, or if it is instigated by us.

As for the end of the Mayan calender predicting this doomsday...it isn't impossible. But I think it's highly unlikely that anything will happen that day. It'll come and go and we'll all be left looking at each other and laughing, just like after Y2K didn't bring down modern civilization.

Rampancy:
My opinion on the end of the world? Eventually. No sense trying to plan for it, nobody's gonna see it coming.

This is an interesting idea: All the scientists waking up one morning, looking outside, and saying, "BY THE BLOOD OF DARWIN THERE'S A FREAKING ASTER-"
Warms my heart, that does - as does the idea of a rogue asteroid sneaking up on earth...

has any one every though that they were killed befor they coudl finish of mayeb they just figured "oh the world will still go on" and said fuck ti to countinue ously chiseling away at a rock.

man-man:

Now please, stop the lunacy and look at it with a little skepticism, nothing world-ending has happened for 4.5 billion years thus far, in all likelihood nothing will continue to happen straight through 2012.

If you're interested: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

well if you discount several meterorite impacts, the flood stories are one, a couple super volcanoes going off, then no nothing world ending has happened

i like listening to the skeptics guide to the universe

still on the other note January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT is a very bad time for everyone

Wheres the option for "The LHC will destroy the planet in just a few weeks" ???

Wait wait wait:

The earths magnetic feilds have been swapping polarity for a while now in the geographic time line. And no big disaster has really been linked to them.
Well, it may cause our computer screens to flip upside down or something stupid like that.

Here's something more logical then the whole "Planet X" crap.
Neuron Star collision with our sun.

If that were to happen, it would only give us an 8 hour warning.
THING IS,
We're not in the part of the galaxy that has a bunch of juggernaut Neron stars flying about, and even so, the chance of one hitting us is very slim.

Rapid evolution:
I want in on that. SCHOOL FOR MUTANTS FTW

Though it would be cool to have aliens descend upon the earth, the only thing they've done so far is stick there heads in the windows of some guy in Nevada, then run off.

That EMP thing would probably screw us all over until we get the power back. It's already happened in Hawaii I think...

Well i was reading this and for whatever reason i thought i should throw my $0.02 into the areana.

This is just another hoax. People have been saying the world is going to end for many years now i believe you know them. they are those deranged crack heads that stand on the corner of my street holding card board signs and yell at me in giberish as i walk by. in concerns to nostradomis(did i spell that correctly?) he made many a thousand predictions in his time. I will not be the first to point out that of those thousand only a handfull have actually come true. If someone talks for long enough eventually they will say something correctly.

but as far as what i believe, well i am a christian and i am not ashamed to say that. To put in to my own words a passage from the good book. No man will know the time or the place. so no the world will not end in 2012.

I believe it's the end of some calendar, possibly the Mian (however you spell it)

Well instead of giving some long winded statement, I'l just leave it as NO.

so, so far noone thinks the world will end in 2012. well at least we're all good minded people but again, what of the general public. If they catch wind of this and think its true then the world will go into anarchy and we'll all be boned... on December 12, 2012. Why? because people put propaganda like this, all sorts of flawed science behind it, as well as several cut-up scientist testimonies on national television for people to watch (seriously, one of them put up on their blog (paraphrased:) "I never once said there would be a doomsday, yet the producers cut my interview to look as if I agreed so it would appeal to their viewers"). Thank god not many people I know around here watch discovery channel.

By the way, what happened in hawaii? did they lose power? EMP strike? The stuff I heard about an EMP strike on NA would result in complete anarchy, destroyed transformers and it would take us (I'm in canada) at least 18 years to re-attain the technological status of Iraq. All transformers and factories would have to be rebuilt by hand, all computers and transistors would be destroyed, all in all just severe devastation.

I think it's more believable than any other doomsday prediction, simply because an ancient civilization predicted this.

I read somewhere that the mayan's believed in these 52 year periods and their civilization actually ended on one of these 52 year periods.

I refer the honourable gentlemen and ladies to my favourite quote of all time, again.

"The Earth is degenerating today.
Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer obey their parents,
every man wants to write a book,
and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."
-- Assyrian tablet, c. 2800 BC

All this is from an Ancient Mayan calender that stopped at 2012. Why? I'm pretty sure that the Mayans probably thought that their empire probably wouldn't last that long anyway, so why keep adding more years to the calender?
Personally, I'm hoping for the whole galactic council with the aliens and whatnot, so long as they don't want to...you know...wipe us out or enslave us or something. Maybe they'll give us advanced technology and teach us a way to actually stop killing each other and to better ourselves? I'm not holding my breath.
I believe that the only thing that will happen in 2012 is that a few cults will commit suicide, a bunch of people will be a little nervous (kind of like a bunch of people were June sixth, 2006 at six o'clock "Oh no, the Devils coming to get us") and in the end I'll just call those people who were nervous and downright scared stupid, like I did to the June 6, 2006 people.

WARNING, rampant christian apocalyptic speculation ahead; Atheists, and agnostics need not read further.

This is just a personal speculation, but if the tribulations (apocalypse) was supposed to last 7 years according to the book of revelations, and it would bring war, famine, and rampant inflation. If the endtimes were to began with the death of Pope John Paul II, then the end of the great tribulation would fall in 2012, followed by the second coming and a millennium of peace (and possibly the release of Duke Nukem Forever). Personally, I'm looking forward to 2012 :)

The 2012 threat is real, but here at The Escapist, survival preparations are already under way. The staff has been gathering for interactive team-based conflict & survival simulations using D20 every Thursday.

All I can say is we will most likely f*&k ourselves royally in 2012 and the end will all be man made.

Archon:
The 2012 threat is real, but here at The Escapist, survival preparations are already under way. The staff has been gathering for interactive team-based conflict & survival simulations using D20 every Thursday.

Thank god for you guys. :P

Me? 2012=Y2k. If the world was going to end in 2012, there would be greater "signs". If it was the apocalypse, far crazier shit than what is happening today woud be going on. If it was the Assyrian prediction, then children around the world would be disobeying their parents, not just American children who need to be disciplined.
If any of that is true, it's more of a prediction of America's eventual collapse just like all countries experience. So, not worried here. Afterall, if you beleive in the apocalypse, should you not just as well beleive in NOT living like you're going to die? Ever tried living like today is your last day? It's very depressing. You think at first you're going to do nothing but have fun, then it becomes simple debauchery and slacking off, and a huge waste of time. The other half is spent apologising to everyone and mending all them bridges. Then the next day, you feel like a total fuckwit.

Archon:
The 2012 threat is real

no the only real threat to time is January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT :P

it's a proven fact too, the source does not lie

I'm not too terribly worried about the mayan calender ending, for several reasons:

1. My operating system isn't based on the mayan calander(and even it was, I doubt vista will be my OS in 2012).

2. If the Mayans couldn't predict the end of their own civilization, I'm not betting on their ability to predict the end of the world thousands of years hence.

Well, I don't believe it will happen, but I kinda want it to happen. Just so I can go "HAHA" to all the idiots running around like Chickens with their heads cut-off.

Edit: I'm so freaking happy, aren't I?

I sure hope so, because then we won't have to worry about global warming :)

Lazzi:
has any one every though that they were killed befor they coudl finish of mayeb they just figured "oh the world will still go on" and said fuck ti to countinue ously chiseling away at a rock.

I'm sorry, what? In english please, this was too complicated to read.

I don't really. I remember when they thought an meteor was going to hit earth on 2012 and kill us all, they then worked out it was going to miss us. but now Russia's threatening to start a war with the USA because of that American/Czech missile defense thing which if goes ahead is said to be finished in 2012, which seems a bit odd. so you know every other country will get involved and their will be a nuclear apocalypse.

all the mental conspiracy theorists say it's when the new world order happens and half the world leaders are revealed to be 'Illuminati puppets' for the Bilderberg Group.

You should watch the documentary if you want to hear all the theories on the end of the world, apparently the Sybil and Merlin and a whole host of other sources point to the 22nd as the day of the apocalypse.
But if the world ends there's nothing to loose for apathetic persons like myself. So one way or the other, I'm fine with the outcome.

cleverlymadeup:

man-man:

Now please, stop the lunacy and look at it with a little skepticism, nothing world-ending has happened for 4.5 billion years thus far, in all likelihood nothing will continue to happen straight through 2012.

If you're interested: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093

well if you discount several meterorite impacts, the flood stories are one, a couple super volcanoes going off, then no nothing world ending has happened

i like listening to the skeptics guide to the universe

still on the other note January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT is a very bad time for everyone

Could you elaborate on this? You are saying that it is a bad time, but not giving a reason.

portuga-man:
Lol.

Explain me this: why did all the doom sayers "conveniently" forgot about 2012 when we were approaching the year 2000?

second, it was all a misunderstanding. in the year 2012 the display of star constellations in our sky will change and we'll enter the astrological age of Aquarius. It happened many times before, and the mayans did their calendar based on the astrological age in which they lived. Since their astrological age ended in 2012, then so did their calendar. Just because doom sayers and any self-respecting troll can change the world "age" for "world" in the sentence "end of the age", that doesn't mean it will actually happen.

P.S: i'm not sure if it's the display of the constellations that will change, but it's something like that

So, you're saying that it's not the end of the world, it's the end of a galactic time period?

I'm personally hoping for the Rapture. Maybe then I can see Jesus tell Pat Robertson that he's an asshole.

The_Logician19:
To be mind-numbingly honest, I don't see how anyone could buy into this nonsense in the first place. Are some people's lives so mundane that they feel it nessecary to belive this bull? Or should I just give up on society because they're all this stupid?

You mean you haven't already? If knowledge were sand, in this society of ours, people see a man with a few grains on his nose and proclaim he has a lot of sand. They bring their few grains and place them together, and proclaim that they have a very large amount of sand. Infact we as an entire species probably have enough sand of knowledge to fill a childs sandbox. There's entire beaches we've yet to visit, vast, vast, vast amounts of knowledge we don't possess, and may never comprehend, yet we believe we know enough to predict the end of the world, from the source of a long dead civilisation's calendar that is many thousands of years old.

What makes anyone think the Mayans could have done any better than us ambling morons with Super-Computers, is indeed a mystery that can only be comprehended through the reckognition of quite how ignorant we are as a species. How insignificant in time our role plays.

Who can say what will or wont happen in such a vastly complex system as the universe? There are only ever guesses made by individuals who can never hope to understand the system itself. If a sudden doomsday does occur this century, I'll bet my life that it won't be accurately predicted until it's very, very clearly visible.

cleverlymadeup:
great not this total bs idea again

look the dec 22 2012 thing has been debunked and debunked very well. it's total and utter crap to think that they mayans, who didn't make a new calendar cause they got wiped out, predicted the end of the world

and anyone with any knowledge of the world knows that time will end on January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT

No, we'll figure out how to add a few more bits to how we represent it before then.

Also, really, display it the way it should be: 2038 January 19 03:14:07 GMT

mew905:
Mayan calendar ends on that day, and all sorts of doomsday theories spawned from it. It's just the end of a series of calendars that make up the "long run".

Here's the thing though.

The Mayan Long Calendar, on which all this 2012 nonsense is based isn't going to run out. It's going to tick over to a new baktun (The fifth order digit, It will tick over from 12.19.19.18.19 to 13.0.0.0.0, all the digits are in base 20 except the second least significant, which is in base 18). And as for running out of digits, the Mayans had at least nine orders of digits named for their calendar, which is within spitting distance of being able to express the age of the earth in days on a base 20 notation, and we're only five digits in.

Also, the Mayans certainly didn't believe that the end of the world was going to coincide with the start of the 13th baktun (their creation myth states that this is what happened last time, but gives no indication that it will be what happens this time), there are distance dates on mayan carvings (dates in the future in Mayan notation are given in the form of the date of the carving and a "distance date", which is the number of days which will elapse untul the date they are talking about) which go into the sixth order digit (which transliterate to well into the fifth millennium CE).

So this whole thing is based on even more of a falsehood than millenial fever usually is.

I expect we can look forward to all this again in 2240 when the Hebrew calendar tips over to the year 6000.

That would usuck, the 22 is a day before my 18th birthday

No drug and sex parties for me T_T

BlueMage:

cleverlymadeup:
great not this total bs idea again

look the dec 22 2012 thing has been debunked and debunked very well. it's total and utter crap to think that they mayans, who didn't make a new calendar cause they got wiped out, predicted the end of the world

and anyone with any knowledge of the world knows that time will end on January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT

No, we'll figure out how to add a few more bits to how we represent it before then.

Also, really, display it the way it should be: 2038 January 19 03:14:07 GMT

you're the first person to figure it out, they just need to add 32 at the least, tho probly 96 by then

for those that are wondering, google is your friend :)