2012

[IwishIwasafaerie]

If there's already a thread for this, I am sorry. But I looked and search and didn't find one. Well anyway, I don't believe in the Mayan prophecy for 2012. Eventhough there's good not-exactly-facts from many different cultures. Still I doubt it. And I think most people do. But we might still be able to get a good debate out of it. Discuss.

[p5ychic]

2012 is just the end of the current era in their calendar. After 2012 would be, to the ancient mayans, like the difference between B.C. and A.D. in our calendar. There IS NO prophecy that even suggest anything bad will happen in 2012.

[IwishIwasafaerie]

Oh sorry. I hjave been misinformed. Welll then, what do you Fgers think of the Mayan's whatever it is?

[p5ychic]

Oh sorry. I hjave been misinformed. Welll then, what do you Fgers think of the Mayan's whatever it is?

Hahaha no, It's not that you were misinformed, I'm contributing to the debate. That's why people think the world's going to end in 2012, because they misunderstood how the mayan calendar worked. That's the basis of this whole idea, that the mayan calendar ends in 2012, and it only does that because that's as far as they mapped it out for this era.

[IwishIwasafaerie]

Oh, I see. Yeah, I heard on a documentary about it that it was the end of the human race not the world exactly. Because humans are imperfect and the Mayan gods have been trying to create more perfect beings. I also heard that in another culture, (I think it was Indian) that the world would end or something like that when it's population reached past 50 million. (And that must mean population of humans or it would be outdated.)

[JLHxXxX]

There's so many rediculous reasons that 2012 may be the end. Zombies. Scientists search for a logical reason, global warming, oh jeez... who knows. I avoid this topic. It may or may not happen. Personally, since I knew about the ending of the calender, I believe it's all just going to terrorize us once more. How many times has the world been "going to end?" I think it dates back all the way to 1600's... or 1700's... but yeah.

[p5ychic]

Oh, I see. Yeah, I heard on a documentary about it that it was the end of the human race not the world exactly. Because humans are imperfect and the Mayan gods have been trying to create more perfect beings. I also heard that in another culture, (I think it was Indian) that the world would end or something like that when it's population reached past 50 million. (And that must mean population of humans or it would be outdated.)

It would be outdated even if it WAS humans. The human population of the earth right now is around 7 billion. If 50 million was the cutoff, the world would have ended 140 times over.

[IAM#6]

Yeah I know there are tons of documentaries saying that it will end, and they got some nice facts too, but just think about it the world ending??? In the year 2000 people thought it was gonna end, but did it? nooooooooooooooo!

[IwishIwasafaerie]

It's kinda neat how many parralells there are though. That documentry was good up to the point where they started talking about how Mary was artificialy inseminated by aliens and blah blah...

Ohh. Getting off topicish...Others think that people will turn into something else and evolve..

[Ohansahyosheli]

I hope 2012 happens. But somehow, at the same time, I don't.

[IwishIwasafaerie]

Explain. I kinda get what you're saying.

[burningice]

I did a study on the mayans, and in fact, there is a prophecy stating that the gods will come back and destroy the earth. Of course the validness of this statement is about equal to the one in which ancient civilizations were visited by aliens, causing sculptures of a greater being. I believe 2012 will not happen, but if it does, I regret the fact that I have spent my entire life in school for nothing.

[Opal's_Clone]

Well, next year some star is going to go supernova, and it'll look like there are 2 suns in the sky for a LOOOONG time. (OMG, we're gonna be living on TATOOINE!!!) As my friend's mom put it, "Maybe that was just the calendar of one sun". Or maybe the radiation will kill us all. Unless you can predict the future, you don't know what's going to happen.

[Abiogenesis]

I doubt anyone can predict supernovae down to a year, there are multiple stars predicted to go supernova extremely soon - however extremely soon is anywhere within the next 1,000,000 years. Eta Carinae is a major candidate and seeing as it is a huge star it will produce a huge super or even hypernova and its only 8000 light years away.

Considering this is a big star, it's barely thought to be of any threat to Earth. Supernovae are hugely powerful events, however they are generally quite far away when they happen, all radiation obeys the inverse square law and the distance is dazzlingly huge. The only way in which we would be anywhere near at risk would be if some of the concentrated gamma ray bursts that are emitted as it forms a black hole are aligned to hit the Earth, even then they wouldn't be particularly devastating. Extremely close, extremely powerful supernovae have been thought to lead to one extinction event in the Earths past however it was a relatively small extinction event, something like a Methane-Clathrate disaster is far more dangerous.

Additionally although Supernovae are bright there is simply no way they are going to outshine the sun, lets say Eta Carinae blew up today, it would be visible during the day and probably as bright as a full moon at night - if not a little brighter. However it certainly wouldn't be as bright as the Sun and it wouldn't last very long at all, that's the point behind supernovae, they are extremely energetic events and as a result extremely short lived - over in a few seconds. The light we see is mainly from surrounding gas getting excited by the higher energy photons created in the explosion.

Anyway the whole 2012 thing is total bull, the only reason the calendar ends in 2012 is because there are no Mayans left to extend it, if they were still around they'd just create a new calendar. This whole scare is like people rioting when the calendar in their kitchen runs out of days, because obviously if your calendar stops then time stops too ಠ_ಠ

[Opal's_Clone]

Well, my dad's science feeds must be wrong, then. Sorry. *hits self on head* I HATE it when I give out false information on accident. *repeats action*