End of Days ...

joedead · Post by **joedead** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:00 am

I was refering to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_sun_stone

(This seems to be reproduced in many images associated with the 2012 end of the world senarios.)

Anyways, I'm just being facetious. I find all these apocalyptic set-ups ridiculous. I can't pass up any chances to mess-up anyones conspiracy!

Helius · Post by **Helius** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:23 am

How does this work?
Did the MesoAmericans end their calendar in 2012 because that's when the world would end, or did they actively schedule the end of the world by ending their calendar on a specific day?
Is there a particular time that it'll end? Noon on Wednesday?
Should there be a countdown party, or would that be....crass?
Would it be better to just lie down with coins on our eyes?

Aero · Post by **Aero** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:45 am

Helius wrote:How does this work?
Did the MesoAmericans end their calendar in 2012 because that's when the world would end, or did they actively schedule the end of the world by ending their calendar on a specific day?

What I was happy to learn is that their calendar ended on a specific celestial event that marks the end of a very long cycle of the Earth axis of revolution precessing one complete revolution. If they had chosen to go beyond that time, they would have needed a whole new page for their calendar. So the end of days is the end of the calendar and the calendar ended because it was not practical to extend it further.

blaisepascal · Post by **blaisepascal** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:55 am

Helius wrote:How does this work?
Did the MesoAmericans end their calendar in 2012 because that's when the world would end, or did they actively schedule the end of the world by ending their calendar on a specific day?
Is there a particular time that it'll end? Noon on Wednesday?
Should there be a countdown party, or would that be....crass?
Would it be better to just lie down with coins on our eyes?

It's essentially a millenial thing. The "long count" is essentially a base-20 counting of days (the Mayans even use a symbol for 0 in their count), with the modification that the 2nd least significant digit only goes from 0-17 instead of 0-19. For simplicity, we decimalarians tend to write each Mayan digit in base-10, and separate digits by periods.

1.00 days in the long count is 20 days (decimal). 1.00.00 days is 18*20=360 days (or roughly a year). 1.00.00.00 days is 7200 days (or about 19.7 years), and 1.00.00.00.00 days is 144000 days (or about 394.3 years).

The long count began (or was back-dated to) a bit over 5125 years ago, so we are well into the 12.00.00.00.00's and rapidly approaching the 13.00.00.00.00's. In fact, 20 December 2012 is 12.19.19.17.19, and 21 December 2012 is 13.00.00.00.00. So in December 2012, the Mayan calendar essentially "rolls over", much in the same way as on Y2K.

The supposed prophesy of doom is centered around the supposed belief by the Mayans that we are in the 4th age of mankind, and major changes are supposed to happen when we go from one age to another. Each age is 13.00.00.00.00 days long, and the long count began with the current age, so, on 13.00.00.00.00 of the long count, things will change.

Of course, lots of Christians thought that in 999AD, but not much happened on 1 January 1000AD of a substantially world-changing nature. Despite domesday predictions, 1 January 2000AD also rolled by without much change. I predict 13.00.00.00.00 will arrive, on time, without much bruhaha.

Mike Holmes · Post by **Mike Holmes** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 3:02 pm

IIRC the Mayan ages always end with something like a world-destroying flood or earthquake, and we're facing the same sort of thing in 2012, according to their reckoning.

What really interests me is that there are obscuritan Christian cults who have caught on to this, and use numerology to confirm these dates as also being indicated by the bible. So they say this is the date of the rapture or somesuch as well, and that this is, in fact, what the Mayans were predicting.

Of course the same thing was predicted for 2004 and 2006 by other groups, whose mathmatical interpretations of both the Mayan calendar and the bible differed. I'm sure that they were just confused, however, and that the 2012 date is the correct one.

Syncretism is fun.

Mike

Helius · Post by **Helius** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:52 pm

Of course, lots of Christians thought that in 999AD, but not much happened on 1 January 1000AD of a substantially world-changing nature. Despite domesday predictions, 1 January 2000AD also rolled by without much change. I predict 13.00.00.00.00 will arrive, on time, without much bruhaha.

I wonder if the first Millennium Christians spent 2 years in a panic before Jan 1, 1000, making sure the firmware in their sundials was "meillennium certified".

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:43 pm

Helius wrote:I wonder if the first Millennium Christians spent 2 years in a panic before Jan 1, 1000, making sure the firmware in their sundials was "meillennium certified".

Nope, they were all busy hanging those heretics that were saying that their calculations were wrong and that is was only 996 after all!

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:43 pm

Actually, the world ended yesterday. What you're experiencing now is merely a very sophisticated simulacrum.

Now, I'm off to consume some simulacra.

rj40 · Post by **rj40** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:41 am

MSimon wrote:I changed religions. My new one requires me to be loud and obnoxious.

Very nice.

The History Channel seems to have a "Pseudo-science night" from time-to-time. A&E too. Oh well.

If the end of the world doesn't happen on the predicted date, what will we see? Ahh...I can already guess.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:02 am

rj40 wrote:If the end of the world doesn't happen on the predicted date, what will we see? Ahh...I can already guess.

Of couse, its the SCIENTIST'S fault!

zbarlici · Post by **zbarlici** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:56 am

I heard(radio talk-show broadcast all over the US) the panickinng is not about the location of our solar system and its alignment with the galaxy, but about the sun`s magnetic field... the way the sunspots interact apparently makes some kind of 28 day cycle, and it`s supposed to somehow interact with the earth`s magnetic field somehow to influence on the menstrual cycle... anyone else heard about this? Any credibility to it? Is it true about the 28 day magnetic cycle.

The talk show guest was an archeologist/language specialist he said that the mayans were caught with a period of infertility. The women had to be bunkered away from sunlight/underground, and carvings/drawings were found on walls depicting men cutting off their reproductive organs... or should i say non-productive..

zbarlici · Post by **zbarlici** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 6:01 am

before the mayan calendar doomsday took spotlight it was the "year 2000 bug" when all hell was supposed to break loose because because of the way computers wre designed... If 2012 rolls by without incident, i think the very next doomsday scenario would be the technological singularity and how its going to spawn evil robots.... like that movie I Robot.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:57 am

TallDave wrote:Actually, the world ended yesterday. What you're experiencing now is merely a very sophisticated simulacrum.

Now, I'm off to consume some simulacra.

A Saul Kripke fan I see. I knew him (sort of) when I was growing up in Omaha. I knew his father somewhat better.

Mike Holmes · Post by **Mike Holmes** » Fri Jan 09, 2009 2:47 pm

As for the Y2K bug, I'm not at liberty to describe my exact observations of the event. No, the world did not end. But if you think it went by smoothly, that's because a lot of people like me were up all that night trying to make it look that way. I will recall that 24 hours til the day I die.

Mike

wisnij · Post by **wisnij** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 6:11 pm

blaisepascal wrote:The long count began (or was back-dated to) a bit over 5125 years ago, so we are well into the 12.00.00.00.00's and rapidly approaching the 13.00.00.00.00's. In fact, 20 December 2012 is 12.19.19.17.19, and 21 December 2012 is 13.00.00.00.00. So in December 2012, the Mayan calendar essentially "rolls over", much in the same way as on Y2K.

In other words, it will only be a problem for people using ancient Mesoamerican computer programs. I think we'll be okay.