Random Discussions Thread.

[Gladiator@]

I'll start with:

12-21-2012

"What will happen in 2012?

According to their calendar, the Maya believed that their world would end on Dec 21, 2012. Of all the dates put forth by prophets and cultures for a doomsday, this is one with an authentic almost eerie feel to it. But what will happen? A global cataclysm is one possibility."

NASA predicts that the Sun will reverse its own magnetic poles during 2012 as result of reaching the end of the current 11-year sunspot cycle.

Do you believe?

PS: I didn't create this thread in the bin because I want (more) serious answers and I think the Open Discussion needs a thread like this one.

[PCXL-Fan]

We'll the Mayans were wrong. "Their" world was systematically destroy between 200-350 years ago by the Spanish conquerers who made every effort possible to destroy their culture, an effort that took over 150 years when the finally topple the last Mayan stronghold.

Okay but seriously..they've been saying the world was going to end for ages. First it was the year 666 AD the year of the beast, then it was the year 1000AD with the return of Christ and all good christians going to heaven. Then it was the Cold War and we'd nuke each other to oblivion. Then it was year 2000 with the return of christ or y2k bug destroying society.

Now its the mayan calendar or the sun changing polarities (which has happened numerous times throughout the existence of biological life on earth. I've also heard this is when China is planning to invade Taiwan, which will spark a nuclear war between china and the us with other countries getting dragged into the fray.

Its like Nostradamus's predictions. They were so vague and he made so many thousands it would be hard not to get one that sounds at least partially relevant to todays events that transpired. Kinda like those psychics on tv who go up to a crowd of people in the audience and say "I'm sensing a spirit of a diseased person related to one of you 25 audience member. His name begins with the letter J. Then you hear gasps of "oh my god" my uncles wife's name began with the letter 'J'!

All hogwash.

[Gladiator@]

But I was talking about a natural disaster, not a bomb.

You have a point though, the world can end anytime, naturally or not. Never before have so many countries possessed nuclear weapons. There are a lot of countries' leaders that are just looking for (more) power. Who is worried about our planet? Oh, the Kyoto Protocol! It's a start, but we need MUCH more.

We can't say they were wrong, those ancient civilizations knew things we don't know. But it still is very hard to believe in something like this.

We can't say it's not gonna happen either. "Each day the face of our planet is changed forever and the future we are heading towards is one like the world has never seen before".

We changed the nature. But the nature is not something we can deal with, it's much more powerful than all humans put together. And the worst: nature is unpredictable (many times).

[skoreanime]

If it comes, it comes. When it does, I'm going to the nearest hot girl I know and ask "Hey baby, want to go out with a bang?"...*cough*

Ok, on a more serious note, predictions like this always intrigue me. Not the prediction themselves (I hear enough of these every week ) but the people who go on a raving crusade on it. I always try and put myself in their shoes and try to think along the lines with them...but I never can .

And I have to agree with Gladiator@, mother nature can rear her ugly head at any moment. All the natural disasters we hear about everyday is proof of that. Who knows, maybe one day we'll have a huge event that'll completely change the climates of the world. Which I guess you could say in a sense is the end of the world .

Yeah, it's late, need some sleep

[Radix865]

Well like PCXL-fan said the sun has changed it polarities many times before and even though it will have some effect its not world threatning...

And if I'm right didn't mayan calender start earlier than ours, and it was actually 12-21-2012 on their calender when their civilization was destroyed by spanish(or when the spanish arrived), Not sure but this is how I remember it...

But one thing is true whether its coming or not, lets sit back and enjoy the ride

[Squall-Leonhart]

i do believe Radix has a point :P

all predictions of world destruction were made on different calendars then the one we use now.

[Gladiator@]

Look:

Originally Posted by Viewzone

The days of the long count are numbered with an unusual system. Instead of writing numbers as we do, from right to left with each place being a multiple of 10 (i.e. 10000, 1000, 100, 10, 1), the Mayans had only 5 places.

The first place recorded a number from 0 to 20. To the left, the second place could have a range from 0 to 17; the third from 0 to 19; the fourth from 0 to 19 and the last from 0 to 12. The numbers were written from right to left, like our system, separated by a dot. Instead of multiples of 10, the first place had a multiple of 1 (like our system); the second place a multiple of 20; the third a multiple of 360; the fourth a multiple of 7200 and the fifth a multiple of 144000.

So a long count number, for example, could be written as 4.12.5.9.0 and would be calculated as follows:

(4 x 144000) + (12 x 7200) + (5 x 360) + (9 x 20) + (0 x 1) or a long count of 145980.

It's not too difficult to realize that the maximum number which can be recorded this way would be 12.19.19.17.20, although some researchers like to write it as 13.0.0.0.0. This amounts to a long count number of 1,872,000 days or 5125.36 years of our modern calculations. Obviously, the calendar is very old!

Over the years, archaeologists have found carved monuments that recorded the long count for known dates in Mayan history. Once a date was fixed in time, it was easy to determine "day 1" as August 11th, 3114 BC. And it was also easy to calculate the date at which the calendar would end -- December 21st, 2012.

More info: http://www.viewzone.com/endtime.html

Originally Posted by Radix865

Well like PCXL-fan said the sun has changed it polarities many times before and even though it will have some effect its not world threatning...

Yeah, you are right, but nowadays any change has different consequences than it had in the past.

Originally Posted by Radix865

But one thing is true whether its coming or not, lets sit back and enjoy the ride