More December 2012 stupidity!

[~~whimsy~~]

It's a good news/bad news situation for believers in the 2012 Mayan apocalypse. The good news is that the Mayan "Long Count" calendar may not end on Dec. 21, 2012 (and, by extension, the world may not end along with it). The bad news for prophecy believers? If the calendar doesn't end in December 2012, no one knows when it actually will - or if it has already.

A new critique, published as a chapter in the new textbook "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World" (Oxbow Books, 2010), argues that the accepted conversions of dates from Mayan to the modern calendar may be off by as much as 50 or 100 years. That would throw the supposed and overhyped 2012 apocalypse off by decades and cast into doubt the dates of historical Mayan events. (The doomsday worries are based on the fact that the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, much as our year ends on Dec. 31.)

The Mayan calendar was converted to today's Gregorian calendar using a calculation called the GMT constant, named for the last initials of three early Mayanist researchers. Much of the work emphasized dates recovered from colonial documents that were written in the Mayan language in the Latin alphabet, according to the chapter's author, Gerardo Aldana, University of California, Santa Barbara professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies.

Later, the GMT constant was bolstered by American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, who used data in the Dresden Codex Venus Table, a Mayan calendar and almanac that charts dates relative to the movements of Venus.

"He took the position that his work removed the last obstacle to fully accepting the GMT constant," Aldana said in a statement. "Others took his work even further, suggesting that he had proven the GMT constant to be correct."

But according to Aldana, Lounsbury's evidence is far from irrefutable.

"If the Venus Table cannot be used to prove the FMT as Lounsbury suggests, its acceptance depends on the reliability of the corroborating data," he said. That historical data, he said, is less reliable than the Table itself, causing the argument for the GMT constant to fall "like a stack of cards."

Aldana doesn't have any answers as to what the correct calendar conversion might be, preferring to focus on why the current interpretation may be wrong. Looks like end-of-the-world theorists may need to find another ancient calendar on which to pin their apocalyptic hopes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20101019/sc_livescience/endoftheearthpostponed

I hope people go into debt when buying survival necessities like some did when it came to Y2K paranoia. Fucking idiots.

 

[BlueBalls]

This is just the nut jobs trying to cover all of their bases for when nothing of any global merit happens whatever date in 2012 it's supposed to happen.

"Yeah, well. Although it didn't happen today and by my quite prominent erection you can tell just how disappointed I am, I can say as the pre-eminent Mayan internet scholar of the day that it will happen in the very near future....

So, PANIC!!!!!!!!

And buy my new book. It's available on lulu...."

 

[L3ggy]

*sigh* Poor bastards....

 

[HELLRAISER]

I think right now is the best time to get rich by getting into the business of hawking apocalypse gear

 

[biomech]

So you buy some body armor, rations to last at least 3 years, enough rounds to supply a battalion, and they call you crazy.
Glass houses gentlemen, glass houses.:tongue:

 

[ApolloBalboa]

I think I'd be safer off preparing for the oncoming onslaught of zombies that are sure to appear. I probably won't even be around in 50 years, and if I am, I just plan to laugh at everyone else as they freak out.

People are such pussies when it comes to death, is there a reason that people are so unable to come to terms with their own mortality?

So, who wants to be that now they'll make a sequel to 2012?

 

[~~whimsy~~]

I think right now is the best time to get rich by getting into the business of hawking apocalypse gear

I'm going to sell canned food for $5/can and bottled water for $7.50/bottle.

Dry food will be $8 or you can get one of each for a nice price of $18.

 

[ApolloBalboa]

I'm going to sell canned food for $5/can and bottled water for $7.50/bottle.

Dry food will be $8 or you can get one of each for a nice price of $18.

Could I barter with you? I'll offer up my teenage sister for something.

 

[luis1972]

just for weak minds

 

[roronoa3000]

could i barter with you? I'll offer up my teenage sister for something.

sold!

 

[jaygod69]

still to soon to start a public panic but wait until around this thime 2 years from now all weather effects and wars will seem to have way more of a focus then they do now... the fact is no one knows whats going to happen its all guessing game... But best to be safe then sorry.

December 21, 2012 (whats gonna happen???)

 

[ForumModeregulator]

love for whimsy...i think frank just had a catchier title for the thread...but neways...

i dont even know if history from 100 years ago is all that accurate...let alone decryption and interpretations from one of the oldest civilizations known...its all bullshit, and after that stupid ass movie came out nobody really cared. all hype.

 

[roronoa3000]

You will beg us well prepared people to help you out when it happens and we'll say:
"Fuck off!"

 

[ForumModeregulator]

isnt it paradoxical to believe you could survive/prepare for the end of the world anyways?...

this is the most likely scenario

2512 BC Mayan Highlands:

Tom: "Holy fucking son god, Ive carved and painted up to December 2012. Can I be done?"

Supervisor: "Yea, beer is on me."

 

[nightwanker]

More predictions, views, prospects and forecasts of the future
http://board.freeones.com/showthread.php?p=5143103