2012..it's not the end of the world..but

[mizdarby]

That Mayan calender thing, has gotten all the doomsayers out of the closet. And yes I know, the Mayan calender doesn't end on 21st Dec 2012, but it does start a new cycle every 5,126 years, and they suggested the end of the cycle not to go smoothly. I firmly believe, the world will certainly be there in 2013 and onwards, although the earth does have a finite lifespan, and one day will be the actual day the world ends. I would like suggestions, from the plausible to the inane, about what sort of event MIGHT happen on 21st Dec 2012.

 

I'll stick my neck out, and make this plausible (but not world ending) event, that will mark the unsmooth transition into the next Mayan cycle.

 

A total collapse of the Eurozone, brought on by the French government requiring a Spanish/Greek style bailout (but on a far larger scale), with much of Europe's Economy in tatters, Asian and USA companies that invested heavily in Europe, will get crippled by toxic debts and Wall Street/Shanghai/Tokyo etc, almost completely collapse, much like the 1929 Wall Street crash, but on a larger scale. Hyper-inflation destroys much of the world's economies, and mass unemployment becomes common throughout the major economies of the world.

 

My tip for an unlikely, but slightly possible natural disaster, would be a supervolcanic eruption, not necessarily Yellowstone (there are something like 7 known supervolcanos), which would again not end the world, but would directly/indirectly kill millions of people.

 

My inane suggestion would be a gamma ray burst, like the one proposed to of caused the Ordovician mass extinction, where approx 65% of all life was wiped out. Again not world ending, but a really bad day for humanity.

[Vindekarr]

The Mayans didn't have leap years, our current date is based on a system featuring leap years. 2012, according to the mayans, was a long time ago as a consequence. The calender also makes no mention of an apocalyptic event, rather, it reffers to a "great change" And besides, the end of the world is very much the wrong term, the planet's still going to be here unless something truly incredible and ridiculous happens.

 

But hey, nothing's going to happen. How do I know this? because I have salsa dip in my fridge that expires in 2013!

 

EDIT: this is my 1500th post. Pity it wasn't more meritorious. oh well. :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

Edited July 20, 2012 by Vindekarr

[Vagrant0]

The Mayans didn't have leap years, our current date is based on a system featuring leap years. 2012,

Erm, they didn't need them. They calculated time on a different cycle than how we deal with months and years. Theirs is actually much more precise than the Gregorian calender that most of the world uses.

 

That exact date is the same in the Chinese calender, and dozens of others which were based on planetary movements and changing seasons instead of a strict 255 1/4 day cycle. The 12/21/2012 date comes from comparing our own calender against the numerical date for when these calenders are set to end the current x year cycle. On it's face value, dozens of cultures around the world, with no communication all having the same date as the end of their marked era without any future eras planned is notable, and is the reason for some to panic and make predictions of destruction and such.

 

But... there are two reasons for this.

 

First off, all these calenders are based on the movement of the sun and planets. That date relates to a point where the sun and planets will briefly align in a way that from a perspective on earth, the sun and planets will align with the center of the universe. An event which has happened a few thousand times in the past, and which happens regularly to some lesser degree. This point is really just a practical baseline for any calender based on planetary movements, and could be extrapolated forward or backward from any point to find that baseline once you have the movements of the planets calculated well enough.

 

Secondly, all of these were made thousands of years ago, by cultures which have essentially been wiped out or changed drastically. The calender wasn't projected beyond this cycle because the cycles are longer than the period of time that that civilization existed, and was only designed to work for the needs of that civilization. To put it another way, it would be similar to how the Gregorian calender may work reasonably well for affairs on earth, but would be incompatible with life on Mars or some distant planet, and would not be practical for dates past the year 10,000 or so as there may be marked differences in the Earth's rotation and orbit between now and then. We don't have any concrete plan to deal with time on that scale, or in those terms at the moment because it wouldn't really be useful to us right now.

[Beriallord]

December 21, 2012 is going to be just like any normal day for most people, besides all the nut cases thinking the world is going to end and decide to do some crazy stuff. But that will quickly come to a wraps when December 22nd arrives and nothing happened.

 

Or it could be the day that ET decides to stop by and make an official introduction to humans in this time period :biggrin:

[HeyYou]

http://www.dailyfunnystuff.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Mayan-Calendar.jpg

[bben46]

During my lifetime, I have seen End of the world/End of civilization/ financial/fill in the blank disaster predictions that at least someone actually took seriously at a rate of about 3 a year. As I am now over 65, that amounts to nearly 200 predictions that never happened. :blush:

 

My own prediction - on December 22, the sun will rise as usual, most people will go about their mundane lives as usual, a few EotW (End of the World) nuts will be disappointed that they are still alive and scrambling to revise their prediction in light of new evidence just received. That new evidence being - the world didn't end. :tongue:

 

There are two possible scenarios for these disaster predictions.

1. It happens - you cannot do anything about it - so why worry?

2. It doesn't happen - if you were worried it was needless anyway - so why worry?

 

There is actually a third possibility - that you CAN do something about it - then why are you sitting around worrying instead of doing it? BTW, predicting or informing everyone is not doing something about it, it is just spreading panic. Doing something about it means there is something in your power that you can do that will actually stop it, And doing it. :yes:

[HeyYou]

During my lifetime, I have seen End of the world/End of civilization/ financial/fill in the blank disaster predictions that at least someone actually took seriously at a rate of about 3 a year. As I am now over 65, that amounts to nearly 200 predictions that never happened. :blush:

 

My own prediction - on December 22, the sun will rise as usual, most people will go about their mundane lives as usual, a few EotW (End of the World) nuts will be disappointed that they are still alive and scrambling to revise their prediction in light of new evidence just received. That new evidence being - the world didn't end. :tongue:

 

There are two possible scenarios for these disaster predictions.

1. It happens - you cannot do anything about it - so why worry?

2. It doesn't happen - if you were worried it was needless anyway - so why worry?

 

There is actually a third possibility - that you CAN do something about it - then why are you sitting around worrying instead of doing it? BTW, predicting or informing everyone is not doing something about it, it is just spreading panic. Doing something about it means there is something in your power that you can do that will actually stop it, And doing it. :yes:

 

You can take a page out of some nut-job christians doom-saying handbook, and start a "fund" for "helping others after the fact", then, when it doesn't happen, retire on the proceeds. :D

 

Regarding the nut-job Christians... Let's just not go there. Thanks.

- Vagrant0

[mizdarby]

The Mayans didn't have leap years, our current date is based on a system featuring leap years. 2012, according to the mayans, was a long time ago as a consequence. The calender also makes no mention of an apocalyptic event, rather, it reffers to a "great change" And besides, the end of the world is very much the wrong term, the planet's still going to be here unless something truly incredible and ridiculous happens.

 

But hey, nothing's going to happen. How do I know this? because I have salsa dip in my fridge that expires in 2013!

 

EDIT: this is my 1500th post. Pity it wasn't more meritorious. oh well. :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

As I clumsily said, the Mayans did not tip the end of the world, but merely a less than smooth transition into the new long calender of 5,126 years. I merely hoped, that people might just come up with some imaginative scenarios, of what might be considered a less than smooth transition. And I clearly (or so I thought), stated that I don't believe anything of great consequence will happen.

Strictly speaking, if you buy in the Thera theory of lunar creation, the world actually ended about 4 billion years ago, and we currently live on the reformed remains of two destroyed planet/planetoids. This is currently the preferred theory, of why the Earth has such an oversized moon, so ridiculous or not, planets do get destroyed.

Must remember to get me some salsa dip.

[Vindekarr]

They do, aye, but it's a bit unusual these days. The only planet that's not here now that was there before is pluto...

 

...Ah well, Borderlands 2 comes out prior to the apocalypse, so we're atleast a bit lucky. Now for some imaginative end-world scenarios:

 

1: For whatever reason, the earth instantly stops spinning. This would throw everything on it upwards at about the highway speed limit. Would make a huge mess, probably wouldn't do much to wipe out humanity though. :ohdear:

 

2: Some enterprising polymath divides by zero, causing shenanigens. :ohdear:

 

3 0/0: Someone manages to finish Gran Turismo 5, resulting in similar effects to dividing by zero.(Gran Turismo 5 is not completable by any regular means, as it has no programmed "end") :dance:

 

4: On 21/12/12, some sneaky nation decides to use the upcoming apocalypse as a chance to do some invading, nuke-war-armageddon happens, but the 21/12/12 apocalypse doesn't. We all end up looking like idiots, Fallout becomes a reality, a geeks who played FNV end up ruling the world. :dance:

 

5: Deadpool gets placed in charge of the Large Hadron Collider(a device capable of making black holes), being a raging idiot, Deadpool causes the machine to malfunction, destroying mankind.(well you said be imaginative...) :psyduck: (wuttheduck?)

 

6: A Team Fortress 2 Scout consumes Bonk! while Ubercharged, causing shenanigens. :ohdear:

 

7: Bethesda announces there will neither be any more DLC for Skyrim, or further ES games as they will now be working exclusively on the twilight series. The level of nerd-rage causes gamers to mutate, and destroy mankind. :ohdear:

 

8: A certain fictious event called "old night" occurs plunging mankind into a 6000 year age of barbarity and chaos until a luminous chap calling himself the emperor of mankind comes along in the year 30,000, unites humanity, kills a bunch of aliens, mutants, and heretics, creates a group of genetically enhanced badasses called Space Marines and then finaly calls the universe WarHammer 40,000. Nerds who grew up on WarHammer rule the earth, spacenuns with missile launchers, ect. :dance: :dance: :dance:

 

9: Halo 4 is canceled. This causes the stereotypical loud, angry Xbox Live players to boil forth from their darkened lairs in the pits of hell to exact terrible vengeance upon the world of men. :ohdear:

 

10: The world doesn't end on 21/12/12, every is so upset and disapointed that they all spontaneously combust. The end. :ohdear:

[dunmermaiden]

I believe the world will end within 5 years of the bee becoming extinct. why? Simple really, the bee is reasponsible for the polination of plants, plant eaters rely on plants to survive, meat eaters rely on the plant eaters being around and we need both to feed the over populations of the world least we starve. And truth is, this world does not currently have enough room to grow crops of food for everyone whitch well in the future things like having baby's might require a permit of some kind because if we do not keep our populations at a sustainable level then our race will eventually perish and become extinct like so many creatures have become.

 

Yeah I know, it's not the mayan calender or some prophesy that sounds epic and exciting and full of crazy doom but let me ask you guys, when was the last time you actually saw a bee on your lawn or in a park?

 

Truth is, chemical pestisides are killing them and it's scary and not good because without them we will perish along with everything else and well unless we turn solvent green we wouldn't really have a future.

 

I havn't seen a bee on my lawn for years, nor in a park.