On November 05 2010 05:48 Fa1nT wrote: Humanity has reached a technological point where it can never end unless our planet is 100% destroyed in the next few thousand years. The odds of that happening are astronomically low, and even if it were to happen, we would know of it coming maybe decades before it happens.
Even today, people can live many years on space stations. Give it another few hundred, and whats to stop say a permanent, self-sustainable space station orbiting say mars or venus?
not true. Our bodies aren't built for low grav space, I don't think a person could be born and live in space without problems and short life span.
Also, there are things that can happen instantly without warning such as GRBs
There is nothing from humans that can kill humanity instantly. Anything on a grand enough scale to even do so takes thousands of years, a small skip in space time.
You give nuclear war too much credit, especially with how much has gone into things like interceptor technology in the last few years that will prevent missiles from even reaching desired targets.
On November 05 2010 05:30 ShaperofDreams wrote: every man has a part of him that prays for a zombie apocalypse every day
but no one wants to be one of those zombies. Everyone wants to be a badass.
and everyone can be a badass because zombies are so terribly slow and weak. Unless you've got like, the zombies from Dead Snow (awesome norwegian movie with nazi-zombies).
On August 24 2007 13:04 XDawn wrote: ...the Mayans...
Known to be a very credible and informed source.
Every time people want to support a religious or pseudo-religious concept, they refer to an ancient civilization as the source of some mystical knowledge somehow lost to us over the centuries.
These people, however advanced and brilliant they may have been at some point in history (obviously not enough to ensure their own survival, prosperity and advancement), were primitive and ignorant relative to the global civilization right now.
They had literally no objective means of correctly determining a date for cataclysmic or world-changing events in the 21st century.
On August 24 2007 19:08 CharlieMurphy wrote: Ok lets see you calculate sunrise and sundown for every day, including solar/lunar eclipses and any other shit. (without a calculator or the internet).
"You can say a lot about the Maya, but you've got to hand it to them: they knew a hell of a lot about stars. For instance, they calculated the exact duration of a year to a thousandth of a decimal point"
"More disturbing, the Maya's were awfully good at astrology, too. Mysteriously, they predicted in what year their civilization would be overrun by foreigners coming from over the seas. "
"But actually, the Maya's never predicted anything concrete about 2012."
"The Maya's didn't really believed in endings: their conception of time was circular, with every end being the beginning of something new. So, 2012 shouldn't be an exception."
I do not remember where I heard this or if I completaly made this up (I definetaly either read or heard this) that Mayas actually predicted the circles of prophets. For them the ages in the history of the "world" starts and ends but these periods can be centuries (probably I heard this in Zeitgeist?)
We are now in Water year or something like that, which points out to Jesus (peace be upon him) and Christianity. The age of Jesus' prohecy will fade and the next prophets age will start (which is Muhammed(pbh) for Muslims)
If you think this is the stupidest thing you have heard. I can agree this could not be put worse :D
On November 05 2010 05:50 CharlieMurphy wrote: There is nothing to convert? Mayans have some calendar that counts solar years. It ends at the year 2012.
Exactly, they didn't have anything to cound past the year 2012. What happened to the Internet 2000? Nothing lol!
I love how almost no one knows the true significance of the date, causing the "freak out". There have been other significant calendar ending dates, that were projected by some to be the "end", but never caused this much ruckus. The only reason this date is so significant is because the Mayan's have FOUR, that's right, FOUR calendars. One is like, 90 days, another is 365, the third, 5128.6, and lastly a 26,000 day calendar. These all have lunar linear significances. The reason Dec 21, 2012 is so special, is that the two longest calandars both sync up on that day, which will be the first time since the calandars' creation, aka the beginning of the world. This triggers the thought that the sync signifies the end.
It's a bunch of hooey.
Note: Don't quote me on the numbers, but the idea is right.
On August 24 2007 13:04 XDawn wrote: ...the Mayans...
Known to be a very credible and informed source.
Every time people want to support a religious or pseudo-religious concept, they refer to an ancient civilization as the source of some mystical knowledge somehow lost to us over the centuries.
These people, however advanced and brilliant they may have been at some point in history (obviously not enough to ensure their own survival, prosperity and advancement), were primitive and ignorant relative to the global civilization right now.
I once argued with some religious nuts who were so worshipful of the past, they believed humans used to live for hundreds of years and that modern engineering could not build pyramids or that greek dome with the hole in the roof.
Amazing what beliefs people will cling to when they don't know jack about shit.
Very doubtfull... Generally if you hear something crazy.. Penn and Teller did a episode about it, and its nothing like it sounds...
Other dates people were SURE there was going to be an Apocalypse (Really)
Montanus predicted 431 AD
Charles Wesley the founder of the Methodist church predicted 1794
Jehovas Witnesses predicted it in. *deep breath* 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1994
Between the years of 1831 and 1841, William Miller (a Baptist minister), predicted the return of Jesus and the end of the world based on prophecies in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:14). “My principles in brief, are, that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.”
Joanna Southcott was a self-proclaimed English mystic, born in 1750. She was originally a Methodist, but she became convinced that she had supernatural powers and declared herself the woman spoken of in Apocalypse — in the King James Version, Revelation 12:1-6: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars”. Joanna predicted that she would give birth to the Messiah – hailing the end of the world, on 19 October, 1814. However she dies 2 months after...
Then there was the 1910 Haleys Comet...
Respected meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that on December 17, 1919 a conjunction of six planets would “cause a magnetic current that would pierce the sun, cause great explosions of flaming gas and eventually engulf the Earth.”
The Jupiter Effect came out in 1974 and was written by two astrophysicists, John Gribben and Stephen Plagemann. It was about all nine planets aligning on March 10, 1982 to create a gravitational pull that would cause a huge increase in sunspots, solar, flares, and/or earthquakes.
Then there was the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997 (Heavens Gate Cult commited mass suicide upon is veiwing as to transcend the apocalypse... Whos stupid now?)
And remember that Y2K thing.. Nostradomus predicted that... and all I had to do was buy a new computer..
Besides, the end of humans isnt the end of the world... This planets been going on for about 4.5 BILLION years... The first monkeys to resemble humans were around roughly 200,000 years ago... We arent that important....
Also the Mayan Civilization was initially established during the Pre-Classic period (c. 2000 BC to 250 AD), according to the Mesoamerican chronology, many Maya cities reached their highest state of development during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD)
Of course their calander ended in 2012... Do you have a calender on your wall that goes to the year 4000? End tl;dr rant.
On November 05 2010 05:48 Fa1nT wrote: Humanity has reached a technological point where it can never end unless our planet is 100% destroyed in the next few thousand years. The odds of that happening are astronomically low, and even if it were to happen, we would know of it coming maybe decades before it happens.
Even today, people can live many years on space stations. Give it another few hundred, and whats to stop say a permanent, self-sustainable space station orbiting say mars or venus?
not true. Our bodies aren't built for low grav space, I don't think a person could be born and live in space without problems and short life span.
Also, there are things that can happen instantly without warning such as GRBs
And that it is something YOU THINK is the keywords in that sentence - because no one really knows a great deal about the long term effects of low gravity. Actually I don't see any compelling reasons right now as to why we shouldn't be able to....
We won't need strong bones or muscles in low gravity, our heart will actually be less strained in space, the only real trouble I see is securing enough vitamins which could be done pretty easily...
I find it sad that a significant number of people in the world actually believe this Mayan stuff has any sort of truth to it.
It's an ancient culture with a wonky base-20 numbering system that practiced human sacrifice, had dozens of gods, and wrote in hieroglyphics. They had just figured out the idea of calendars and made some long term ones, and in their weird ass numbering system it just happened that the last number for years in the calendar turned out to be 2012.
They never made any prediction of this being the end of the world... it's nothing more than a random bit of a historical document happened to end on the number 2012. It is absolute insanity to look at this information and then literally believe this is proof of the end of the world.
People just want to find crazy stuff to believe in, and this nonsense is on the same level of Scientology. It's just part of a modern trend to believe that our societies are screwed up but ancient people were "more natural" or better somehow, and knew things we don't know... much like the aliens of Avatar. Except it's complete BS... they had no special knowledge of the future. They just tried to grow enough corn to live on, and that was about it.
Damn, my New Years Resolution this year was to stop reading joke threads about hokey religions...
The whole December 21, 2012 thing is just the Mayan civilization laughing at the future world. It is planned mass hysteria- aka viral marketing. Do you understand how much money people are going to be making off paraphernalia from something like this? For all you know, December 21, 2012 could be the day that they finish the recount which confirms that a woman will be president of the USA. It could be 'the beginning of the end of the world' simply because she decides to enter into global thermonuclear war with every nation when she gets PMS... << shamelessly stolen idea from some neo-conservative website I read; I forget which one exactly...
The point is- ANYTHING could happen on that date; It doesn't mean the world is going to end. Or does it? THE PLOT THICKENS!