[Serious Discussion]2012: Destiny of the Earth

[Electric2Shock]

What on the world and your minds do you think that whether the world is going to end in 2012 or not.
Post your opinions on this topic.

My opinions (Click to View)

According to me, I agree with half of the people believing and half of the people NOT believing.

Believal (Click to View)

I agree with the people believing in the ideas because not only the Mayan civilization could have foreseen our future from then but their prediction could have also been correct. There are many symptoms of this event. For example, there is:
1. Global Warming.
2. Increasing in the magnitude of Solar Winds.
3. Increasing manitude of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes on the surface.
so and so...........

Disbelieval (Click to View)

I agree with the people NOT believing in some related points.
Although we see the end of the Mayan calender in 21 December 2012, some logical bugs get to us that either the Mayan civilization came to a demolish at that day. Or that they abandoned the calendar. This is about human instinct to crude laziness.~nehalbordoloi
Some of us also think about this after watching the movie '2012'. Films are purely intended to be of fictitious nature. Although the script is planned on somewhat the same calendar idea, I would say the same comment as before on disbelieval of this idea.

[Alblaka]

Doubt it happens, hope it happens, we'll see.

[Hero destroyer]

Some of us also think about this after watching the movie '2012'. Films are purely intended to be of fictitious nature. Although the script is planned on somewhat the same calendar idea, I would say the same comment as before on disbelieval of this idea.

And I thought this movie was a warning that all of us must protect the Earth?

[Silverthorn]

Alright, here we go....

What exactly is the reason why people believe the world would go down on December 21, 2012? As far as I know, we base it on a culture that failed to predict both their own extinction and the arrival of Cortés who practically wiped out the remnants. Also, who in their right mind would design a calendar that reaches 500+ years into the future? Superstition or not, half a millenium is a tad too much. And it always reminds me of this little cartoon:

Spoiler (Click to View)

So, I don't really trust the mayans...

Then, let's go over possible catastrophies that could potentially wipe out mankind:

• Meteorites. Well, there is none in sight that could harm Earth. And I'm pretty sure that astronomers would have found a humonguous rock floating around space if it's dangerous. Just for comparison: Earth's getting hit by around 40 tons of cosmic dust each day. Does it threaten our lives? Highly doubtful. What's the next larger object that could destroy something? So far, "99942 Apophis" holds the record on being, albeit temporarily, placed at 4 in the Torino Scale (where 0 is "perfectly safe" and 10 is "we and our descendants are pretty much dead"). Conclusion: nope.
  
• Global warming. Fine, let's assume the absolute worst-case-scenario for global warming kicks in. This would probably mean that we get a couple more storms, monsoons, droughts, and whatnot. Will it kill humanity? Probably not, we're way too scattered around the globe that these things can instantly destroy us. Also, there are less than 8 months left until the world is supposedly going downhill. Not a whole lot of time to destroy stuff...
  
• Cosmic radiation. Well, our sun does like to bombard us with highly energetic particles that tend to destroy satellites after a couple years by frying their electronics. But wait, it's just the electronics. Assuming that we get a large burst of radioactiveness: all magnetic and electronic disks will "forget" their data, while we get a small portion of high-energetic radiation as well. Will it kill us? Unlikely. There are still people that live in Chernobyl. We just might to get used to pen and paper for a few months.
  
• Earthquakes & Tsunamis. Plate tectonics have existed since earth's surface has cooled off so much that rock becomes solid (aka. a couple billion years). Whereever there was an earthquake, it has resulted in some sort of casualties, sometimes more and sometimes less. The fact that there are supposedly "more" earthquakes results in the fact that nowadays, every little movement is being registered. Back in the middle ages, that stuff just happened. Some notable events are recorded in historic books but not single bit. Humanity has experienced some pretty bad earthquakes/tsunamis but a tibetanian monk will probably not even know what a tsunami is.
  
• Volcanos. This is an interesting one. A single volcano at the level of Eyjafjallajökull (that Islandic volcano that led to major problems among airlines) won't really harm a whole lot. However, there are a few socalled "Supervolcanos" scattered around the planet. Those can actually become dangerous in case of an eruption. One of them is located in the Yellowstone National Park. In case you haven't heard about it, the last time the thing blew up was around 600,000 years ago and led to a pretty massive destruction of North America. It is now actually overdue. In case it does erupt, it'd also lead to a drastic climatic changes, negative impacts on agriculture, and ultimately, on us. The only thing that is positive is that geologists currently "see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future. Recurrence intervals of these events are neither regular nor predictable." [thank you wikipedia]
  Eventually, we'll probably have to deal with something like that, but not in 2012.

Anything else I forgot? Don't know. But in case you've read it, congratulations. And in case you are still unsure about what I think of the whole 2012-drama: I say it's not going to happen.

[drako]

Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.
Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then -- just as your calendar begins again on January 1 -- another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

[Jed37]

Oh, that's easy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy. We're gonna see a lot of suicide cults popping up.

[empirefantasy]

http://www.explorerunivers.com/t257-maja...ight=majat TRANSLATE PAGE
Well, mayas had 3 calendars. You can read the link for more.The third calendar end in 2012 by scientists. Anyways they had make a mistake as i have read and it's not 2012 the last year.

This is the positive side, but i will tell you about the hopeless one.
I can't find the link where i read, but i will tell you in a summary.
In 18 century there was a man in Germany who has let some documents with some prediction. He predict exactly the day when the first world war began. He had been talked about second world war and early Hitler collapse. By that reason Hitler forces burned most of his documents, so now we can't see a lot of other things that he predicated. Anyways one of the saved up documents tell that the third world war will begin in 21 december 2012.


Maybe i may wrote some more facts later, but there is only one certain thing.

In 21 december 2012 Earth's axis will go to the position that it had 26000 years ago.

[Bla bla bla 44]

I think it's nothing serious. Every 3(or 4) years we survive an apocalypse. If you remember last year there was one(not sure about the date). I heard that the sun will have some little explosions or sth and the electricity will be gone for a while. There was also a theory i've read that we'll be enlightend(not sure if this is the word ). There are so many theories like Nibiru(The Planet X) or Aliens but i don't really believe those. My point is that apocalypse is not going to happen this year. Maybe in 10,100 or 1000 years but not this one.

[zort]

Well, I think this is a nice little fantasy, because you know exactly when you can stop being scared. Here comes 2012, boom, did it happen? no? ok, that was fun, let's make up something about 2038 now. The fact that this apocalypse is associated with a precise date perhaps serves to both titillate ("here it comes!") and mitigate uncertainty (since we'll know "for sure" whether it was true or not, in a little while), and who likes being uncertain (*sigh*).

[Reaper]

Considering that not even the Maya believed the world would end in 2012 (they even got events scheduled for around 5000 a. d., so we certainly got some time :P), I don't believe in it at all. There are just too many apocalyptic theories for me to take any of them serious .