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[SomeStupidGuy]

Veteran's Day expresses our fear that one day someone might actually not be willing to get themself shot in our name.

Pfft, as long as there are peeps to make ridiculous promises, there'll be brave peeps to get shot for said promises.

[Oliolli]

These two girls in my history class were arguing over whether the Mayan calendar was supposed to end on the 21st or 23rd of December, this year. This was brought about by some mention of it in a poorly-made History Channel type video. Anyway, one of them said "I know the world is supposed end on the 23rd because that's what I heard, and that's my mom's birthday". Apparently this was convincing enough evidence for the other girl. They then proceeded to talk about how they were going to attend parties and stuff right before those days. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they just wanted an excuse to party; I hope they don't actually buy into any of this stupid mass-hysteria.

I really enjoyed the three other ends of the world this year. I wonder how this one will compare.

[The Darkling Wolf]

*ahem*
Attention. They found several thousand more years worth of Mayan calendar.
Repeat, they found, several thousand, more years, of Mayan, calendar

[miauw62]

*ahem*Attention. They found several thousand more years worth of Mayan calendar.
Repeat, they found, several thousand, more years, of Mayan, calendar

Yet some people still believe that the world will end.
I dont even understand. And now everybody will quote this so they dont have to quote huge text.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Yeah. There's no hypothetical reason for the hypothetical end of the world to hypothetically happen.

It's like claiming your toaster's broken because you forgot to plug it in, then plugging it in but continuing to claim it's broken anyway, despite it being demonstrably used several times to make delicious delicious toast.

[Reelya]

Actually i think the mayan calender is in Bak'tun 12 now, and in december it rolls over to Bak'tun 13. What happens in thousands of years is that it hits Bak'tun 20 (it's a base-20 system). So they run out of Bak'tun's.

The problem with even saying that is the end of the world, is that there are Mayan Stellae with higher order relative dates - units of 20 several orders about a bak'tun - dates so large that they are literally 400 million years in the future.

The 2012 thing is like going "OMG year 2000 - end of the world!" and the date 1000's of years from now is like going "OMG year 9999 - we're out of digits - end of the world!". The Mayans already accounted for how such dates are extended, just like how base-10 is extensible. Bak-tun 20 becomes zero, and you increment the next higher position. There just hasn't been enough time elapsed from the Mayan's time to need that many digits yet.

[ChairmanPoo]

Am I the only one who doesn't particularily care about the Mayan's opinion on the end of the world and/or calendar making?

PD: Want to hear my pet theory on (not-quite)end-of-the-world? Some time in the future all this weather change sheanigans will eventually result in changes in the microbial flora, and a Permian extinction Mk 2, with human civilization being poetically smothered by bacterian farts. A fitting end for the species that created Justin Bieber and 4chan.

[Forums User Meat Wizard]

I think I can confidently predict that the end of the world will be so boring that nearly no-one will even bother talking about it the next day.

[miauw62]

I think I can confidently predict that the end of the world will be so boring that nearly no-one will even bother talking about it the next day.

*badum-tish*

Also, welcome to the forums i guess.

[Bohandas]

The 2012 thing is like going "OMG year 2000 - end of the world!"

This reminds me of a funny subplot from the webcomic Goats that deliberately combines the Mayan thing with the Y2K thing.

[Loud Whispers]

These two girls in my history class were arguing over whether the Mayan calendar was supposed to end on the 21st or 23rd of December, this year. This was brought about by some mention of it in a poorly-made History Channel type video. Anyway, one of them said "I know the world is supposed end on the 23rd because that's what I heard, and that's my mom's birthday". Apparently this was convincing enough evidence for the other girl. They then proceeded to talk about how they were going to attend parties and stuff right before those days. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they just wanted an excuse to party; I hope they don't actually buy into any of this stupid mass-hysteria.

Next time people talk about the whole "2012 end of the world" thing, ask them one question.

"Do you panic on December 31st of every fucking year?" because that's kinda the end of the calender too...
The Mayans just liked planning ahead further with their dates, on account of not having a "fixed" system.

To be fair, they do PARTY at the end of every year. Maybe some of that is a subconscious fear of the world ending.

Maybe birthday parties are just an expression of our subconscious fear of our lives ending.

To me birthdays have always been celebrations for living one more year

[The Darkling Wolf]

New Year's End Parties are traditionally for warding off evil spirits and demons. We make a lot of noise and chime bells and the like.

[Mini]

My new year's celebration is traditionally watching a great deal of the local council's money go up in flames fireworks display and going ooh. The only reason it's restricted to new year's is because for some reason they only want to do it once per year.

[miauw62]

Chrismas-newyear period for me is visiting family and fancy dinners and such. My mom's quite a good cook.
It's also nice to see some of the more distant family again. I typically only see them a few times a year. And i dont have alot of close family compared to many people. 1 uncle with a wife and a kid, 4 grandparents. (and my parents ofcourse)

[Mr Space Cat]

The 2012 thing is like going "OMG year 2000 - end of the world!" and the date 1000's of years from now is like going "OMG year 9999 - we're out of digits - end of the world!".

I'd assume mankind would at least have the sense to just roll the year over to 10000. It's not like in year 99 everyone panicked because "We can't possibly count that high!" or anything like that. They just said it's year 100, cheers.

Alternatively, can you imagine the huge parties and everything that would happen at the end of 9999, seeing how 1999 jumping to 2000 was such a celebratory event?

Assuming of course by then we haven't nuked ourselves to oblivion over some petty issue and at least started space colonization.