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bobdina
10-17-2009, 07:02 PM
Is 2012 the end of the world?

If you scan the Internet or believe the marketing campaign behind the movie "2012," scheduled for release in November, you might be forgiven for thinking so. Dozens of books and fake science websites are prophesying the arrival of doomsday that year, by means of a rogue planet colliding with the Earth or some other cataclysmic event.

Normally, scientists regard Internet hysteria with nothing more than a raised eyebrow and a shake of the head. But a few scientists have become so concerned at the level of fear they are seeing that they decided not to remain on the sidelines this time.

"Two years ago, I got a question a week about it," said NASA scientist David Morrison, who hosts a website called Ask an Astrobiologist. "Now I'm getting a dozen a day. Two teenagers said they didn't want to see the end of the world so they were thinking of ending their lives."

Morrison said he tries to reassure people that their fears are groundless, but has received so many inquiries that he has posted a list of 10 questions and answers on the website of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific ( www.astrosociety.org).

Titled "Doomsday 2012, the Planet Nibiru and Cosmophobia," the article breaks down the sources of the hysteria and assures people that the ancients didn't actually know more about the cosmos than we do.

"The world will not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012," E.C. Krupp, director of Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory, declared in a statement released Thursday by the observatory and Sky & Telescope magazine. Krupp debunks the 2012 doomsday idea in the cover story of the magazine's November issue.

Morrison said he attributes the excitement to the conflation of several items into one mega-myth. One is the persistent Internet rumor that a planet called Nibiru or Planet X is going to crash into the Earth. Then there's the fact that the Maya calendar ends in 2012, suggesting that the Maya knew something we don't. Finally, end-of-the-worlders have seized upon the hubbub about the 2012 date to proclaim their belief that end times are drawing near.

Morrison, who heads the Lunar Science Institute at the Ames Research Center in Northern California, has coined a term for the phenomenon: "cosmophobia," a fear of the cosmos. According to Morrison, for the most vulnerable among us, all of the things we've learned about the universe in the last century have only increased the number of potential threats to our existence.

Besides fearing a rampaging planet, the worriers think the sun might lash out at the Earth with some calamitous electromagnetic force. They also fear that some sort of alignment between the Earth and the center of our galaxy could unleash catastrophe.

Krupp said that the scare-mongers would have us believe that the "ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike."

According to Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, the Maya never predicted anything. The 2012 date is approximately when the ancient calendar would roll over, like the odometer on a car; it did not mean the end -- merely the start of a new cycle.

Some authors have tried to merge that idea, Joyce said, with Maya mythology that said the Earth had gone through multiple ages of creation, each ending in a disaster. "But there's no prediction," she said. "They did not predict the end of the world."

Morrison says it's hard to know whether the people who have written to him with their fears represent a fringe or a larger cross-section of Americans who, distrustful of traditional sources of information and the authorities behind them, are falling victim to the Internet's snake-oil salesmen.

In such an environment, the viral marketing campaign for the movie "2012," which encourages people to "Vote for the Leader of the Post-2012 World," can seem like confirmation of the apocalypse, rather than of an upcoming 90-minute entertainment vehicle.

A spokesman for Sony Pictures, Steve Elzer, said: "We believe consumers understand that the advertising is promoting a fictional film."

Morrison said the movie's distributors are feeding the "panic" by creating some of the fake science websites. Most of the sites, Morrison said, are full of misinformation and speculation, often by people who have written books they are trying to sell.

Morrison said he could not address the motives of people who were feeding the alarm, but added: "It's wrong to tell lies to frighten people merely to make a buck."

What most worries him is the level of alarm in some of the most recent messages.

"I'm getting more and more questions from people who are upset and scared," he said. Some people say their children are refusing to eat.

In the publication Morrison has posted online, he says that astronomers would long ago have spotted a rogue planet headed for Earth, that the so-called photos of Nibiru on the Internet are fictitious, and that just because the Maya calendar in question ends in 2012, it doesn't mean the Maya were predicting the end of the world.

"The calendar on my desk ends on December 31, 2009. I do not interpret that to mean the world is going to end that day."

Toki
10-17-2009, 07:32 PM
If you look at the Mayan calender the end of 2012 is the end of one cycle. A new one starts the next day.

Stark
10-17-2009, 07:40 PM
If you look at the Mayan calender the end of 2012 is the end of one cycle. A new one starts the next day.

Okay can just picture a mayan guy sitting on his arse - hammer in one hand a stone calendar in the other - working on 2012 when he looks up and says out loud: Fuuuuck that shit - what the fuck am I doing? Lets get laid

bobdina
10-17-2009, 07:42 PM
Okay can just picture a mayan guy sitting on his arse - hammer in one hand a stone calendar in the other - working on 2012 when he looks up and says out loud: Fuuuuck that shit - what the fuck am I doing? Lets get laid

Too funny

Woodbutcher824
10-17-2009, 08:08 PM
Okay can just picture a mayan guy sitting on his arse - hammer in one hand a stone calendar in the other - working on 2012 when he looks up and says out loud: Fuuuuck that shit - what the fuck am I doing? Lets get laid

LOL probably after he slammed the hammer onto his thumb.

acf6
10-17-2009, 09:41 PM
Nice one NICO! That would have been me!! I know they are talking that there is mayan writings talking about different yrs as far as into the 4000's!! Too many dumbass skeptics out there that just want to cause problems!!

Dr_Chagas
10-17-2009, 10:10 PM
It's been the end of the world for about: 3577 days, 21 hours, 8 minutes and 11 seconds.


I still haven't left my house since Y2K. :D

wanny1971
10-17-2009, 11:10 PM
ta bob:
found it interesting love the term "cosmophobia" (i think i had it but i'm cured now LMAO)
glad to see there no crazys on AC
the worlds already too full of.. fruitcake 'i speak to the mothership' this is the truth the end is nigh oddballs....
if they could please just keep a safe distance away from me ..(don't want to be stood next to them when there planet bollocks hits em) everythings will just keep ticking along fine... thats media hype 4 ya... lol
and if it were true 'everything ends tomorrow' ..(thanks again 4 curing me LMAO)
i'd go to a quite high spot with my loved ones and a bottle of hard liqueur... kiss my loved ones goodbye pour myself a drink ...sit down....
then watch the silly sods below run around like headless chickens with nowhere to run ...lol
thanks bob
(sleeping like a baby) wanny1971

Sixx
10-17-2009, 11:24 PM
ta bob:
found it interesting love the term "cosmophobia" (i think i had it but i'm cured now LMAO)
glad to see there no crazys on AC
the worlds already too full of.. fruitcake 'i speak to the mothership' this is the truth the end is nigh oddballs....
if they could please just keep a safe distance away from me ..(don't want to be stood next to them when there planet bollocks hits em) everythings will just keep ticking along fine... thats media hype 4 ya... lol
and if it were true 'everything ends tomorrow' ..(thanks again 4 curing me LMAO)
i'd go to a quite high spot with my loved ones and a bottle of hard liqueur... kiss my loved ones goodbye pour myself a drink ...sit down....
then watch the silly sods below run around like headless chickens with nowhere to run ...lol
thanks bob
(sleeping like a baby) wanny1971

Hehehe, But there are crazies on AC....You must have missed the 9/11 conspiracy arguments when someone posted the picture of the B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building.

GTFPDQ
10-18-2009, 01:03 AM
I wanted to write something really witty. Im too scared now, I have an end of the world anxiety disorder and we are all fucked...... Thanks guys.... Now I have to push the big red button.

wardog99s
10-18-2009, 01:58 AM
i don't think its going to end in 2012, some people cite the growing violence, bull-puky violence has been going on for hundreds of year and it's not going to end anytime soon.
one economy teacher of mine said this, "violence in society, is only magnified by "civility"." if your not used to something and you see it' or its covered more by media; that society thinks it is a new or rising occurrence .

then some say, natural disasters have gone up, again I've gone looking through history books, no basis to support that claim.

i an't no bible thumpper, but there is one passage that, not man on earth, not the angels in heaven, nor the holy spirit, not even the son; only the father knows when the end will come.

acf6
10-18-2009, 02:10 AM
i wanted to write something really witty. Im too scared now, i have an end of the world anxiety disorder and we are all fucked...... Thanks guys.... Now i have to push the big red button.

sorry charlie! Lmafo!

Stark
10-18-2009, 04:28 AM
the world is deffiantly comming to an end at 2012 for some people - but not for earth and all humans - some people will deffinatly die in 2012 like every year.

It is one big scarm to get people afraid so they buy books and to the movie and so forth.

For excample - the doomsayers predict that at in 24 December 2012 all planets in our Gallaxy (or the universe I dont know anymore) will allign - which is tru..... they are absolutly correct about that, the planets will allign - BUT what they forget to tell you is that they ALWAYS alight at the 24 December :D

See what I mean?

ghost
10-18-2009, 12:33 PM
People are so fucking stupid sometimes...

Sixx
10-18-2009, 01:50 PM
We should flood abovetopsecret.com and fuck with all the conspiracy fruitcakes.

Markoxx
10-18-2009, 02:49 PM
dude hahah thats funny, who the hack said the end of the world is at 2012 lolz 4 that

GTFPDQ
10-19-2009, 12:20 AM
For excample - the doomsayers predict that at in 24 December 2012 all planets in our Gallaxy (or the universe I dont know anymore) will allign - which is tru..... they are absolutly correct about that, the planets will allign - BUT what they forget to tell you is that they ALWAYS alight at the 24 December :D

See what I mean?


If this is true, according to Mystic Maggie, Im going to have a sex change, marry some international banker and have 7 kids naturally.

Also, Ive figures out that 2012 is really 20*2=40, 0*2=0, 40+0=40, 1*2=2, 40+2=THE FUCKING MEANING OF LIFE.

Stark
10-19-2009, 01:30 AM
We should flood abovetopsecret.com and fuck with all the conspiracy fruitcakes.

Man I wish I could have that page - above top secret is as close as you can get to play TheX files for real :D