I'm not going to get on the Mayans too much because they are hardly the first people to predict the world was going to end and have it turn out they are wrong. If anything they should feel a lot better than the people who predict it now, when people should know better. Still, I am always fascinated to see which people get really into which theories when discussing the end of the world. Of all the prophecies, why was this the one which became such a sensation? (It couldn't have been the movie "2012" because that was terrible.) There has to be a reason that several people I know who are normally very rational and well-educated were convinced that something carved into a stone by people who thought the sun was magic and practiced cannibalism was going to be accurate. I always assumed the calendar ended on that date because the guy in charge of carving ran out of room or time and figured he had a thousand years done, which should have given him plenty of time to find a moment to get back to carving but just never got around to it. (Happens to the best of us - I certainly hope I'm never judged on the stuff I forgot to finish.) I'd like to say this hype should serve as a warning the next time someone starts making guarantees about the end of the world, but it probably won't. Failed predictions appear to be the one thing which will actually survive the end of civilizations.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Still Here
If you are reading this, it means the Mayan prophecy which stated that the world was going to end on December 21st 2012 was wrong. I would have brought this up on the 21st, but the Mayans just specified a date, never an hour (I can only assume they had also not foreseen the adoption of a world-wide system of time) and I would hate to have written about how wrong they were only to have the world end within a couple hours. Anyway, now that a couple of days have passed I feel safe in commenting on it. First of all, I find it really funny that in the hours leading up to the 21st the Mayans were already in damage control. Plenty of archaeologists were on TV saying the Mayans never specified this date, their calendar actually says the world is going to end in another 2000 years or so. It reminded me of when a movie studio knows the opening weekend of their new movie is going to be disappointing and starts to talk back expectations before the first screening. There don't appear to be any Mayans left, but at least someone out there was willing to stick up for them. Which bring me to my next point: if the Mayans were so smart than why didn't they see their own demise coming? This is also why I refused to call the Psychic Friends Hotline after it went bankrupt. With Psychic Friends like that, who needs enemies?
I'm not going to get on the Mayans too much because they are hardly the first people to predict the world was going to end and have it turn out they are wrong. If anything they should feel a lot better than the people who predict it now, when people should know better. Still, I am always fascinated to see which people get really into which theories when discussing the end of the world. Of all the prophecies, why was this the one which became such a sensation? (It couldn't have been the movie "2012" because that was terrible.) There has to be a reason that several people I know who are normally very rational and well-educated were convinced that something carved into a stone by people who thought the sun was magic and practiced cannibalism was going to be accurate. I always assumed the calendar ended on that date because the guy in charge of carving ran out of room or time and figured he had a thousand years done, which should have given him plenty of time to find a moment to get back to carving but just never got around to it. (Happens to the best of us - I certainly hope I'm never judged on the stuff I forgot to finish.) I'd like to say this hype should serve as a warning the next time someone starts making guarantees about the end of the world, but it probably won't. Failed predictions appear to be the one thing which will actually survive the end of civilizations.
I'm not going to get on the Mayans too much because they are hardly the first people to predict the world was going to end and have it turn out they are wrong. If anything they should feel a lot better than the people who predict it now, when people should know better. Still, I am always fascinated to see which people get really into which theories when discussing the end of the world. Of all the prophecies, why was this the one which became such a sensation? (It couldn't have been the movie "2012" because that was terrible.) There has to be a reason that several people I know who are normally very rational and well-educated were convinced that something carved into a stone by people who thought the sun was magic and practiced cannibalism was going to be accurate. I always assumed the calendar ended on that date because the guy in charge of carving ran out of room or time and figured he had a thousand years done, which should have given him plenty of time to find a moment to get back to carving but just never got around to it. (Happens to the best of us - I certainly hope I'm never judged on the stuff I forgot to finish.) I'd like to say this hype should serve as a warning the next time someone starts making guarantees about the end of the world, but it probably won't. Failed predictions appear to be the one thing which will actually survive the end of civilizations.
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