Doomsday 2012, a documentary from the history channel

[peleschramm]

Many of you have probably heard of the Mayan prediction of the 2012 end of the world. I've just seen a quite interesting documentary on the subject.

You can watch this documentary

here

(this is part 1 of 7 you can find the continuation easily).

So yeah, discuss.

(I'm not saying I'm a strong believer in this, and I'm not saying I'm not.)

[Catboy]

Join the Institute for Human Continuity.

[johnfoss]

Someone's always predicting the end of the world. So far they've all been wrong. The occurrence of tsunamis and earthquakes, if you look at them historically, don't seem like indicators of anything other than tectonic activity. But the world never seems to "end". But how about a major asteroid or comet strike? A really big one? That wouldn't "kill" the Earth, but it might kill all of us. However I can't seem to think of a good way to plan for one of those, so I'll keep hoping we "lose" that lottery every year.

The Mayans had awesome calendars. How far into the future did they need to project from 500 years ago? Have we forgotten how our much-more-recent 20th century computer programmers didn't think past the year 1999? The world didn't end on 1/1/2000 either.

And our computers didn't all eat us while we slept.

[peleschramm]

Yeah, all these things do seem to be occurring all the time, the tsunamis and such are nothing new for sure. That part seems to just be complete nonsense.

But what was so significant that caused so many different cultures to predict 2012? Regardless of whether the prediction is right, there must be some explanation as to why they all chose 2012.

[harper]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Someone's always predicting the end of the world. So far they've all been wrong.

Funny. I thought a lot of those predictions were correct.

[Mikefule]

In Europe they were certain that the world would end 1,00 years after the birth of Jesus; or 1,000 years after the crucifiction; or in the year 1666, which is 1,000 plus the number of the beast.

SPI produced a simulations wargame based on the Third World War being fought in about 1984.

2000AD comic predicted we'd all be mutants zooming around in flying cars in massive enclosed megacities, fighting wars between rival burger chains by now.

In 1939, Hitler was predicting a 1,000 reich. (He was vague about what would happen after the 1,000 years were up.)

In the 1960s, someone famously told the Beatles that guitar bands were a thing of the past.

On 27th April 1985 My then wife and I predicted we would be together for the rest of our lives. I've not seen her since 1992.

Need I go on, or does that persuade you that predictions are generally unreliable?

Why is it that Inca, Mayan, Chinese (etc.) prophecies hold such fascination?

[spazdude222]

Well, Jesus clearly explained that the end would come "like a theif in the night" which indicates that it will be totally un-expected. Thus, by people predicting it (SOMEONE will be expecting it) they've guarunteed that it WON'T happen when they say.

[wickedbob]

A really good theif comes even when predicted. Try catching him.

I think it is all a bunch of crap. I mean really, just really.

Everyone is going to feel stupid when nothing at all happens.

[Biggestbtc]

Certain Christian cults have more than once predicted the end of the world incorrectly. You would think that they would be embarrassed enough after the first wrong prediction and stop. But no. Such predictions distract from the main purpose of life and cause people who really believe that it will happen to live unproductive lives. Though it makes an intriguing subject, we shouldn't waste our time on quasi-predictions.

[peleschramm]

Originally Posted by Mikefule

In Europe they were certain that the world would end 1,00 years after the birth of Jesus; or 1,000 years after the crucifiction; or in the year 1666, which is 1,000 plus the number of the beast.

SPI produced a simulations wargame based on the Third World War being fought in about 1984.

2000AD comic predicted we'd all be mutants zooming around in flying cars in massive enclosed megacities, fighting wars between rival burger chains by now.

In 1939, Hitler was predicting a 1,000 reich. (He was vague about what would happen after the 1,000 years were up.)

In the 1960s, someone famously told the Beatles that guitar bands were a thing of the past.

On 27th April 1985 My then wife and I predicted we would be together for the rest of our lives. I've not seen her since 1992.

Need I go on, or does that persuade you that predictions are generally unreliable?

Why is it that Inca, Mayan, Chinese (etc.) prophecies hold such fascination?

Have you not seen the documentary?

It explains that the sources of the 2012 prediction have actually produced quite accurate predictions in the past. You have shown us that some predictions are unreliable, but you have only shown us the ones that are not even in question in this specific case.

[Rezinha]

I think it's not worth discussing it.
Let's wait and see. 2012 is not that far

[johnfoss]

Originally Posted by Biggestbtc

You would think that they would be embarrassed enough after the first wrong prediction and stop.

But it doesn't work that way at all. Pick up a tabloid magazine around the end of the year (any year) and read all the "great psychic's predictions" for the coming year. Even when they get it all wrong, the same "expert" is often quoted year after year. Notice how they never do retrospective articles about fortune tellers? That would constitute developing a track record, and finding out they're no better at predicting than the average groundhog.

Originally Posted by Peleschramm

Have you not seen the documentary?

I watched the clip you provided. The Mayan calendar ran out at 2012, which proves nothing beyond them maybe running out of paper or rock. The WebBot software has apparently shown "indicators" of imminent events, but apparently without enough accuracy for anyone to be able to use it before the stuff happens, just to find "possible correlations" between events that have occurred and various indicators that were observed leading up to that time. In other words, hindsight is 20/20, and someday that software may be able to predict something *before* it happens, but apparently this has not happened yet.

If scientists predict a major earthquake for Southern CA in the next "hundred years or so" I'm much more inclined to believe that.

Originally Posted by harper

I thought a lot of those predictions were correct.

I'm pretty sure I'm still alive, but maybe you're not. After all, I haven't seen you in a long time!

BTW, when's Nostrodamus going to weigh in on all this? His is a track record that would probably be fun to check out as well. I'm sure there have been tons of predictions based on his writings that have never happened as well. But he's dead, so it's not polite to make fun of him.

[peleschramm]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

I watched the clip you provided. The Mayan calendar ran out at 2012, which proves nothing beyond them maybe running out of paper or rock. The WebBot software has apparently shown "indicators" of imminent events, but apparently without enough accuracy for anyone to be able to use it before the stuff happens, just to find "possible correlations" between events that have occurred and various indicators that were observed leading up to that time. In other words, hindsight is 20/20, and someday that software may be able to predict something *before* it happens, but apparently this has not happened yet.

If scientists predict a major earthquake for Southern CA in the next "hundred years or so" I'm much more inclined to believe that.

The clip I provided is not the whole thing. The thing is it wasn't only the Mayan calender that predicted such a thing. Various Oracles from different time periods and from different parts of the world have predicted a similar time for things to end.

[Biggestbtc]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

But it doesn't work that way at all. Pick up a tabloid magazine around the end of the year (any year) and read all the "great psychic's predictions" for the coming year. Even when they get it all wrong, the same "expert" is often quoted year after year. Notice how they never do retrospective articles about fortune tellers? That would constitute developing a track record, and finding out they're no better at predicting than the average groundhog.

Yeah. We rarely see people pointing back to some wrong prediction. Correction predictions, however...

Originally Posted by johnfoss

BTW, when's Nostrodamus going to weigh in on all this? His is a track record that would probably be fun to check out as well. I'm sure there have been tons of predictions based on his writings that have never happened as well. But he's dead, so it's not polite to make fun of him.

He was a vague one.

[madmattunipro]

I think the true test of any prophet is whether they are 100% accurate or not. If not, then I don't think the prophet is reliable enough to depend on for a doomsday prediction. I noticed that what they said about some of their oracles was that they were citing some of their accurate prophesies, but they never said that these oracles never got it wrong.

They seemed also to use a lot of oracles that never predicted an accurate date to support the idea that the world is ending in 2012. Certainly and interesting show at any rate.