Rational man's thoughts for 2012

[ea90gl]

The most annoying thing about all this is only now since all this 2012 hype people are starting to "realise" world events, in regards to environment, politics, etc etc. The earth has been through tsunamis, earthquakes, storms, ice ages, warming from day one, only now they are linking it to doomsday. Look at politics and economies, we've been at war with each other from the day civilizations formed, we've been through economic ups and downs since economies were big and complicated enough to be affected by any outside influences. THESE THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING FOR MANY MANY YEARS, its called LIFE PEOPLE, nothing we can do about it and any events do not indicate that the world will shrivel up or anything absurd like that. There's only two things in life that are guaranteed - one is death, the other is people making up BS to try make money off poor suckers who are willing to believe anything and hand over their hard earned

[The Yeti]

I think 2012 will be a disaster; after all I will turn 40

[DBourne]

Not quite sure what the point of worrying about it is?

A) if the world ends, you can't do anything about it
B) you look like a tool, specially when 2013 rolls around and you realise you've spent years listening to idiots and people are laughing at you

[Ducati888]

Originally Posted by tranquilized

A name mentioned in the opening post towards the bottom was Graham Hancock. I've just finished reading his book "Fingerprints of the Gods" He visited a lot of the world’s ancient sites in Central and South America, and Egypt, and raised some amazing points. If you thought the great pyramids were pretty unbelievable, read up on them some more. They were built to higher standards than what we can achieve with today’s technology, but no one knows how or why.

The main hypothesis of the book is that human beings haven’t evolved in one linear fashion, from cave men to our current level of technology. Rather, that there existed civilisations in the distant past (think 20,000 years ago) who were as advanced, if not more so, than our current civilisation, who were all but wiped out by some cataclysmic occurance. This is how he explains the construction of the pyramids and many other amazing ancient sites.

Yeah, right. There's no way any previous civilisation was as advanced as our current civilisation. 20,000 years? Pfft. It's nothing.

I havent seen any evidence in the excavations of internal combustion engines, nuclear power stations or computer chips. Just because they built pyramids & ziggurats doesn't mean they were as advanced as we are now - it just means they were the most advanced and ambitious races of their time.

Modern man could easily build a pyramid, in under a year, to better tolerances, with options like windows and elevators, and a revolving restaurant at the top . It took 30 - 40 years for the Egyptians to build each of theirs, and they are not that complex in the inside, contrary to what many books and movies would have us believe.

There's not going to be an end to the world in 2012. Just because the Mayan calendar expires doesn't mean the world expires. What did the Mayans even know of the rest of the world when they did their rotational calendar anyway?

[flappist]

Originally Posted by Ducati888

I havent seen any evidence in the excavations of internal combustion engines, nuclear power stations or computer chips. Just because they built pyramids & ziggurats doesn't mean they were as advanced as we are now - it just means they were the most advanced and ambitious races of their time.

Hang on, wasn't there a design for an engine on a wall inside a pyramid. LS something or other......

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by flappist

Hang on, wasn't there a design for an engine on a wall inside a pyramid. LS something or other......

I heard Zorg the caveman came up with the GM LS engine design two days after he invented the wheel, approx 3 mths after fire was discovered :

[castellan]

Now you got me worried.
Where am i going to put my XA GT hardtop falcon.

I know a dude that calls him self, a Jew's for Jesus, a dude who rattles that stuff on all of the time. he can not wait for it to happen. he even prays for it. :
He believes in being a fundamentalist. :
And running around slandering true doctrine.
They can not understand that fundamentals are just that.
And that the book, is just a book.
But they don't understand that they have being bewitched.
A Christian gets on with the job, Jesus Christ gave him to do. and the end of the world is not of a Christians concern.

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by castellan

A Christian gets on with the job, Jesus Christ gave him to do. and the end of the world is not of a Christians concern.

Ok, I'll bite. What job is that?

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by Rodp

I still don't understand what the consequences are of all the planets lining up...? Is it theorised that the combined gravity would affect Earth? (one explaination I had heard) Not sure if I would want to wade through oodles of nutbaggery on websites to find out for certain.

In case it is, the gravitational fluctuation between the perigee and apogee of the moon to the Earth is many magnitudes greater than that of all the planets combined.

I believe the gravitational effect of the moon can fluctuate by ~20(?)% per orbit. Jupiter's gravitational effect is ~1/100th of the moon. The tidal effect is even less.



Hate to alarm you, the nearest black hole we know of is only ~1600 light years away. The milky way is only considered to be ~100,000 light years in diameter. But you're probably still on the money that the sun will consume the Earth well before a black hole can.

you are right of course! its perhaps not as far as i first thought. i wanted to signify the unlikelyness of one ever reaching us, hence the "hundreds of millions". as for planetary alignment affecting us? my whole post was to say that it was bulldust. but i read it just then and realized i didn't put in enough information. cheers for the corrections(i should have known/known to put all of this in : physics, the one subject i was good at!)

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by flappist

Hang on, wasn't there a design for an engine on a wall inside a pyramid. LS something or other......

SIGNATURE!

[castellan]

Originally Posted by Rodp

Ok, I'll bite. What job is that?

Being in the spirit of the trinity. :

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by tranquilized

The main hypothesis of the book is that human beings haven’t evolved in one linear fashion, from cave men to our current level of technology. Rather, that there existed civilisations in the distant past (think 20,000 years ago) who were as advanced, if not more so, than our current civilisation, who were all but wiped out by some cataclysmic occurance. This is how he explains the construction of the pyramids and many other amazing ancient sites.

Mankind has always been smart, that's pretty obvious. The Romans as most of us know had running water, toilets, paved steets, highways, heated bath houses etc. that's the most recent example and there are many before there time.

[bingoTE50]

And I was looking forward to turning 50 in 2013 , ohh well. Time to buy the supercharger and maybe a M5 ,new boat,van,F650 , and a condo somewhere,afterall I won't have to pay any of it off. Bargain...lol

[ford man xf]

Originally Posted by Ducati888

Yeah, right. There's no way any previous civilisation was as advanced as our current civilisation. 20,000 years? Pfft. It's nothing.


Modern man could easily build a pyramid, in under a year, to better tolerances, with options like windows and elevators, and a revolving restaurant at the top . It took 30 - 40 years for the Egyptians to build each of theirs, and they are not that complex in the inside, contrary to what many books and movies would have us believe.

Your almost taking away what an amazing engineering feat the pyramids were with that post, engineers today marvel at how it is constructed and the techniques they used to build it. It truly is one of the great wonders of the world.

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by Ducati888

Modern man could easily build a pyramid, in under a year, to better tolerances, with options like windows and elevators, and a revolving restaurant at the top . It took 30 - 40 years for the Egyptians to build each of theirs, and they are not that complex in the inside, contrary to what many books and movies would have us believe.

modern man's pyramid would get bombed or collapse long before an egyptian pyramid ever would...

[Fled74]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned my favourite bit of dialogue from "Ghostbusters":

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... MASS HYSTERIA!

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by castellan

Being in the spirit of the trinity. :

Oh, err... ok.

What does it pay? Is there sick leave?

[onfire]

Originally Posted by Ducati888

There's not going to be an end to the world in 2012. Just because the Mayan calendar expires doesn't mean the world expires. What did the Mayans even know of the rest of the world when they did their rotational calendar anyway?

Realistically the Mayans didn't think that far ahead. Chances are the conversation went like this :

" Wow, we've really gone crazy with this calender, should we stop? "
" What are we up to?
" 2012 "
" pfft, it's not like you and me are living that long. "
" 2012 it is. The End. "

[Paxton]

Originally Posted by onfire

Realistically the Mayans didn't think that far ahead. Chances are the conversation went like this :

" Wow, we've really gone crazy with this calender, should we stop? "
" What are we up to?
" 2012 "
" pfft, it's not like you and me are living that long. "
" 2012 it is. The End. "

A 21st century approach...

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by B mobile

Well I did read a story that the oil supplies will run out by 2013, and it was pretty convincing.

Here is the story : http://www.oildecline.com/

That's only 'prime crude', which is the easy stuff to mine. i heard that if it ran out today we'd still have enough 'lower quality' crude (such as shale and so forth) to last another 100 years. :togo:

I wonder if the magnetic switch over will have any effect on human civilisation?
(that's where the north-south poles reverse, which happens every 11,000 years or so).

[Ryan]

I personally think it's a load of bollocks.

There was a show on the History channel the other night called "The Nostradamus Effect", and it was about how Issac Newton predicted the end of the world in 2060.

The world will most likely end one day, but I don't think anyone past, or present has the ability to know the exact date. It'll come when we least expect it IMO.

[Rodp]

Originally Posted by Ryan

The world will most likely end one day, but I don't think anyone past, or present has the ability to know the exact date. It'll come when we least expect it IMO.

It's guaranteed its demise when the sun runs out of fuel, expands and consumes Mercury and Venus. There's conjecture whether it'll make it to Earth, I've read theories that it'll make it all the way to Jupiter - but regardless, the increase in temperature will scorch the Earth making all life extinct. I am making a distinction between 'The world' being Earth itself and 'The world' being civilization on Earth. This probably won't happen for 5 billion years or so but it will be expected.

'The world' being civilization... plenty of ways that can come to an end - at our own hand, the hand of gravity or the hand of radiation. Or, if I'm completely and utterly wrong, by the hand of God who wants a second do-over, picks another old, retired couple to gather up 2 of everything and floods the place.

[J.C.]

Well. What can we do about stopping the world coming to an end as we know it?
I'll tell ya what! FA!

I read this sort of stuff from time to time. I have my religious beliefs etc, but what can I do?
The answer is simple. Live your lives as best you can day to day, surrounding yourselves with friends, family, fun times and encase it all with a good dose quality moral fibre. If our numbers are up, they are up. Sorry, but we are out of here.

Life will go on in one form or another after we are all gone (whether it be via our hand, mother earth or god himself).
Personally, I'd like to slap these scientists. Sure, they are smart people, but as a lay person, wouldn't their resourses be better spent on a cure for kids cancer or along those lines?

Life will find a way to go on. (Deep huh?)

[Iggypoppin']

as a person who does not believe in religion whatsoever, i find it hard to swallow when i hear things about the apocolypse and other such stuff. **disclaimer** i am not a religion hater and i will not dump on others religions because i don't believe in it, and these are just my views and opinions so i expect likewise treatment in eventual responses **disclaimer**

i studied physics in school, and while a fair chunk of it has been wiped away, i do know the basics. i also know that whats in front of me is real, and that what is proven scientifically is real. i accept that things remain unproven, but refuse to acknowlege that the answer lies elsewhere but science or proven fact. why don't i think that the earth will "end" in 2012? it has not been proven as such. what i interperet this to mean is that while we as humans make predictions about the financial markets and political s*****tstorms and natural disasters and everything else, what cannot be escaped is the fact that time itself will not stop "occurring"(that being said, "time" itself is merely word that is used to determine the relationship between the way different things change) and so, really, as there isn't a force that can stop things occurring in relationship to other things, the "end" of the world can't literally occur in any of the theories laid out above. i see the only true way of time itself ceasing to exist at the same as when the currently expanding universe stops its expansion and begins to fall back in on itself, and thus creates kind of reverse explosion. by this time our sun will have engulfed the earth and become either a black hole or a white dwarf, or a supergiant, then either itself been destroyed or just evaporated to nothing. i'm no expert, but i did pay some attention to physics and the like in school, and its paying off a little.

as i said before, time itself will continue despite our petty problems on earth. no calendar that some ancient civilization thought up is going to cause us to stop existing, no amount of political issues(save that of nuclear war) or money problems or natural disasters will cause a true "end", but probably a fair bit of discomfort and mass deaths(even extinction?). 2012? bring it on. i might have a house by then.

[ford man xf]

Iggypoppin' some of what you said is more theory than fact. NASA believes that the Universe will keep expanding forever.
A good quote:

"About 13.7 billion years ago, the Entire Universe increased by 10^30 (a million trillion trillion) times, in less than a second. We call this remarkable phenomenon, the ‘Big Bang.'"
It all could have come from something as small as a pea, and here we are living in it and discussing it, pretty amazing.
And one other point, it may not have even been the big bang that started it all, there are a number of other respectable theories on the origins of everything, the big bang is the most popular of them.

Its an interesting one as there is no centre to the universe and we can only view how big it is by how far light has travelled since the big bang it certainly puts things into perspective.

[WOTDAH]

Sounds like Graham Hancock has got alot of his theories from Erich von Däniken. I have read most of Erich's books and some of the evidence he describes of previous advanced Civilization is very interesting.

[Barry_v]

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Your almost taking away what an amazing engineering feat the pyramids were with that post, engineers today marvel at how it is constructed and the techniques they used to build it. It truly is one of the great wonders of the world.

reminds me of red dwarf..

Rimmer: “…like the pyramids. How did they move such massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?”

Lister: “They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.”

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by ford man xf

Iggypoppin' some of what you said is more theory than fact. NASA believes that the Universe will keep expanding forever.
A good quote:

"About 13.7 billion years ago, the Entire Universe increased by 10^30 (a million trillion trillion) times, in less than a second. We call this remarkable phenomenon, the ‘Big Bang.'"
It all could have come from something as small as a pea, and here we are living in it and discussing it, pretty amazing.
And one other point, it may not have even been the big bang that started it all, there are a number of other respectable theories on the origins of everything, the big bang is the most popular of them.

Its an interesting one as there is no centre to the universe and we can only view how big it is by how far light has travelled since the big bang it certainly puts things into perspective.

true, it is more theory than fact, but it is the only theory that i presently know of concerning the universe expansion. the fact that the theory can not be proven is also a bit annoying for me, as i'd like to know exactly how this will all turn out in the very distant future! oh, and heres why we can never truly know: due to the speed of light, and the fact that things occur so long ago that we only see them now, there is a kind of "dip" in time as we know. representable by a graph where a straight line is drawn, representing time, and a point further along that line representing now, so obviously to the left is the past and the future is to the right. two lines, at 45 degree angles to time and going on the top and bottom of time's line and meeting at "now", and another two parallell to these, intersecting "time" and representing a point where a gradient is drawn that represents the speed of light. to the right of the parallell lines is a shaded area, and in between the parallel lines are areas represented by P and Q. these areas are unknown until we reach F, which is the point at which the speed of light ( C ) reaches time's line. once we reach F we can figure out what happened in the shaded areas. the thing is, whats happened in the shaded areas has already "happened" but we can't know what happened until we get to F. heres a quick graph.

[Iggypoppin']

jeez i hope i have not messed that up too much.....

[Barry_v]

good engineering is when you design something once and it works.

epic fails egyption style.

biting off more than you can chew:



when your foundations aren't up to the job just make the building smaller!



almost there with this half arsed 43 degree sucker..


and its a miracle! they finally got the knack! it must have been aliens!