2012 is Over, but the World is Still Ending

[nacho]

I was reading about Roland Emmerich's new apocalypse movie, which is called "2012" and should be out next year, and this led me to:

2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse). Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B'ak'tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order

....

The significance of this period-ending to the pre-Columbian Maya themselves is unclear, and there is an incomplete inscription (Tortuguero Stela 6) that records this date. It is also to be found carved on the walls of the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, where it functions as a base date from which other dates are computed. However, it is conjectured that this may represent in the Maya belief system a transition from the current Creation world into the next. The 2012 Winter Solstice will also occur on this day at 11:11 UTC.

The 1997 book The Bible Code claims that, according to certain algorithms of the Bible code, a meteor, asteroid or comet will collide with the Earth.

Other things that may or will happen:

The sun will reverse it's poles (this is a normal thing it cycles through every 11 years)

The sort of crypto-archeology set that thinks the Earth also reverses its magnetic poles over a much longer period of time says that 2012 is when this will happen.  There is currently movement of our magnetic poles -- 1100 kilometers in the last 100 years.  If the poles continue to shift at their current rate, the northern lights will vanish in about 50 years and magnetic north will drop below Alaska.  (So the "northern" lights will really start to appear much further south, like over central Europe and the US).

The Earth last went through a magnetic reversal some 780,000 years ago. These episodic reversals, in which south becomes north and vice versa, take thousands of years and are the result of complex changes in the Earth's outer core.

"There is a lot of variability in the polar motion," Stoner pointed out, "but it isn't something that occurs often. There appears to be a 'jerk' of the magnetic field that takes place every 500 years or so. The bottom line is that geomagnetic changes can be a lot more abrupt than we ever thought."

Shifts in the North Magnetic Pole are of interest beyond the scientific community. Radiation influx is associated with the magnetic field, and charged particles streaming down through the atmosphere can affect airplane flights and telecommunications.

And some from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_shift

[monkey!]

A lot of crazies are talking about 2012.

2014 is where it's REALLY at though.

But, yeah, that whole pole shifting thing has been threatening for a while. Which could actually be what's causing the weather changes, because, of course, it'll mess up the weather for a while.

[nacho]

And, since we've only been measuring it for 400 years, we have no idea what will really happen. 

Nothing is set to happen in 2014!  You want to know where it's at?  2015.  ITER goes live.  Kaboom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

And Voyager 1 is due to finally leave the influence of the sun.  So once it moves past the heliopause, the aliens will take notice.

[Tatertots]

2012 is the apocalypse! Just like 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007...

[nacho]

Yeah but, in this case, it really is when the Mayan calender ends (which doesn't necessarily mean apocalypse).  So 2012 has been a date long wondered about.  What did the Mayans expect to happen? 

I'm not saying OH GOD APOCALYPSE!  But, like 1000AD, there will be a hefty amount of apocalypse psychosis.  With Y2K it was all, whee, no computers.  Fight Club stuff.  But with 2012, lots of people believe it'll be the year we snuff it.

Frequently (and just yesterday), I talk to these shrinks on the phone who talk about the coming end times.  Some lady yesterday mentioned 2012. 

Yes, these people are nuts.  But I'm hearing more shit from these retards than I did from the Y2K nuts.  The threat isn't some weird end times thing.  The threat is from the people who believe it and take a meat cleaver to my skull on the ride home New Years Eve.

[monkey!]

And, since we've only been measuring it for 400 years, we have no idea what will really happen. 

Nothing is set to happen in 2014!  You want to know where it's at?  2015.  ITER goes live.  Kaboom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

And Voyager 1 is due to finally leave the influence of the sun.  So once it moves past the heliopause, the aliens will take notice.

EVerything is set for 2014.

Just you wait and see!

[Nubbins]

Wait, I knew Earth's poles switched, but I thought it was something that took hundreds of thousands of years to occur, not like a light switch.  Just sort of an oscillation over time.

[RottingCorpse]

Maybe I talk to too many hippies, but I see the 2012 "paradigm shift" as a positive thing. A lot of pagan/new age folks believe it's the year that the universal consciousness shifts into balance and humanity begins to achieve it's full spiritual potential.

Or zombies could wipe us all out.

[Nubbins]

I find the 1 in 45,000 chance that a random 880 megaton explosion may happen kind of frightening.

[Nubbins]

doh, wrong thread.

[nacho]

Wait, I knew Earth's poles switched, but I thought it was something that took hundreds of thousands of years to occur, not like a light switch.  Just sort of an oscillation over time.

Well, the fossil record sort of tells us it's under a million years between gradual shifts, yes.  But the truth is that we've only been measuring the shift for 400 years, and the rocks may well be lying to us.  We have no idea what's happening.  And a shift of 1100 kilometers in 100 years is significant.

Rational people don't believe it'll be like a light switch.  It's got a few tens of thousands of miles to go before it's reversed.  But we will, in our lifetime, notice some minor changes.  Like the position of the northern lights.

Where the light switch style pole shift theory comes from is this guy:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_%C3%89tienne_Brasseur_de_Bourbourg

He's one of those crackpot genius types who first delved into the whole Mayan stuff, believing, based on what the Mayans and their predecessors recorded, that there was a light-switch pole shift about 11,000 years ago that fucked up the world. 

I can dispel any serious thoughts by saying that he tied that shift to the demise of Atlantis.

[monkey!]

Trust Monkey!

He will lead everybody into the light.

[fajwat]

Trust Monkey!

He will lead everybody into the light.

God's anus eagerly awaits monkey!'s visit to heaven.

[monkey!]

Trust Monkey!

He will lead everybody into the light.

God's anus eagerly awaits monkey!'s visit to heaven.

I bet he does.

[Matt]

Monkey's light is so...weak.