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The Forum > Article Comments > Mayan calendar picks a pivotal year > Comments

Mayan calendar picks a pivotal year : Comments

By Peter McMahon, published 12/1/2012

While it might get nothing else right, the Mayan calendar has happened on the year when world civilisation must choose a different path.

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"2012 is, now famously, the year that the long count Mayan calendar predicts will see radical transformation."

No it doesn't. Exasperated archaeologists have already explained that, to the Maya, the end of a long count was simply the end of a cycle. People are interpreting the calender with a Christian apocalyptic bias, there are sound scientific reasons for concern, so let's forget about the calendars of dead civilisations.

Don't blame the Maya for whatever occurs in 2012.
Posted by mac, Thursday, 12 January 2012 7:24:31 AM
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This is all very reminiscent of the suddenly-fashionable mumblings of Nostradamus, back in the eighties.

I can only guess that it is in our nature to look for a supernatural cause every time we meet adversity. It is so much easier, and more comforting somehow, to attribute nasty stuff to an external agency.

"There is an underlying psychological factor at work here: if enough people believe that change is imminent, it most likely is."

Fortunately, this particular piece of doom-mongering is about as convincing as the man with the sandwich board proclaiming "The End Is Nigh".
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 12 January 2012 8:34:22 AM
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The Club of Rome lives on!

And has acquired no greater intelligence or insight with advancing years.
Posted by DavidL, Thursday, 12 January 2012 8:42:30 AM
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It's quite possible that some university communication schools (always hotbeds of unusable skills in business) are teaching that if you want to get a persuasive message out to the public, then couch it in terms of the end of the world.

If you can include a dead (but groovy) civilisation in there too, it's a double word score. If they were brutalised by a sophisticated and well armed imperial nation, it's triple word score.

My climate skepticism is well known - mainly for articles like this. If advocates of global warming, rising sea levels, etc, want to be taken seriously, they really need to ignore the popular culture tags and keep to the science.
Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 12 January 2012 10:07:57 AM
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Disaster Porn I believe this is now called, and the catastrophists love it and cannot get enough!

What next, the counting of "tipping points", oh wait those keep passing by.

Temperature will go up with increasing CO2, oh hang on, that's not happening either. I'm sure if we wait long enough, it will, but I'm just as sure, if we wait long enough we'll travel to other planets .. depends on your time scale doesn't it?

Prophets have always been around, prophets of doom have an appalling record of success.

Back in medieval times, they put prophets to death whose prophecies caused panic and did not come about, we should consider the same.

I suspect most doom prophets are just people who didn't get enough attention, so ramped up the "doooooom", till they did.

It's short lived though, or it should be.
Posted by rpg, Thursday, 12 January 2012 10:09:24 AM
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Peter is obviously right, we can't go on with this exponential expansion forever.

Governments however, when they look at this problem should start closer to home than industry.

The most ridiculous expansion has been in higher education, & the public service. Industry & the population is running liker crazy, just to keep up with the growth in funding costs in this area.

When we have someone who professes a belief in the Mayan calendar making believable predictions, & global warming, in the same article, we have obviously found someone with an obsessive character. Surely this is not someone who should be teaching young impressionable minds.

The only institution such people should be involved with would be one where they are protected from self harm as an inmate, not a teacher or warder. Confinement to such an institution might also help protect the less stable among us from exposure to such fanciable interpretations of simple facts.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 12 January 2012 10:19:14 AM
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In my opinion the Club of Rome were quite right about the inevitable limits to growth, except that they got their time frame wrong.

One of the movers and shakers of that report was Ervin Laszlo. Check out his CV on Wiki.

He is still very much alive and even writes and talks about the possible cultural implications and challenges of the 2012 Mayan cosmological cycle.
He even convenes forums which discuss the science versus religion conundrum which feature thinkers and philosophers who you wont find in the usual dim-witted forums sponsored by conservative Christians or the Templeton Foundation.

He also founded the Club of Budapest which is a sophisticated think tank or cultural forum (clearing house) which makes the people who are fans of Ayn Rand and who cluster around the IPA and Quadrant look like ignorant intellectual and cultural cripples.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 12 January 2012 10:42:01 AM
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We are having the coolest summer in 52 yrs and global warming continues with expoential growth in CO2? Sounds like the supersticious rubbish of the Mayan Calander has more substance the AGW high priests.
Posted by Arjay, Thursday, 12 January 2012 10:45:00 AM
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Good article summarizing the problems human civilization faces Peter.
Mayan analogy I think only useful insofar as it reminds us that even ancient civilizations thought a lot about their actions in relation to averting catastrophe.

So what can we do about it as individuals? How do we determine to what extent the institutions to which we 'belong' / work for / buy from/ are members of - are a part of the problem? We are schooled for obedience to these institutions to 'get along' in life

We 'Westerners' all live in cities or towns, pay money for food and things produced elsewhere. It is this enticing lifestyle being embraced by an ever-growing population that is the problem and it is going off the rails. Somewhere we have crossed a line; lost sight or when enough is enough; what is really valuable in life.

In semi retirement I've managed to partly escape it; own my own home and don't have to work or rely on social security to survive. I dont have all the answers but do have several maxims that help me:
- Small is beautiful
- Keep reverence, thankfulness and respect
- Going by bus,walking or biking is best
- The best things in life - loved ones and nature - cost nothing to enjoy.
- keep active physically and mentally - whether paid or unpaid.
Posted by Roses1, Thursday, 12 January 2012 1:29:15 PM
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Arjay,

Although they are related, weather and climate are not the same thing.
Posted by rache, Thursday, 12 January 2012 3:20:44 PM
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Roses1,

Good response to the article (unlike so many others caught up on the Mayan calendar aspect) - but I think it is a great article!

Setting global warming aside (as perhaps being a bit less compelling than the other issues raised) the author has put the several aspects of the currently stressed global situation into a most revealing and compelling correlation.

I have new respect for the 'Occupy' movement, but wonder if those involved fully understand the scope of change that is needed/indicated. It is little wonder the movement itself has difficulty expounding its objectives, for the changes required (as indicated in the article) are both extensive and profound. The 'sense' (or sensing) of youth, stirring to action for change, although lacking precise understanding or exposition of detail, is as a barometer of social or societal wellbeing (or lack thereof), and now, as so often in the past, proves to be warranting serious recognition and consideration.

Perhaps we 'olds' are too staid in our ways, too reluctant to agitate for reform of failing or corrupted systems - of government, of economic, fiscal and trade 'arrangements', even of representation - although they are failing us and future generations quite badly. Somehow, the many have been short-changed and deceived by the few (as in the GFC and now European and US near-meltdowns). We cannot dare to trust those failed systems to simply self-correct.

2012 is indeed going to be an eventful year, one way or another.
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 12 January 2012 9:38:17 PM
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I'm sorry that I put so much Mayan calendar in the title and the slug and that hardly anyone seems to understand Peter was being ironic and so was I. I assume he, like me, thought it might give an additional edge of novelty that might get people reading.
Posted by GrahamY, Thursday, 12 January 2012 11:31:54 PM
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Does anyone remember the Y2K bug? It was touted to end computing as we knew it on the stroke of midnight about 12 years ago. And yet here I am blogging away...
Posted by halduell, Friday, 13 January 2012 3:03:39 AM
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We should all note the recent events happening on the Grand Chessboard. Late last yr The Prime Minister of India did not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Govt.His deputy did.Obama ordered Labor to sell Uranium to India against Labor policy to get them on side.Japan and China in trade talks have agreed to trade directly in their currencies and dump the US $.Japan,India,and China have suffered at the hands of Western Imperialism in the past.Fukushima reactors were built by General Electric a US Company.Japan also would love to rid themselves of 50,000 US troops in Okinowa.

The West is broke and is in disarray.We don't have a manufacturing Industry to support a serious conventional war.India and Japan are mending their differences and looking to expanding their economies to take up the slack from the West.So if we have an alliance of Russia,China,Iran,Pakistan + India + Japan and some South American Countries,this represents more than half the world's population.They can grow their way out of this mess while we decay in a debt based money creation system.

With Russian War ships in Syria,Israel threatening Iran and Obama making aggressive noises towards China,Peter is right.2012 is a pivotal year.

The stupidity will not stop if we the people sit on our hands and just hope it will all go away.We've become ignorant too self indulgent,incapable of analysis and pretty much gutless.When Gillard announced the CO2 tax,there should have been a million in the streets protesting.

Our real dilemma is this.Even if Ron Paul becomes president and ends all the wars,the friction that US/NATO has created around the planet may see all these Asian countries and Russia bring in their own New World Order and carve up the planet for their own ends as did the British.
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 13 January 2012 6:41:37 AM
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I saw the irony in the Mayan reference.

How could the ancients comprehend our form of communication let alone our western development, adaptability and positive outlook and think that we would be dragged 'to the edge of destruction'.

It is astonishing that most posters took it so seriously specially those who share the Mayans, blind faith, limited communication, lack of faith in development, lack of adaptability and negative outlook.

I tend to share not only the predominant western view on our future but also the forward thinking, adaptability and increasingly positive outlook of Australian indigenous peoples who have survived(And now starting to thrive) in the face of just as overwhelming challanges as those that destroyed the Mayans.
Just how else has indigenous culture and people survived? Does the Mayan calender apply to that culture too?
Posted by imajulianutter, Friday, 13 January 2012 9:09:08 AM
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If you forget the reference to the Maya and look into the article you will see that the premise is correct. We are in a diabolical mess of that there is no doubt. 2012 may well be the year that all our failing systems come to a halt or at least a serious change. After all the evidence seen over the past few years I cannot believe there are climate sceptics still out there. We are in a global, financial meltdown and it is now quite obvious that our poor beleaguered planet is struggling to cope with population overload. If food and water security is not a problem why are so many corporations and foreign governments buying up agricultural land and water rights in Australia and around the world? Continuing to bury our corporate minds in the sands of business as usual, so as not to see the end coming, will not make the bad stuff go away. Peter is right when he says it is time to grow up and take responsibility. Our inaction over our actions will destroy all that we have and not just for the human race but for all other species on this planet.
Posted by David Leigh, Friday, 13 January 2012 9:42:13 AM
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David Leigh,

I agree that the we have serious environmental,economic and political problems. However, references to the non-existent predictions of the Maya long count calendar and the introduction of doomsday senarios, make the article an easy target for 'sceptics' as it's easy to characterise the author's opinions as just more 'New-Age,ultra-green, fairy dust'.
Posted by mac, Friday, 13 January 2012 10:40:58 AM
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google "Precession of the Equinoxes"!
Posted by HFR, Monday, 16 January 2012 6:36:12 AM
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this is also
the year of the super_dragon

did anyone google the equanox thingy?
pre-cession..is that..like a cess pit?
Posted by one under god, Monday, 23 January 2012 9:52:34 AM
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