If you have managed to exist without even the vaguest awareness of today’s Mayan scheduled planetary doom then my hat’s off to you.

You probably also missed the 2012 American Presidential election—the forces of light prevailed by the way.

Bully for you.  You must be vegan, stress free and also not reading this.

What was all the fuss about?  A calendar?  Really?

This whole hullabaloo was about the Mayan calendar coming to an end today at exactly 11:11 UTC or 6:11 EST this morning.

The Mayans as you may know were a very advanced people at least in the area of cosmology.

Merely by observing the stars (or pillow talk with their alien masters) they were able to figure out precise mechanisms and cycles of the cosmos.

We make the assumption that if they were this smart in cosmology then they must have been very smart and evolved in everything else.

Why?

This is like imputing supernatural powers to the people that produce the calendar for 2012 and going “My God, today is Dec 21st, just like the calendar predicted.”  These people can tell us the date for the same time next week.

Unbelievable!

Other explanations to the Mayan calendar ending

Imputing that the Mayans knew the world was going to end on Dec 21st, 2012 because they ended the calendar on that date is like imputing that your wife knew you were going to be unfaithful, that’s why she stopped having sex with you years ago.

The fact that you’re reading this proves that the doomsday interpretation was wrong.   Which means we can now safely look for some other other explanations for the Mayan calendar ending on Dec 21st 2012.

Here are a couple:

Labour dispute

Do you have any idea how difficult it would have been for them to make a calendar?

As far as we know, they may have been very smart in figuring out the stars, but they had not figured out the printing press, computers or happy hour.

This meant that producing these puppies was extremely labour intensive.

Who knows how long it would have taken to hand write (paint) each one far less carve one out of stone.

Maybe it was unresolved wage and working conditions disputes that caused calendar work to stop and the Mayan Calendar Union Movement (CUM) simply took management to the brink.

CUM may have made a bad bet that management would not risk a slowdown in calendar production so close to christmas (they could see in the future don’t forget).

One of these guys just snapped and killed everybody.

One of these guys just snapped and killed everybody.

Mayan calendar worker went postal

In another explanation, a disgruntled calendar worker snaps.

Can you imagine what it’s like to work on the Mayan calendar?

Hard painstaking detailed work that never ends.   Could be that one poor guy simply went mad.

Imagine at the end of another boring day of endless tedium, the shop floor manager comes down and announces

“Ok guys, good news, bad news.  The good news is that we’ve finished the age of Pisces I’d like to thank all of you that worked so diligently for carving out these roughly 2,150 years.   Bad news is that beginning tomorrow we begin working on the age of Aquarius; another 2,150 years.  Oh, and like the last 2,150 years we can’t afford a bonus.  Now get back to work!”

“Aaaaaaarrrrghhh!”

At least one of the workers lost it; went home and suited up with shield and spear the next day and killed every skilled master at the factory.

Survivors reported him saying

“Time goes on forever, but not this “f*!k@g” calendar.”

What can we learn from the whole Dec 21st 2012 fiasco?

Take your pick:

  • There are lots of kooks in the world and even more who are quick to follow them.
  • We like to feel a bit scared.
  • Unless we can see the asteroid coming, we’re likely to slow cook ourselves to death and merely complain that things are getting hot … until it’s too late.

This last is a much more likely scenario than a grand cataclysmic end.

Pity.

The one good thing about a grand cataclysmic end is that it would be over in one big bang, just like it began.