# armegeddon **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2011, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866 "2011-12-30T19:58:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/21 "2012-01-04T04:54:24Z")
And here I was worried about space dingoes, who knew? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/22 "2012-01-04T14:20:28Z")
People are just really bad at risk analysis. Space dingoes are a pretty low order probability event, all things considered. MUTANT space dingoes are a slightly higher order of probability, but still far below rabid space kitteh. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/23 "2012-01-04T15:40:09Z")
> [@Schyler](#): > > Do we know enough about them to predict where large ones might be? Instead of being crashed into, might we be drawn “out of” our earthly home into the universe??? As mentioned above, you seem to be confusing ‘wormhole’ with ‘black hole’. But to expound a bit, a black hole is NOT like a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking up everything in its path. If you were to instantaneously (ignoring the several impossibilities with the situation) replace the sun with a black hole that has exactly the same mass as the sun, then, gravitationally, Earth would pretty much keep on, keeping on. Of course, we’d lose our source of light and heat and pretty quickly die out, but our planet would not be sucked up by a cosmic dust-buster. In other words, being “drawn out of” the solar system into the universe isn’t going to happen. And if it did, it could just as easily be a massive star that does it as a black hole. It just needs to be a large gravitational body, not necessarily an exotic one. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/24 "2012-01-04T16:12:03Z")
> [@HoboStew](#): > > If the Mayans could predict the future, there would still be Mayans. There are still several million Maya living today. The people didn’t die out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/25 "2012-01-04T16:13:59Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > There are still several million Maya living today. The people didn’t die out. As for what happened to their civilization, I once met an Indian (and a Libertarian) whose theory was that the Maya (sensibly) decided civilization is more trouble than it’s worth, abandoned their cities and went back to the jungle. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/26 "2012-01-04T16:38:44Z")
[QUOTE=CurtC] There are still several million Maya living today. The people didn’t die out. [/QUOTE] Sure, I’m one of them (well, a small part of me is). However, their civilization and culture died. That there are still people with Mayan blood today is on par with saying that Ancient Egypt is still alive and kicking because there are still Egyptians out there with the same DNA. -XT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/27 "2012-01-04T16:47:08Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Sure, I’m one of them (well, a small part of me is). However, their civilization and culture died. That there are still people with Mayan blood today is on par with saying that Ancient Egypt is still alive and kicking because there are still Egyptians out there with the same DNA. > > -XT Well, **some** of their culture survives, I believe. Their language, at least, people in the Yucatan still speak it. (The ancient Egyptian language survives only in the liturgy of Coptic Christians.) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/28 "2012-01-04T18:12:55Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It always puzzles me why people think that The Ancients™ had some sort of special knowledge that is beyond us. Well, this isn’t factual, but I’ve always wondered if the Dark Ages caused us to feel this way. There actually _was_ a period of time when older civilizations knew more than the current ones – after the fall of Rome and Greece and before the rise of modern nations. This is especially true of average people – what knowledge persisted was not widespread, but the province of specialists. Eventually people re-discovered that their predecessors had been aware of things they had only just now cottoned to. Perhaps some distant echo of that awareness causes us even now to be predisposed to assume ancient cultures had special knowledge. > [@xtisme](#): > > From the scientific texts I’ve been reading, rabid space kittens are much more likely to open up a wormhole and throw a really large ball of yarn (that would ‘soften us up’ nicely, at a guess) at us…and then chase it through the wormhole and pounce. That’s not Armageddon – you’re thinking of the **Kïttendämmerung**. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/29 "2012-01-04T18:46:11Z")
However on December 21 2012 those computers based on the Mayan calendar that haven’t been updated we will be hit with the with the year 13 B’ak’tun bug. All ancient Mayan IT specialists should start making preparations now. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/30 "2012-01-04T19:21:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No there won’t; it’s been cut for budget reasons. Technically, there _will_ be a year after 2012, but they’re planning on rerunning 1994 until the labor dispute sorts itself out. I’ve already ordered a carton of slap bracelets in preparation. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866/31 "2012-01-04T20:05:47Z")
Well, Armegeddon is not only a thing, it also is a place. Har Megiddo in Israel, means the Mount of Megiddo. You can visit it. Bring a hand basket. [http://www.google.com/search?q=har+megiddo&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qa8ET5abFsmWiAK\_9uGSBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEMQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=697](http://www.google.com/search?q=har+megiddo&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=qa8ET5abFsmWiAK_9uGSBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEMQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=697) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armegeddon/607866.md?page=1)