# Have we technically already survived 2012 (as in the presumed end of world bit)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 7, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073 "2012-03-07T21:34:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/21 "2012-05-23T14:19:59Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > As a general rule, take any bit of “common knowledge” that the “ancients” knew some field of science “better than we do today” with a huge grain of salt. > > Aside from stuff like day-to-day knowlege of their own, now-extinct cultures, I can’t think of a single case where that’s actually true, even though it’s a common trope. Hm, I think that there were natural philosophers who have a better handle on alchemy than we do now. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/22 "2012-05-23T14:25:20Z")
[I have to share this](http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/s720x720/305927_388239217868028_100000458607401_1365683_588885273_n.jpg). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/23 "2012-05-23T14:28:23Z")
The purpose of our current calendar is to keep the days of the year in the same season every year. Without a even number of days in the solar year and a desire to keep track of time using the day night cycle leap days need to be added. The Maya did not feel the need to match their calendar to the seasons. Their calendar just counts days. It does not really concern itself with solar years and thus does not need leap days. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/24 "2012-05-23T14:42:47Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Hm, I think that there were natural philosophers who have a better handle on alchemy than we do now. 😃 And don’t forget that back when we all ate mouldy vegetables and rotten meat instead of all this processed food, and nobody took drugs made by the evil pharmaceutical companies, hardly anybody died of cancer! (Because they mostly died of dysentery and malnutrition, or from diseases that are now easily treatable, before the cancer had a chance to take hold, but we’ll leave that part out.) ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/25 "2012-05-23T16:54:53Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > As far as the accuracy of any predictions of ‘the wise ole timey peoples’ remember that they also held down innocents and hacked out their beating hearts because, ah, um, er, ya know, they had to! I’m tempted to tell Mayan doomsdayers that they can avoid the apocalypse by doing what the Mayans did–sacrifice a virgin daughter–if there weren’t the chance of them taking it seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Roadfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc348/32.png) [@Roadfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roadfood)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/26 "2012-05-23T21:59:14Z")
> [@andylonger](#): > > The mayan calender is still one of the most accurate calendars EVER. right up there with the atomic clock. on december 21st there will be a once in 26,000 year alignment with the earth, sun, and the center of the milky way( a starless, empty, one light year across space) The mayan calendar says a year = 365.2422 days and the atomic calendar says it = 365.2420 days.But the atomic clock keepers admit that in the fourth decimal it is plus or minus 4… So yes, they accounted for leap year! > You guys should watch Ancient Aliens (Season 4 Episode 2 specifically)! I’m assuming that, since you added that part about the “Ancient Aliens” show, this was meant to be sarcasm. Nevertheless, in the spirit of fighting ignorance: [This page](http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/mayan.html) seems to be a pretty detailed explanation of the various Mayan calendars. None of them account for leap year. The Haab is 365 days, and the Tzolkin is 260 days. And as has been already stated here, the long count calendar isn’t cyclical, it’s just a straight count of days, so the length of the year isn’t even relevant. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/27 "2012-05-24T04:47:34Z")
All you people dissin’ the Mayan calendar just need to remember the following: > [@](#): > > [T]he Mayans … construct[ed] … a calendar so advanced that it can still, > to this very day, tell you where various celestial bodies such as Venus > and the Moon will be at any given moment. _They will be out in space_, > states the miraculous Mayan calendar. > > – **_Dave Barry Slept Here_, p. 5** So, you know, take THAT! ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/28 "2012-05-24T13:03:59Z")
The newest Mayan calendar find will take us 7,000 more years to reach the end. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/earliest-mayan-calendar-found-in-lost-city-7734566.html](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/news/earliest-mayan-calendar-found-in-lost-city-7734566.html) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/29 "2012-05-24T21:27:39Z")
[I think this just about says it all.](http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d97/Clothahump/truth-about-2012-mayan-calander.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Vryus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/47e85d/32.png) [@Vryus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vryus)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/30 "2012-05-28T21:06:02Z")
The Mayans had several different types of calendars and none of them were necessarily synchronized. The Mayans most likely did not create the calendars they were using at first and more than likely inherited them from previous cultures. The calendars that the Mayans used were fairly accurate for the time when they were created. Their calendar is nowhere near as accurate as the Julian or Gregorian calendars. The Mayan calendars averaged one day of error for every four years. Julian calendars had one day of error every hundred-or-so years. The calculations that supposedly determined the date of December 2012 might have taken into account Gregorian leap years but they more than likely did not include the error-days in the Mayan calendar or other events such as the Calendar Act of 1750 where a few months were just ‘skipped’. It should also be noted that the ‘end of the Mayan calendar’ is not defined by the creators as being a cataclysmic event. It is just the end of a cycle. It is basically like New Year’s Day. People who are talking about cosmic alignments and whatnot fail to tell their believers that cosmic alignments of one sort or another are actually not so uncommon as to be seen as miracles. They can happen several times in a person’s life or yearly depending on what you’re looking at. Most people alive today have been though a ‘cosmic alignment’. Anyone attaching some apocalyptic significance to December of 2012 will fall by the wayside just like the dozens or hundreds of others who previously predicted the end of the world. The world will not end, spaceships will not descend and the reptilians will remain in the hollow center of the Earth. Nothing to see here. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2012, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/31 "2012-05-28T22:23:22Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > As far as the accuracy of any predictions of ‘the wise ole timey peoples’ remember that they also held down innocents and hacked out their beating hearts because, ah, um, er, ya know, they had to! Kinda makes you understand why the Catholic Spaniards forceably ended such practices and destroyed all their texts… You’re hand waving over one of the most brutal pogroms in the history of the world. How were the potential sacrifice victims better off by being massacred by the Spaniards? In any case destroying their records was just pure xenophobia, and robbed anthropologists of a rich treasure trove that they’ll never recover. ---
**Author:** ![vd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b19c9b/32.png) [@vd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vd)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073/32 "2012-05-29T00:15:23Z")
> [@andylonger](#): > > You guys should watch Ancient Aliens (Season 4 Episode 2 specifically)! Even better: Stargate-SG1 (Season 3 Episode 21)! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-technically-already-survived-2012-as-in-the-presumed-end-of-world-bit/615073.md?page=1)