1.) I have supplied several parts to a larger picture which paints a possible future of decay. You dissect them one by one and fail to see the significance of them all when put together. The big picture, my friend.
The "see the bigger picture" argument is much like the "keep an open mind" argument, hollow and insubstantial.
Your point in posting here appears to be to direct us away from this endeavor which you deem to be not as worthwhile as others.
Now, some of what you point to I find to be valid, and some I find to be not. Regardless, I have chosen to discuss this issue here, not the others. The question I have for you is why does this seem to bother you? Why are you spending time and energy trying to dissuade us from discussing whether or not the 2012 doomsday rumors are a hoax?
2.) Yes, ends justify the means. Yet, I see NO debate on this point. Do you accept this, or are you simply trying to waive off my point? Because either way, it is true. As much as I hate to say it and I wish it were different.
Well, here you go.
The "ends justifies the means" is entirely dependent on what "ends" and "means" we are talking about.
I feel that murdering millions of people for the natural resources that are in their lands is not justified. I feel that passing laws to enforce environmental protections, which causes prices to rise, is justified. If you are saying that people try to justify horrific things by pointing to the rewards, then yes, this happens. Does it actually justify those horrific things? Frequently not.
With regard to your specific point, I reject your argument that using the "2012 doomsday" is justified if it makes people more ecologically friendly on several grounds.
1) That is not how it is being used. It is being used primarily as a revenue stream for various authors, video producers, television channels, and internet businesses.
2) The deceptive manipulation of an issue for that end would backfire and cause a backlash against that effort. In 2013 when people realize that it was all a big put-on, the environmentalists who you propose should be using this issue would find the public cynical and suspicious of everything that they have been saying.
3) The 2012 rumors are patently untrue to people with even a basic understanding of the issues. This would call into question the motives and evidence of the environmentalists.
3.) What would you replace "consistency" with when I say the governments lie to their people?
"Frequently", or "often". To say that the government lies consistently is to say that it always lies. In other words, if the government says that there will be no 2012 doomsday, you'd go out and start digging a bunker and stockpiling food.
Basically, and I will admit this argument is weak,the more a government lies, the bigger the chance anything else it will say will be a lie when passed off as truth. i.e. 9/11.
This little statement deserves an explanation. What, exactly, do you think the government is lying about with regard to the 9/11 terror attacks?
Now, I don't know who is responsible for all this 2012 stuff, I mean, its on the History Channel for chrissakes.
I suggest you read the list of 'proponents' over to the left of the page.
As far as the History channel, it used to be a good resource about history. Programs that discussed things like the Civil War, or the Roman Empire, etc. Nowadays, however, it has become a cesspool of misinformation and hysterical scaremongering. When someone tells me that they saw a "documentary" on the history channel, I am saddened, because these programs are not documentaries. The folks at A&E networks will tell you this if you ask. They are made to look like documentaries, but they are deemed to be entertainment by A&E, and they will go to great pains to tell you that their audience is smart enough to figure this out, despite the evidence to the contrary.
4.) If kids have committed suicide over '2012', than yes that is tragic and I do see some validation for this website,
how big of you.
… but honestly, the ugly truth is that kids have committed suicide for ALL sorts of things.
That is true.
… They are simply weak-minded.
Kids are impressionable. They are sponges looking to be filled with information. Fill them with science, and a sense of awe and wonder, and they will build the next generation of inventions, and who knows where they will take us? Fill them with fear and uncertainty, and you get a generation of people afraid of ghosts, or technophobes who think that the atomic physicists are going to destroy the world.
Your statement above appears to relegate anybody frightened by this hoax to the status of a weak-minded nobody who we would be better off without.
Is that how you feel?
… So if you do have a background in astronomy I can see why you would want to pursue '2012' as a debunking endeavor.
Some of us are amateur astronomers, and some of us are not. The question still remains, why does our debunking this hoax bug you so much?
5.) Alas, I am NOT a 2012 doomsayer. But I do believe scary things are on its way.
Well, I believe that global warming is real, and that we should be doing a lot more to restrict our emissions of greenhouse gasses.
And these beliefs tend to coincide with a few things that the '2012' people are saying.
Well, what actually has happened there is that the 2012 set have attempted to hijack the environmental issues for their own purposes. They use them as justification for their position. The argument goes:
2012er: The Mayan calendar predicts an apocalypse in 2012.
Debunker: No, it doesn't.
2012er: Only a fool would deny the changes we see going on right now, like global warming.
Note that the 'Debunker' is forced to defend themselves against statements they did not make, and by hitching their issue to global warming, the 2012er has attempted to give their issue a veneer of scientific validity. The reality is that global warming has nothing to do with the Mayan calendar, or the year 2012.
What say you on the matter? I come from the prejudice that everyone on this site believes everything is normal and just fine and will be OK. So shame on me.
You have missed the point.
We contend that the year 2012 will be entirely normal. This means that there will be earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, wars, famine, atrocities, natural disasters, preventable deaths, and all kinds of human tragedy. Because all of that is normal.
There will also be babies born, acts of heroism, stories of survival, people rising above and going beyond, and hope, love, and charity. Those are also normal.
2012 is a hoax not because "everything will be OK" but because the specific claims of the 2012 proponents are provably false, and because a great number of them are making these claims for financial gain. Did you know that you can sign up with Clickbank and get 75% of the money that people shell out to buy a "report on what will really happen in 2012"? Scaring people for money is a cottage industry now.
My concern is, and always has been, the welfare of the kids affected by this. Going beyond the specter of suicides, there is also the factor that I have conversed with a lot of kids who see no point in school, because it's all going to end in a couple of years anyway. They think they should spend their time having lots of fun while it lasts. Why worry about cancer, go ahead and smoke, we're all going to die in 2012 anyway. Hey, AIDS takes years to kill you, so don't worry about that 'safe sex' stuff either.
By the way, I am not making this up. These are from emails I have received.
So back to your basic point: Why bother with 2012, when there is so much other stuff going on? I bother with 2012 because this is where I can make a difference. I can't fix the environmental stuff, although I do my part. I can't change 9/11, or get our troops out of Iraq or Afganistan. But ask me a question about whether Nibiru is going to cause the poles of the earth to flip over in 2012, and I can deal with that.
Pandora (guest) 07 Jun 2010 17:44
