2012
by Jeff
Image text: To compensate for this, I plan to spend 2013 doing nothing but talking about Mayans. My relationships with my friends and family may not fare well.
Happy New Year everyone! This comic is in reference to the fact that the Mayans, an ancient civilization in the Americas, created a calendar that ends on Dec 21st, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the calendar used by the Mayan culture. Some therefore consider that the world is going to end on that date.
Consequently, a lot of people are talking about the Mayans, concerned that the world might end. Once December 21st, 2012 passes, everyone will be less concerned about the Mayans, because the world will not have ended. (Or it will have ended.)
In the final frame, Megan uses a take on the phrase, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." but instead she takes it to the school class of history. In most American schools, a grade point average of 4.0 equals straight A's. However, if you "Fail to learn from History" and "fail" history with an F, they would still get a 3.0 with A's in other classes.
That is a little bit of a meandering explanation, hope it makes sense.
January 2nd, 2012
“Consequently, a lot of people are talking about the Mayans, concerned that the world might end.”
Really? I heard there will be an apocalyptic (as always) Emmerich movie, and perhaps a few would really worry, but I did not notice anyone really worrying.
By the way, according to what I heard, and according to Wikipedia, the end of the Mayan calender was not seen as the end of the world, but merely the end of a an epoch and the beginning of a new one.
January 2nd, 2012
OK, my bad, the movie is out for over a year now.
January 2nd, 2012
Ok, my bad, the movie is out for over a year now.
But these few words above do not satisfy the spam filter – at least, it seems to be effective.
January 2nd, 2012
My guess is that the apocalypse is really going to happen on Friday when Randall publishes the 1000th xkcd.
January 2nd, 2012
Hmm, I think this doesn’t do credit to the millions who will be saying “I told you so”
January 3rd, 2012
The millions who think it will or will not end?
January 3rd, 2012
I hope the ones who truly think it will end do not number in the millions.
January 3rd, 2012
I think Randall was trying to say how the Mayans did more than just “predict the end of the world” (like build massive structures), but they won’t be recognized at all after the world doesn’t end, despite their larger achievements.
January 3rd, 2012
Well, they weren’t recognized (outside of the circles of people who study and care about such things) much before the current 2012 end-of-the-world hoopla either, so not being recognized afterwards just means things will return to status quo. Cueball’s idea to talk about nothing but Mayans in 2013 won’t change things, any more than the fact that more people are talking about Mayans now — but only on their supposed end-of-the-world predictions (which they don’t really appear to have made in any case) rather than the many other aspects of their culture and civilization.
January 3rd, 2012
As a sidenote, this comic was posted at least on Sunday (January 1, 2012), rather than the usual Monday posting.
The alt-text suggests that Randall will be talking about the Mayans a lot in 2013 to compensate for the rest of the world not talking about the end-of-the-world thing. It suggests he is trying to keep the per-capita amount of Mayan talk at an equivalent level to the pre-December 21, 2012 level. As he suggests, this might annoy some of his friends and family.
January 3rd, 2012
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar):
Misinterpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is the basis for a New Age belief that a cataclysm will take place on December 21, 2012. December 21, 2012 is simply the day that the calendar will go to the next b’ak’tun.
January 3rd, 2012
This is also interesting: http://psychologytoday.com/blog/reality-check/201112/what-you-should-know-about-2012-answers-13-questions
January 3rd, 2012
Wikipedia: “[...] the correct name for the people is simply Maya (not Mayans). Maya is one language in the Mayan language family. Thus, to refer to Maya as Mayans would be similar to referring to Americans as Germanics because they speak a language belonging to the Germanic language family.”
January 4th, 2012
I think the last panel is true and indefinably sad. Once the sensationalism has died down nobody will care about those who have come before, what they accomplished, how they lived.
Oh well, at least they get one chance to shine for a bit… even if the reason for all the attention is a misconception.
January 4th, 2012
I don’t think the Maya will vanish. A generation ago, their surviving inscriptions were almost totally obscure; people could say that this set of symbols is the date when something happened, and that one is probably a guy’s name. Now a lot of it can be read. And the ruins exist, for people who want to take vacation trips to Central America or watch National Geographic videos.
January 4th, 2012
If someone were to poke around a bit and squint just right, I’m sure we’d find that some other pre-columbian civilization also made an astonishing prediction.
January 9th, 2012
Although late, I wish a Happy New Year to everyone
January 10th, 2012
Does anyone ever think maybe the calendar person got tired and went to bed?
January 18th, 2012
Errrr, but, the trailing “if they are their other subjects” makes no sense and isn’t funny.
Unless it’s supposed to make sense, please explain.
If this comic ended at “3.0″ I would have laughed, but I held it in, read the rest and I didn’t want to laugh anymore.
February 4th, 2012
That’s because you misread it; it says “if they ACE their other subjects” – meaning if they get perfect (or nearly perfect) grades in their other subjects, then that will bring their grade point average up to 3.0.