Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> OK, good point.  Allow me to clarify: it's the IDEA that annoys me, and 
> not the movie per se.

> The reason being that the idea is supposedly based on Mayan beliefs, but 
> 5 minutes of research will show that the idea is flawed.

  Why? Speculative fiction is all about "what if?"

  "What if the Mayan calendar really predicts the end of the world in 2012,
like some people believe, and that it will really happen?"

  If you always go with "hey, that's not true, that can't happen", then you
ruin most movies for yourself.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> I don't think the Mayan calendar predicted anything for 2012 different 
> than the Roman calendar predicted for the year 2000.

That's not exactly true, the Mayan's predicted the return of
Bolon Yookte' K'uh, Quetzalcoatl etc.

Of course they used to stab a rope thru their tounge, and
stingray barbs thru their foreskin, so they couldn't have
been very smart. I bet the rope was first so that the
the other guys in the mutilation line wouldn't hear how
bad the barbs hurt.

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Warp schrieb:

>   If you always go with "hey, that's not true, that can't happen", then you
> ruin most movies for yourself.

... which is perfectly legal for anyone to do, if they feel like it.

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clipka <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> Chambers schrieb:
>
> > Now, if they wanted to make a movie about the end of the world, and just
> > said, "It's the end of the world!" then I wouldn't mind.  But basing a
> > disaster movie on 2012 is akin to basing a Sci Fi movie on the idea that
> > 1+1=yellow.
>
> As any serious Douglas Adams fan knows, this formula is wrong; instead,
> the correct formula is:
>
>    3+2 = a suffusion of yellow
>
> :-)

Adams' 3rd Law:
Any sufficiently random sentence is indistinguishable from a Douglas Adams quote
:)

....Chambers

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Warp wrote:
> Chambers <Ben### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>> OK, good point.  Allow me to clarify: it's the IDEA that annoys me, and 
>> not the movie per se.
> 
>> The reason being that the idea is supposedly based on Mayan beliefs, but 
>> 5 minutes of research will show that the idea is flawed.
> 
>   Why? Speculative fiction is all about "what if?"
> 
>   "What if the Mayan calendar really predicts the end of the world in 2012,
> like some people believe, and that it will really happen?"
> 
>   If you always go with "hey, that's not true, that can't happen", then you
> ruin most movies for yourself.
> 

The key bit being: "like some people believe". We have enough idiots in 
the world already. Making a moving that plays to not just the kooks, but 
the vast number of twits likely to look at the kooks for advise on if 
its true or not, instead of say.. historians, is imho, always a bloody 
stupid idea. And, its made even more idiotic when you run ads constantly 
saying its true (even if its only an ad), and running a web site for the 
"lottery" to "win a place on the ship, when it all happens".

Another case in point. When are these people going to finally give up 
and decide their nonsense is BS, instead of selling the idea to more people:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/you_only_have_a_few_days_leftt.php

Its like if the Mayan calender had predicted the end to be 4 days ofter 
it was found, according to the wackos, and they kept going, "Ah, well, 
maybe we just read it wrong and its 4 days from next Wednesday..."

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       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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Warp wrote:
>   Why? Speculative fiction is all about "what if?"

Did you know that Isaac Asimov thought robots *should* enslave humanity, 
and perform ritual sacrifice of all female babies?  It's coming out in a 
movie next week!  And it's really cool, because it's based on his actual 
writings!

...Chambers

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Chambers schrieb:

> Did you know that Isaac Asimov thought robots *should* enslave humanity, 
> and perform ritual sacrifice of all female babies?  It's coming out in a 
> movie next week!  And it's really cool, because it's based on his actual 
> writings!

Uhm... Asimov wrote a /lot/ of speculations about "robotic societies"; 
you definitely have to distinguish between...

- how the societies in his stories worked
- what any individual story argued in favor of
- what Asimov personally expected future society to be like
- what Asimov personally believed best

If you examine Asimov's works carefully, I guess you'll find that as a 
whole they appear to be an attempt to /discuss/ this topic, rather than 
advocate one particular result.

For instance, some stories paint a negative picture of robots enslaving 
humanity "for their own best" - a motif that the movie "I, Robot" picked 
up pretty well.

Other stories paint a basically positive picture of robots "conspiring" 
to secretly rule mankind, but discuss the difficulty those robots would 
have to decide what really is best for mankind - both regarding the 
structure of society, as well as how to direct mankind towards this goal.

I personally believe that just like the robots in his stories, Asimov 
himself was searching for the "0th law" (the one that would place the 
well-being of humanity above that of individual persons), and how to 
balance it with the "1st law" (the one that places the well-being of 
individuals above orders), while being well aware that he was far from 
an answer; I think it is no coincidence that in his stories, he set the 
discovery of an answer to this question in the far future, and portrayed 
it as a collaborative efforts across generations.


... uh, wait - your posting was ironic, right?

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clipka wrote:
> ... uh, wait - your posting was ironic, right?

Sarcastic, but you get the idea ;)

...Chambers

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My POV :-)

The end of the World is like POV-Ray 4.0 is gonna be done when is done, 
the rest are nice theories that I like watching, specially if they are 
nicely done like this movie.

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Chambers wrote:
> clipka wrote:
>> ... uh, wait - your posting was ironic, right?
> 
> Sarcastic, but you get the idea ;)
> 
> ....Chambers
I don't get you, either, you want the end of the World to happen or 
you're terrified by it, I don't see a reason for either.

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