I'm warning everyone. One more question about this absurd prediction, and I will set off my own mad scientist doomsday device in 2011 !

LoL Okay since @albanian already posted a funny answer, I would try to be serious on mine.

It's true that the Mayan's created a calendar that ends on December 21, 2012, but there could be other reasons why they didn't continue the calendar aside from the predictions that said something will come up that will trigger the end of our world.

Another thing, how did they predict such thing is happening? One, during those times, they aren't equipped with technological stuffs they could use in coming up with such conclusion. Two, from what I read, they are good astrologers and they predicted the end of the world through that. I don't believe in astrologers that much. They aren't really accurate.

One astrologer back then told me before that I'll have my first boyfriend in high school... that boyfriend never came in high school. XD

Big changes, probably. The Apocalypse, no.

The Mayans had what's called the "Long Count" calendar that went for some 5,000 years, ending on December 21st, 2012 (or December 23rd, depending on your sources). The end of the calendar simply means that a new cycle has begun - not that time has ended, not that the Apocalypse is nigh, not that the End Times have arrived. Think of it like December. When we celebrate New Year's Eve, are we celebrating the end of time? No, we're celebrating the end of an communally-established division of time that lasts approximately 365 days, and at the stroke of midnight we all move on to January, to another cycle of 365 days.

The Mayan Long Count calendar is just another measurement of time, and not a very accurate one. For instance, they didn't have leap days to factor in minute changes in their calendar over the years (which is what happened to astrological calendars, for example the "House of Libra" actually dominates something like March now instead of October, due to the change in Earth's wobble in relation to the stars and the imprecise measurement of time established by the calendar's founders).

So no, I don't believe one word of this "2012" stuff (though I did enjoy the movie). I realize times are bad, but times were bad during the Great Depression too, and during World Wars 1 & 2, and every other bad event that has happened in human history. The world didn't end then, and it won't end in 2012. The world will "end" in five billion years when our sun expands into a Red Giant and engulfs the Earth. Hopefully by then we'll have figured things out.

I'm Mexican, spend equal times in the USA, Mexico and Canada every year; I have no genealogical connection to southern Mexico, as my family is of northern origin;, but my fiancé does and I've spent a lot of time in Yucatan, Mexico, so I have actually had an opportunity to ask about this outside of the main urban areas, in villages were there are still, be it shrinking numbers, Mayan indians keeping traditional legends and stories alive. You would be amazed as to the low level of importance which they apply to the end of the long count calendar. A summation of their view on it is that it marks an end of the way things have been, but that for those of us who will alive at that time, we will not even to be aware that a change took place. It is akin to having one reality be substituted for another reality in a blink of an eye, one would not even be aware that the new reality has not been the way it has been in the past. That's the way it has been explained to me.

One other important note, they have also told me that whatever interpretation has been applied by them, keepers of the old tradition; or by Western archaeologists, neither they, nor the modern scientists have any real direct connection to the Ancient Mayan. They explain, as is historically correct, that by the time the Spaniards arrived in the Yucatan, the Mayan civilization which produced the calendar had already collapsed. The Mayans at that time were still present, but were living through a chain of villages and trading centers, a Dark Ages if you will, as opposed to the heights they had achieved 400 years earlier. They state this is important, in that they feel that whatever traditions they carry forward today have been compromised by their own precolonial collapse and of course the destruction of written records by the Spaniards when they arrived.

In essence, they state that yes the long count calendar will come to an end, some sort of change is to take place, but there is no physical end of the world. The passive attitude that they take is a stark contrast to what you see others across the globe take on the matter.

Complete nonsense that has unfortunately been exploited by a lot of people for commercial gain. I'm sure that if the ancient Mayans were around today, they'd both be a bit amused at how their "prophecy" has been interpreted and twisted, and horrified at what it's become in our culture.

Think about it, though. How many times have people predicted the End of Days? A lot. There are countless from Nostradamus alone. And how many of them have been right? Zero.

People can predict anything but no one can tell the prediction will happen. It OK for me if you have your own prediction.