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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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You survived the Mayan apocalypse, or at least transitioned to the next baktun, number 14 according to the Mayan calendar. But what real lessons does this ancient culture hold?
First and foremost, the Maya are a case study in adaptation. Their complex civilization of powerful city-states collapsed, and the jungle retook those urban centers. But the Mayan people endured, today being the principle ethnic population of parts of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.
European invaders did not end the era of the Mayan city-state. Although it was descendants of those Europeans who came up with this apocalypse mumbo-jumbo.
Research shows that what laid low Mayan society was something more insidious: climate change. A subtle shift in weather patterns brought less rain and the Mayan civilization was simply unable to cope with a prolonged dry period punctuated by several severe droughts.
Given that our highly complex civilization is also facing climate change, it might make sense to look back to the Maya for a glimpse of our future. Today much of the former Mayan city-states are nature preserves, dotted by ruins. Will we do better when faced with crippling and long-lasting drought in this, the 14th baktun?
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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9 Comments
Add CommentWell I guess Monsanto would come up with drought resistant strains of GM crops and the loony left would throw a fit about it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou should say Maya everywhere instead of Mayan. The Mayan adjective is reserved to their language. Otherwise, it's Maya civilisation, it's Maya people, it's Maya apocalypse, it's Maya society and so on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd could we please learn the difference between "principle" and "principal"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that would be a great idea. You eat it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you are one of the loonies? But no doubt that, as the rest remained fit and you became famelic, you would, at some point, end up eating Monsanto's draught resistant crops. Pride has its limits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArticle concluded with this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Today much of the former Mayan city-states are nature preserves, dotted by ruins. Will we do better when faced with crippling and long-lasting drought in this, the 14th baktun?"
You are saying this like it is a bad thing. Not saying it isn't, but can we not pause for a moment and consider.
The "loonie left" would disappear and the "right over their heads" would turn into cannibal stew.
Bet the polar bears would applaud, the birds sing and the wolves howl.
melcizedek: In case you're not aware, the Maya were on a completely different continent from the Jewish people and were quite unaware of their religion or the ones that derived from it until the Spanish arrived and started conquering them for good because might makes right. Is that in the Bible somewhere?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo loving God would judge an entire world worth of people and send them all to Hell for not believing in him when they had no idea that he existed. Also, as for ritual sacrifice, they had only to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and it would be irrelevant, so... That's christianity for you. I am unaware of the Maya carrying out any baby murder, however, but perhaps you mean non-baby non-murder.
For many of the Maya (and Aztec, and Toltec, etc.) sacrifices, warriors went berzerk in battle or competed in ballgames to EARN the right to go take the message of mankind to the gods. Then they were given a quick death by extracting the heart with two swift, expert knife cuts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, compare this to Torquemada's inquisition at the time of the conquest, where pious Christians tortured, dismembered and burned those who would not align to their faith and the "moral" values that they preached about but did not follow themselves.
Yeah, Maya were so, so evil they deserved to die, right?
Egomaniac Mayan spiritual leaders actually though that by hacking people's heads off and dropping them down the steps they were engaged in an altruistic pursuit of some kind. It was a good thing, they imagined. Actually, it's amazing what people can be conned into if they think it's for an altruitic reason. It makes them feel good about themselves and the hard thinking stops there and the screams disappear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, they had no AlGore and climate change got them. No EPA, no doo-good liberals, not young people with self esteem probmems, no true believers and no corporations writing insane grants. And, especially, no apolyptic AGW apocalyptic millenarian doomsday cult. They would have ben worse off if they had, of course, but try to tell that to a Democrat.
They should have all moved to California, got on State MediCal, food stamps, welfare, met nice people wanting to change America's democraphics so leftists could begin winning elections. They would have been useful enough for those purposes. We must hope they don't start building temples again. Apocalypto the movie was as far as I ever want to come to something like that. Thinking about that makes concealed carry a good idea. If those captured villagers would have had pistolsn with high-cap magazines, no way would the Mayan have hauled them off to get chopped, skinned, burned or whatever the altruists and spiritual leaders had in mind. Just leave people alone.