[ExI] mayan forecast

[Mike Dougherty]

I wouldn't have expected such a visceral and widely-varied reaction to
commentary about Mayan calendar.

Anders' reply was closest to my thoughts on the Judeo-Christian
paradigm shift to linear time.  Yeah, I know we're all better than the
primitives because they had rocks and silly ideas and we have
Science... No doubt our science will appear equally primitive and
quaint in another 5k years.

My takeaway from thinking about cyclic time was that our linear habits
tend to blind us to cyclic behaviors.  Of course the 2012 Olympics
will remain forever in the past.  Consider fashion trends though.
They don't happen once and stay dead forever.  What drives fashion?
Novelty?  New things are cool until that coolness is diluted by
mainstream adoption and the style goes out of fashion.  We forget, we
rediscover.  Retro becomes cool again because it's violated the rule
of eschewing old styles.  I wasn't trying to propose that the Mayans
had it all right.  I was attempting to convey (share) that they might
have had a different perspective on Life because of their different
perspective on Time.

Economics follow a cycle too.  Most _want_ to believe indefinitely
enduring growth.  Has anything ever delivered on that promise?