Will Santa’s workshop burn faster when the Mayan apocalypse happens because he’s got so much coal to deliver for Christmas?
I’m pretty sure we won’t have to worry about the answer to that question, but it’s a thought. The only reason I’m bringing up the subject is because some people talk about how if the Mayans could really predict the future, they would have predicted the arrival of “Spanish dudes with steel and influenza” (quote courtesy of one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore). Here’s my problem: How can a race of people avoid getting annihilated?
Think about it. “A bunch of people will be sailing into the harbor next month. Their weapons are much better than ours and we’ll get very sick if they get too close. They want to kill us, ravage our lands, then hang around for a long, long time. Hmmm… okay, here’s the plan: we huddle up in a cave with some blankets, my teddy bear and a Swiss Army pocketknife… we should be fine for the next five or ten years.”
And I can hear you all screaming, “That’s ridiculous! The Spanish didn’t invade Switzerland to steal their pocketknives before going overseas to wipe out the Mayans!” I’ll grant you that, which means the Mayans wouldn’t have had any of the little gizmos and they’d have to use spears to open canned goods while hiding in their bunkers that they built to avoid getting wiped out.
Seriously, people. Even if the Mayans knew that the Spanish were coming, what could they do about it? They didn’t have bunkers, they didn’t have pocketknives and they didn’t have teddy bears. They were screwed.
