The WTF Thread

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 3/31/2019 at 3:07 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

... according to the Flat Earth Society's wiki, their current theory is that the Earth is a disk with the North Pole at the center and Antarctica around the edge.  [....]  From what little I've read, they seem to have worked up a description that has good internal consistency, with explanations for the usual arguments against.  So it could be thought of as a sort of non-Euclidean geography....

It just occurred to me that the whole Flat Earth thing *could* be an exercise in logic, analogous to The Game played by Holmesians (who pretend very solemnly that Sherlock Holmes was real).  Or the Flat Earthers could be completely sincere.  Or there could be a mix -- and if the game-players keep a straight enough face, they might all get along just fine.

[J.P.]

I suspect there is actually both. Some have played the game and others solemnly believed them.
But I think if you confronted a playing game Sherlockian, none would insist Sherlock REALLY existed. Unlikely the FlatEarthers.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Logically, you should be right about all of the above.  But does logic necessarily have much to do with any of it?

[Arcadia]

One job I had, they had us take all these team-building workshops and personality quizzes and things like that. Probably sounds like a nightmare to some people, but I quite enjoyed them; I learned to value the traits that I have rather than believe I should try to be more like someone else. *Ahem* Anyway... one of the things I clearly remember learning, but still have difficulty coming to terms with, is:

"It is illogical to expect people to be logical."

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Arcadia said:

... one of the things I clearly remember learning, but still have difficulty coming to terms with, is:

"It is illogical to expect people to be logical."

If you ever want to have that point driven home, just try jury duty. 

[Arcadia]

I have never had the torture privilege of serving.

[J.P.]

7 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I learned to value the traits that I have rather than believe I should try to be more like someone else.

Well, if only the others valued them too.

[Carol the Dabbler]

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I have never had the torture privilege of serving.

I've been called up for jury duty several times, but actually served only once.  It was an interesting and rather convoluted case, but the final discussion amongst the jurors was maddeningly frustrating.  The defendant, an officer at the county jail, was accused of, among other things, taking a bribe from a prisoner.  Now the prisoner had told a totally different story at first, but then he accused this officer, and specified that he'd bribed him with money from his wallet, where it had been hidden behind the credit cards.  The officer denied everything (we saw the videotape), even after being told that he'd failed a lie detector test -- until the "technician" (a state policeman who'd had a couple months training on lie detectors) threatened that if he didn't confess to this one, he'd pin a few other similar cases on him.  At this point the guy said, oh whatever, all right, whatever you say, I did it!  (If the cop had threatened to frame me for all those crimes, I'd have confessed to killing my own grandmother at that point!)  Then the cop demanded details, asked him where the prisoner had gotten the money from, and the jailer said oh, out of his wallet, from behind the credit cards.

One juror said she'd believed the jailer was innocent until he said the money had been behind the credit cards, precisely as the prisoner had said.  I tried to point out that (as we'd been told) all known cash had been removed from the prisoner's wallet when he was booked into the jail, so a bribe could not have come from the billfold section of his wallet.  Therefore where else *could* it have come from, except from behind the credit cards?  But she just kept reiterating that the jailer had admitted to precisely the same detail the prisoner had mentioned, so she was now convinced he was guilty as sin.

We ended up with a hung jury.  (It wasn't just her and me; other people disagreed on other points.)  We were, however, unanimous that one of the charges did not apply to the case as presented by the prosecution, so at least we found him not guilty on that one charge.

11 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I learned to value the traits that I have rather than believe I should try to be more like someone else.

3 hours ago, J.P. said:

Well, if only the others valued them too.

Admittedly a lot of people won't value your traits unless they share them.  But if those aren't naturally your traits, and as long as your own natural traits are reasonably harmless, I don't see the point of faking it.  You probably wouldn't do a very good job of it anyhow -- at least I never could.

[Arcadia]

12 hours ago, J.P. said:

Well, if only the others valued them too.

Eh, to heck with them.

[J.P.]

But it's a bit annoying when people who are above you in the hierarchy, are so far below your level of competence that they cannot see how good you are…

(oooh shut up, Sherlock!)

[Van Buren Supernova]

6 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Eh, to heck with them.

The only place with general population that seems to understand my trait is here (at least that's what I think). Hella, fellow weirdos nuts!!! How you doin?? 😁

Jury duty sounds scary. It will probably take me forever to decide if the case is shady. How if you are the only one who sees something fishy, but it's difficult to convince others to reconsider and there is strong pressure from them to call it a day/week/month and close the case??

[Arcadia]

12 hours ago, J.P. said:

But it's a bit annoying when people who are above you in the hierarchy, are so far below your level of competence that they cannot see how good you are…

(oooh shut up, Sherlock!)

Yeah, but you know, right? That's what counts. Well, in some ways. The important ways, right? Right? (ooooh shut up, John!)

7 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

The only place with general population that seems to understand my trait is here (at least that's what I think). Hella, fellow weirdos nuts!!! How you doin?? 😁

 

I have no idea what you are talking about.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

12 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

How if you are the only one who sees something fishy, but it's difficult to convince others to reconsider and there is strong pressure from them to call it a day/week/month and close the case??

I've heard that one's fellow jurors can put pressure on one to conform.

I don't believe the jury I was in behaved in that way -- we just all tried to convince each other (and generally failed).  But there wasn't any lone holdout in our midst.  We pretty much all disagreed on one point or another.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Measles case raises 300% in first quarter of 2019, while first person was cured of HIV in March of the same year.

Some part of the world, people are still using snare and patience to catch food for their family, while on the others, people burst into schools and religious places with machine gun to kill their fellow human.

There are places where people are starving to death, and there are TV programs in others when food fight is considered entertainment.

 

What is the world we are living in?

[Arcadia]

I believe it's called "humanity." 😛 

[Fantasy Lover]

As someone who has autism, I find the existence of anti vaxers appalling. There is nothing more horrifying to know that some people are willing to risk the live and safety of their kids and others just because they are convinced having autism is the worst thing to happen to their child.

 

Anyway, two weird things happened to me: one was a grown woman asking me why the sky was blue, the other was a random kid giving me a hug, apparently I resemble someone he knows.

 

 

[Sheerluck]

Anti-vax morons, yes m-o-r-o-n-s , should have shirts made up saying, 'Make Polio Great Again.' Edjits.

[Carol the Dabbler]

3 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

As someone who has autism, I find the existence of anti vaxers appalling. There is nothing more horrifying to know that some people are willing to risk the live and safety of their kids and others just because they are convinced having autism is the worst thing to happen to their child.

Thanks for that perspective, FL.

... two weird things happened to me: one was a grown woman asking me why the sky was blue....

What did you tell her?

[J.P.]

I'm often amazed by the number of things adult people don't know. Lately, a coworker of me asked where cotton fibres come from. She never heard of Scientology either…

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm tempted to say "You mean cotton fiber comes from Scientology?!" but then Arcadia would accuse me of being a smartass, so I won't. 

Just today I was reading the fiber-content label on a garment that happened to be labeled in English and German (usually it's English and French here, due to Quebec and Louisiana, I suppose), and was reminded that the German word for cotton translates literally to "tree wool."  So if the woman asked you in German, maybe it was because she had never seen such stuff growing on a tree?  Over here there's a tree called a cottonwood (because the seeds come in fluffy little parachutes, like dandelion seeds), so I wouldn't be surprised if some people thought that's where cotton comes from.

[J.P.]

She had no idea at all. As she started to think about it, she brought up the "tree-wool" thing, but - as you noticed - it's not very helpful in German. Still, I've thought it's basic knowledge.

BTW, just recently I was quite amused about a sudden, meme-based outrage at the way silk is produced - by "murdering millions of little caterpillars by boiling them alive". Umm… yes. Since thousands of years.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 4/28/2019 at 8:44 PM, Arcadia said:

I believe it's called "humanity." 😛 

You have been using that excuse for way too many time, young lady.

On 5/4/2019 at 3:30 AM, Fantasy Lover said:

As someone who has autism, I find the existence of anti vaxers appalling. There is nothing more horrifying to know that some people are willing to risk the live and safety of their kids and others just because they are convinced having autism is the worst thing to happen to their child.

Agree.  

Anyway, could one of the actual reasons that they grow in number is because some people are simply too lazy to do so? I think there are some percentage of it, I really do, I've seen some lazy parents. Sooo many things to do in raising kids, so take a break from this one since some people say it's not good. Although I wonder if it's easier if they just wore condoms.

On 5/4/2019 at 3:30 AM, Fantasy Lover said:

Anyway, two weird things happened to me: one was a grown woman asking me why the sky was blue,

 

On 5/4/2019 at 6:47 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

What did you tell her?

NO!

My nephew once asked, why Superman's underwear is red. I gave him made-up reason. He went on to ask why it's not yellow. I gave him another explanation. Why it's not blue. Answer. And then he listed all the colors he knew, and for every explanations, there are branch-up questions. NO! IT'S A TRAP!

[J.P.]

1 hour ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

Anyway, could one of the actual reasons that they grow in number is because some people are simply too lazy to do so?

I would rather say, we have been living in a vaccinated society for too long - there is no clearly visible reason for doing it. If you lost a family member or a child to one of the diseases, you wouldn't ask twice. It seems to be a luxury problem.

[Arcadia]

18 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm tempted to say "You mean cotton fiber comes from Scientology?!" but then Arcadia would accuse me of being a smartass, so I won't. 

Who, me?

Once when I was working in the art supply store, we had these pencils made out of twigs. (Useless to draw with, but kind of cute.) One day this lady comes in and asks "but how do they grow the lead inside the tree?" (To her credit, she was embarrassed when I explained it to her....)

4 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

You have been using that excuse for way too many time, young lady.

Why, thank you!

On ‎5‎/‎4‎/‎2019 at 6:25 AM, J.P. said:

I'm often amazed by the number of things adult people don't know.

Same here. But then, I'm also often amazed by the number of things people of all sorts DO know. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

15 hours ago, J.P. said:

... just recently I was quite amused about a sudden, meme-based outrage at the way silk is produced - by "murdering millions of little caterpillars by boiling them alive". Umm… yes. Since thousands of years.

Most people don't know that, though, so if they just now found out, the effect on them would be as though the practice had just started.  It's hardly fair to say a person's not allowed to object to something just because it's been going on since before they were born.

Anyway yes, that's how they process silk (I've heard that the workers save the boiled caterpillars for a tasty snack).  If they let the caterpillars mature into moths instead, they'd chew their way out of their cocoons, thereby "ruining" (i.e., shortening) the fibers.  Then again, that's the way "wild silk" is, and it's considered a luxury item, so I guess it all depends on how you look at it.