"It's Just a Myth!" - Common Misbeliefs

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

In an era where everyone has Google in their pocket, there are still a lot of old wives tales and brain-boggling "facts" that continue to be passed around via word of mouth from one generation to the next.

 

What are some common things that people believe that are total bullshit? For example, the thing about going to bed with wet hair and getting pneumonia. 

 

It can be about any topic, but try to avoid political discussion. Try to think about things that your parents/family told you when you were a kid.

[7Mahonin]

That shotguns spread so much with their shotgun shell pellets that you don’t have to aim.

 

In most home defense situations, the distance from the shooter to the suspect isn’t typically far enough for the pellets to spread far enough to extend the size of an average human size closed fist.
 

If you miss because you thought you didn’t have to aim, that’s a potential fist sized hole through someone or something you did not intend to defend yourself against, and you are responsible for the trajectory each of the pellets take, so not aiming is a big mistake in most situations beyond point blank range, which is not where you want to be against a threat to your life, with a gun or not. 

 

This is a myth that has been disproven time and again be it through live range test or from real world application use, but there are still plenty of people, including those that own shotguns and think they know everything there is to know about guns, that believe this to be true.

 

This is how misinformation about firearms spreads typically, from those who don’t actually know what they’re talking about spreading their shit to people who know even less.
 

Well, despite the evidence of the contrary being true, this remains the most globally believed myth related to firearms and has been believed by people for many centuries. Let’s be the generation that no longer spreads, no pun intended, this bogus shotgun spread myth. 

Edited May 7, 2022 by 7Mahonin

[Murdoch]

People are for better or worse creatures of habit, and false beliefs are very difficult to kill off as a result.

 

One i heard recently was the men think about sex every seven seconds which is of course completely ludicrous.

 

It's four seconds.

[Dark Pulse]

Colds actually coming from sitting on cold surfaces or such.

[ducon]

This is my source: http://skepdic.com/.

I also own the book.

[RDETalus]

There's this odd one I've heard:

It's faster to boil a pot of cold water than it is to boil a pot of hot water, because thermodynamics

[Sena]

Hamburgers aren't actually from Hamburg.

[Goat-Avenger]

You shouldn't eat, right before going to bed.

You shouldn't eat before going for a swim.

 

I don't remember the supposed reasons behind those, however.

 

The only logical reason I can think of to not eat before bed, is if you've brushed your teeth already.  And the only reason I can think of not to eat before swimming would be if you were a nervous type of person, prone to throwing up or something.

 

I find it hard to sleep without having a small meal before hand, myself. 

[Redneckerz]

List of common misconceptions - Wikipedia

 

The thread.

[Nikku4211]

Some people still believe that whatever position within circumsolar orbit the Earth happened to be in when they were born affects most people's personality or luck.

[Doomkid]

Maybe going to bed with wet hair or sitting on cold surfaces doesn’t give one pneumonia, but still, screw doing either of those things.

 

Also, exposure to cold suppresses the immune system, making the risk of infection higher, so I’d say these are not  necessarily myths. (Though I doubt sitting on a cold chair for a minute or going to bed with slightly damp hair in a mild climate is going to do all that much).

 

10 hours ago, Sena said:

Hamburgers aren't actually from Hamburg.

And they aren’t made of ham, either.. What the hell are these things?!

[gwain]

21 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

What the hell are these things?!

ground beef 

 

 

Quote

You shouldn't eat before going for a swim.

I don't remember the supposed reasons behind those, however.

it was started by pool keepers because food wrappers and trash would get scattered along the poolside so they scared people out of trashing the place

 

 

[Caffeine Freak]

17 hours ago, Goat-Avenger said:

You shouldn't eat, right before going to bed.

 

At best, this is still regarded as a contentious topic. The basic logic is that your activity level and metabolism slow down when you sleep, and this can lead to weight gain if you regularly eat too much before bed or eat too closely to bedtime. How much you should eat or how closely it should be to bedtime may vary from person to person, but I think it's quite a stretch to call this a myth.

[Solmyr]

One i heard when i was a kid, was that if you swallow bubblegum, it will stay on your stomach forever.

This is total bs, because you will eventually shat it out, it's actually the lighter stuff like hair and cuted nails that will float on the stomach acid and will remain there for an indefinite ammount of time, until they get stuck on food and pass through the pylori, or get pushed on by ingested liquids.

 

Another one, but seen in media and videogames, humans don't explode when they get exposed to the vacuum of space, our bodies are sturdy enough to withstand the drop in pressure from 1 atmosphere to 0, we DO explode when we are exposed and accustomed to work in environments with a pressure of several atmospheres, and there's a sudden drop to 1 or 0. 

 

We only use 10% of our brain. We use 100% of our brain but not all the time, some regions are more active than others at different times and circumstances, besides the mind and everything associated with it, the brain also carries out other important functions for our survival like motor functions, processing of sensory input, getting hormonal feedback from the endocrine system and regulate it, also the brain requires 20% of our caloric intake to funcion, evolution wouldn't have a need for such expensive useless mush if we only used 10% of it's full capacity.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2022 by Solmyr

[Xcalibur]

There's a common myth that everyone thought the world was flat centuries ago, and we only found out that it's round in the modern era. For the most part, this is false. There were in fact some ancient cultures that believed in a flat Earth, but round Earth was figured out in Ancient Greece and India, and the knowledge proliferated from there (it's not a coincidence that those were two of the most philosophically oriented civilizations). Europe at the time of Columbus 500+ years ago largely understood that the Earth was round, in fact there's a globe that dates back to the 1400's that leaves out the Americas because they weren't discovered by Europe yet. Columbus' whole idea was to circumnavigate the globe in order to find an alternate route to the spices of Indonesia & East Asia (and bumped into a new continent along the way), which would only be viable if they knew the Earth is round.

 

Centuries later, with far better knowledge, a combination of contrarians, fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, memers etc believe the Earth is flat, even though there are basic proofs that it's not: you can't see the Himalayan Mountains from far away, the sky flips upside-down when you cross the equator, and the constellations are different.

[ClumsyDoomer]

Doom engine == GZDoom
"Hey, look at these 3d models, slopes and dynamic lights, this is all made with DoOm EnGinE, amazing"

[RDETalus]

20 hours ago, Nikku4211 said:

Some people still believe that whatever position within circumsolar orbit the Earth happened to be in when they were born affects most people's personality or luck.

 

I think this is true though. If you're born under Scorpio, people will treat you as a Scorpio and you end up rising to those expectations. No different than if you named your kid "Chad" or something.

[Nikku4211]

2 hours ago, RDETalus said:

I think this is true though. If you're born under Scorpio, people will treat you as a Scorpio and you end up rising to those expectations.

 

Only if you're around said people who care whatever position within circumsolar orbit the Earth happened to be in when you were born, and only in a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' kind of way.

 

If you're not around these people, then really, it doesn't really matter unless you end up one of them.

 

I've never heard a stranger assume what position the Earth was in when I was born based solely on my own actions, not a lot of the people I've heard in real life over the years actively talk about this very often, as far as I can tell.

[RDETalus]

1 hour ago, Nikku4211 said:

Only if you're around said people who care whatever position within circumsolar orbit the Earth happened to be in when you were born

 

Yes, of course.

 

I live in asia where this stuff is extremely prevalent. A potential marriage can be cancelled by the families if they feel a horse zodiac and a rat zodiac can't co-exist together.

[Nikku4211]

13 hours ago, RDETalus said:

Yes, of course.

 

I live in asia where this stuff is extremely prevalent. A potential marriage can be cancelled by the families if they feel a horse zodiac and a rat zodiac can't co-exist together.

 

That sucks.

 

Generally, in the western country I live in(and probably some other occidental countries), those kind of people who think zodiacs mean everything seem to be the laughingstock, especially on social media.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Nikku4211

[Jaccident]

On 5/7/2022 at 10:20 AM, Goat-Avenger said:

The only logical reason I can think of to not eat before bed, is if you've brushed your teeth already

 

Yeah, my dad's a dentist so I hear about this quite a bit. Once you've brushed your teeth you shouldn't eat or drink anything containing sugar - basically you should only drink water, although some sugar-free hot chocolates are fine, apparently. This is because if you eat something sugary then that gives some kind of bacteria a lot of food, which leads to a massive amount of plaque build up over the course of that night. I can't remember the exact reasoning but I'm pretty sure that's mostly right.

[act]

As someone you can consider a quasi-Romaboo, I get really angry whenever I hear people go "The Roman Empire came before the Republic". It's full of misconceptions. Firstly, the ordering is obviously incorrect, but that's just a mistake that will eventually be made. But it usually comes from this strange idea that progress is guaranteed; that as time goes on, things will get "better" in the eyes of modern-day society. When the average person hears "Empire" they probably think of a ridiculously brutal and authoritarian dictatorship that, while true for like 20% of all Empires, isn't a complete no-questions-asked rule for how Empires are ran. And when the average person hears "Republic", they think of a beautiful utopia where everything is fair and just and free and open and all of that. And so when your average person hears Rome was, within its history, both a Republic and Empire, they believe that Rome had to be an Empire first because then it would start evil and eventually progress into the all-good Republic.

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

2 hours ago, act said:

As someone you can consider a quasi-Romaboo, I get really angry whenever I hear people go "The Roman Empire came before the Republic". It's full of misconceptions. Firstly, the ordering is obviously incorrect, but that's just a mistake that will eventually be made. But it usually comes from this strange idea that progress is guaranteed; that as time goes on, things will get "better" in the eyes of modern-day society. When the average person hears "Empire" they probably think of a ridiculously brutal and authoritarian dictatorship that, while true for like 20% of all Empires, isn't a complete no-questions-asked rule for how Empires are ran. And when the average person hears "Republic", they think of a beautiful utopia where everything is fair and just and free and open and all of that. And so when your average person hears Rome was, within its history, both a Republic and Empire, they believe that Rome had to be an Empire first because then it would start evil and eventually progress into the all-good Republic.

That´s less of a misconception and more of a pure ignorance and also shows how flawed for the most part the school system is around the world.

[act]

3 hours ago, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

That´s less of a misconception and more of a pure ignorance and also shows how flawed for the most part the school system is around the world.

Fair point.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

My favorite is the myth about LSD staying active in your spinal fluid forever. It would save me a lot of bitcoin if all I had to do was crack my back like a glowstick every time I wanted to return to Planet Xenononoid. There are a lot of misconceptions about drugs, but most of them piss me off rather than amusing me.

[7Mahonin]

38 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

There are a lot of misconceptions about drugs, but most of them piss me off rather than amusing me.

Yeah, same here. I don’t mind people who don’t do drugs, fine, but don’t spread total made up bullshit of what you assume the drugs do or don’t do. 

[Mr. Freeze]

There are people who literally and unironically believe the X-Wing is cooler than the Y-Wing

[Azuris]

You shouldn't eat hot bread/cake or its Dough.

 

It comes from the Time after World War 2 when Ressources were rare and they wanted to prevent Kids to eat that yummi Stuff.

 

[ducon]

There are people who believe that you should not plant carrots today because today is a leaves-day. Tomorrow is a roots-day, then there is the flowers-day and then the fruits-day. What about potatoes or mushrooms?

Oh, I forgot the order but you can understand the belief.

[Sarmenti]

On 5/8/2022 at 5:08 AM, ClumsyDoomer said:

Doom engine == GZDoom
"Hey, look at these 3d models, slopes and dynamic lights, this is all made with DoOm EnGinE, amazing"

That's something that irks me whenever modern modding breaks into the main stream, though I do suppose the average reader of gaming news isn't exactly the brightest lightbulb, so it makes sense to just call it "In Doom™"

 

Still, they could at least mention what its running on, because I'm pretty sure recreating 2016 isn't possible in vanilla, at least without some major concessions as we've seen.