Recently there was a rumor spreading around my work that the earth was about to lose gravity for seven seconds and they should stay home to be safe.
Bosses are dumb. Use that to score extra vacation. Don’t rock the fucking boat.
No, no. It’s absolutely true.
Scientists have known for years that the Earth’s gravitational field is remarkably stable, except when I fart.
At precisely 8:47 PM, I unleashed a fart of such extraordinary magnitude that NASA immediately detected a gravitational anomaly.
For exactly seven seconds, gravity simply gave up.
Cars floated. Birds were suddenly extremely confused. Somewhere in Ohio, a man watched his refrigerator slowly drift toward the ceiling.
NASA scrambled to identify the source.
“Where is this coming from?”
The technician checked the instruments.
“Sir… Georgia.”
A long silence followed.
“Dear God.”
At exactly seven seconds, gravity returned.
Scientists are now studying the event.
I have been asked not to fart again.
I have declined to comment.
If the result is I’m staying home for the day I’m happy to spread it along.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodybuilding.com#2008_days-in-a-week_debate
Or spending multiple days arguing whether there are 7 or 8 days in a week.
Unlimited access to information, including finite amounts of knowledge, but also unlimited access to unlimited amounts of not-knowledge-at-all.
In the past there were gatekeepers. That sounds like a bad thing. In some ways it was. But, at least Walter Cronkite wasn’t allowed to go on a rant about the chemicals turning the frogs gay.
A TV with 100 channels of content and 1 billion channels of static.
This is something I realised growing. Information and actual knowledge are two separate things.
The former is withour filter and the latter is under scrutiny for proper verification. In the hands of layman, it can be impossible to properly determine.
The current LLM mania is just an extension of that ‘validation through evidence’ that has been on-going.
Unlimited amounts of an audience for everyone 🙃
Idiots exist with or without knowledge. What the world needs to learn is to not put idiots into positions of power, and to remove the ones that found their way into power.
Thousands of articles of misinformation isn’t power. It’s a reminder on what to avoid and fact check.
Soon the arbiters of actual facts will be so broke they can’t afford to peddle them anymore. Only those with financial incentive to shape truth will be providing “facts.”
AI will likely be their greatest hammer.
That’s absolutely right; the only problem is that those chief-idiot are so rich that they control most of what the Internet means to the vast majority of people.
That’s just how people are, unfortunately, as evidenced by the fact that platforms like Twitter or Reddit, for example, are still used by the masses.
Like I said: humanity needs to learn to not give such people power and to remove power from such people, too.
Why is kinda hard ito always do, idiots will follow idiots which will hate on different idiots or less idiots which makes hard for the less idiots to do anything
Sorry, idiots are popular with idiots so the idiots vote for the idiot and now the idiot is in charge.
Yes, because idiots allowed vile malicious non-idiots to gain control of their “news” media and stock markets, so OFC that went down hill fast.
Again: It’s all about preventing and removing idiots from power, not about trying to control the masses of idiots.
You control the up-stream. Fighting down-stream is just begging to be pissed on.
Sorry, power rests in the hands of the people.
Most of whom are idiots.
Sorry, power rests in the hands of the billionaires and oligarchs.
Ftfy
The people only have a facade
Well they’re also idiots.
You’re not wrong
To the oligarchs who have power they’re useful idiots.
They’d rather you blame the idiot orchestra than the conductor.
I’d rather blame all of us for leaving the trees.
It’s very clear that’s what happens. The concern now is what to do to break the system.
Exactly, the image is wrong. The internet does not provide unlimited access to knowledge, it provides (easily manipulable) access to information which may or may not be true.
It does provide nearly unlimited access to knowledge. But, the Internet user needs to bring their own ability distinguish knowledge from strongly held ignorant opinions.
If you’re an eye surgeon you can probably use the Internet to find out the newest techniques in eye surgery. You probably have enough knowledge of your own to spot fraudulent things, and to know where the real information can be found and how it can be vetted. OTOH, if you’re an eye surgeon, you might know nothing about farming, so you might not be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you’re not careful you might come away believing some crazy farming-related conspiracies.
I never feed trolls and I don’t read spam
-Albert Yankovich (early '00s philosopher)
Back when people were saying that unlimited access to knowledge was possible, they were also saying “don’t feed the trolls”.
When you engage with someone making a stupid statement or argument, you lend them your intellectual legitimacy. You implicitly acknowledge that, “this viewpoint is grounded enough to be worthy of debate”. In reality, some viewpoints are so absurd and ridiculous that they are not worthy of debate, and you get a societal benefit from simply laughing at them rather than engaging with them like they are legitimate people that can be persuaded by science and debate.
Stop feeding the trolls.
“Nazis are bad”
“AckShUaLlY…”
Actually shut all the way the fuck up.
Nazis were a product of their material conditions. They emerged from the Holocaust of WW1 and gave birth to the Holocaust of WW2.
Terror of the outside, the foreigner, and the radical didn’t begin with Nazism. And it sure as hell didn’t end with them.
So what is to be done? Just wagging your finger at folks 80 years in the grave isn’t cutting it.
Especially when the term has become so polluted and distorted with ideological baggage that it ends up being used like this.
Flat Earther: Complicated explanation on why it’s flat
Me: Your argument is flawed. Look the earth is flat but your argument is missing the important part.
Flat Earther: (leans in with excitement)
Me: The oceans, all of them, none of them are carbonated… all flat!
the more co2 we put in the atmosphere, the more carbonated the oceans will become
Fun fact, CO2 dissolved in water is acidic so not only are we heating it up we’re also poisoning it too!
You don’t cook much do you? You want to tenderize your meat with something acidic. Ocean water is already salty, so that takes care of some of the seasoning.
~🧑🍳 💋~
yeah the swedish name for carbonated drinks is literally kolsyrad, “carbonic acid-ed”.
Flat Earther: Sheesh, looks like somebody’s never heard of the Great Jurassic Shake-Up
🤣
It’s not flat, mountains exist.
Bumpiness is not flat!
The internet DOES give you unlimited access to knowledge. The problem is:
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Not all of that knowledge is useful
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Learning is pretty boring when compared to arguing with someone about a book neither of you have read but are too proud to admit it.
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You think 2005 was like that?
Also in 2005: a forum post about gingerbread recipies hijacked for a 20 page long debate about the existance of God
Untill I see an ocean bubble from the carbonation I’ll believe it’s flat
It’s both, the earth is like a pringle.
