this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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Rob is blowing a whistle, over and over.

Bob: "Why are you blowing that whistle, Rob?"

Rob: "To keep the dragons away."

Bob: "I see no dragons."

Rob: "It works!"

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[–] justlookingfordragon@lemmy.world 52 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (8 children)

"You just turned 100 today - what's your secret to a long life?" - No matter what the answer will be, I guarantee you that there are millions of people in the world who do the exact same and still die young. But yeah, of course aunt Margharet only managed to live an entire century because she ate three cans of surströmming every week, no doubt. Genetics, healthcare and lifestyle have nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.


Edit/addendum: Weird specific example

Something similar was also my no.1 pet peeve on reddit whenever people argued about how the Blood Moon works in Breath of the Wild. It's an in-game timer of roughly 3 hours, but the game does not tell you about it, nor does it display the timer, and back when the game code wasn't cracked yet, there were a LOT of outrageously weird theories about how to allegedly make the Blood Moon appear.

So you just "made" a BM happen by running straight into a wall for 3 hours? Yes you got a BM, but not "because" you were running into a wall for 3 hours, but because the effing timer was up. The game does not care for WHAT you do in that time.

So you reloaded and ran into a wall again and the BM happened again? It is STILL not because you ran into a wall - you rewinded the effing timer by reloading a save file from before the event you're trying to trigger, and then the timer was up again. (They never bothered to check whether it would happen if they did not try to trigger it with their chosen tactic)

It is really really hard to try and convince these people that they're wrong, because once they're convinced that a specific action yields a specific result, they WILL keep doing it over and over again until it "works" and then see it as proof. But by the same logic you can also throw tomatoes at a wall until it starts to rain and then claim that the rain happened because you just threw 547 tomatoes against a wall. And then you continue to throw tomatoes because it "worked" last time ... and if it doesn't rain then you just didn't throw enough tomatoes yet.

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The real secret is to not die.

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[–] Nougat@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

So you just “made” a BM happen ...

Poop goes in the potty.

[–] Nemo@midwest.social 5 points 11 months ago

Technically, eating three cans a week is lifestyle.

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[–] lemmefixdat4u@lemmy.world 38 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The most prevalent has got to be, "We prayed and -insert name- recovered - it's a miracle!

And if the person dies: "It's the will of God."

[–] Witchfire@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago (3 children)

When doctors save a person, "God saved this person!"

No, it was Dr. Jakobs but go on

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[–] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, or the post hoc fallacy, in general.

Basically in OP's case, I did this and something did or didn't happen. Therefore, what I did caused that something to happen or not happen.

Another comment used a survivorship bias with people that survived when others died or just living longer than other people. That's also an example of the post hoc fallacy. The idea that the survivor did something that caused them to live isn't necessarily true. They couldn't just got lucky.

It's also the foundational fallacy that connects the president to economic outcomes. Ask any economist: the president can't control the economy, and his influence is severely limited.

[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 30 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I can't believe nobody has said religion. All of it. Praying to god being a prime example.

[–] Chobbes@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You know, I always used to think praying was incredibly stupid, and I’m sure plenty of people treat it in a way that’s… not really in the right spirit / ineffective? But recently it’s started to make a lot more sense to me. If you’re praying to god in an effort to directly influence the real world I think you’re misguided… If you think of prayer as a time to consider what you’re grateful for and what you want for the future, it actually seems like a really sensible mental health practice. To be clear, I am and always have been an atheist, and I don’t particularly like religions as a whole, but it seems like some of these things I’ve always found odd (like prayer) stem from something that could actually be reasonable and helpful but got corrupted by some game of telephone and people not understanding metaphors lol.

[–] sh00g@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago

Prayer can be a powerful self meditation tool. It's effectively a way to organize your thoughts by talking to yourself. What is not helpful is sending "thoughts and prayers" every time something bad happens without actually attempting to do anything to address the problem at hand.

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[–] cameron_vale@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

That depends on experience. Plenty of people have seen religious stuff while tripping, meditating, NDE etc.

And plenty of people believe stuff just because it's popular to think that way. Which is arguably just as bad.

[–] octoperson@sh.itjust.works 28 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Placebo buttons.

Some appliances like elevators or traffic crossings cycle automatically, but they still have (non-functional) buttons. If the buttons are removed, people complain that the wait is too long. Let them push a button while they wait, and they'll think it's much quicker.

[–] Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works 19 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Some of these actually do have an effect, but it's difficult to impossible for a person to know whether this particular one is a placebo button or not.

This is especially the case with elevator close door buttons. Those buttons are always hooked up, because they are needed during emergency operation with the fireman's key. They are sometimes programmed to cycle the doors marginally faster under normal circumstances, but more often aren't.

Also, some of the traffic crossing buttons don't make the walk cycle come sooner, but they occasionally are needed to insert a walk cycle at all, because some intersections don't trigger a walk cycle unless the button has been pressed.

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Also, some of the traffic crossing buttons don't make the walk cycle come sooner, but they occasionally are needed to insert a walk cycle at all, because some intersections don't trigger a walk cycle unless the button has been pressed.

Some? In my area all the lights require a button press for a walk cycle. Even if the traffic lights turn red for the cars (e.g. in an intersection for cross-traffic), the pedestrian lights will stay red too unless the button was pressed.

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[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Herbal supplements, magnets, crystals, horoscopes...

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[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Cargo cult mentality?

Like how island natives after WWII would build ritual airstrips to summon American cargo planes.

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[–] PlasterAnalyst@kbin.social 20 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"that's the way we've always done it" at any job ever.

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[–] NewPerspective@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I X and it rained; for X in:

  1. Washed the car
  2. Hung out the washing
  3. Watered the garden
[–] Archpawn@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)
  1. Rain dance And we're not clear on this one, but:
  2. Seeding clouds for rain
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[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 13 points 11 months ago

I always liked the expression "asteroid insurance"

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] threeduck@aussie.zone 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

"Specious reasoning" is all I can think of. That's what Lisa Simpsons says when Homer thinks the Bear Patrol is working like a charm (because there's not a bear in sight).

[–] Sway_Chameleon@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's a logical fallacy called "post hoc, ergo propter hoc". The assumption that an event is caused/prevented by something that preceded it.

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[–] charlytune@mander.xyz 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Taking echinacia (sp?) to get rid of a cold. I've given up trying to tell my friends they're wasting their money because they believe it works, because they start feeling better, and won't be told that that was going to happen anyway.

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[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (5 children)

All superstitions. Lucky charms (not the cereal). Curses (eg. Everytime I cheer for this sport team they lose, but they win when I don't cheer, so it must be a curse).

[–] FaceDeer@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

The classic Superstition in the Pigeon study by B. F. Skinner back in 1948 is always a good thing to read when this subject comes up.

Otherwise something awful might happen.

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[–] Froyn@kbin.social 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Average person Buying or Selling stock has an impact on the price of the stock.

[–] LapGoat@pawb.social 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

yeah I do, when I buy the stock goes down when I sell the stock goes up

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[–] databender@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Hahaha... ahem haha. Love this.

[–] DreamySweet@ani.social 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Tapping the top of a can of soda to prevent it from making a mess when you open it.

[–] digger@lemmy.ca 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

This totally works. If you make a mess... You didn't tap it enough. /s

[–] ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

Pretty sure they showed on Mythbusters that tapping the side of the can is actually much more effective. The reason is that bubbles form all around the edges (and top) of the can and they cause the massive bubbling up when the can opens.

[–] ShunkW@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

pushes glasses up my nose well actually, flicking the side of the can will work because the carbon dioxide will have space to expand and be reabsorbed.

[–] digger@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Did you ever hear about what happened to the know-it-all? He fell into a well, actually.

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[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like how dogs chase the mailman away.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Okay, so the other day we were doing yardwork and my weird cat was hanging out with us. A dude rode by on his bike and my cat took off after him. He turned around and came back, got off his bike, sat down on our porch laughing and told us "No one is going to believe me. I've never been chased by a cat before. I've been chased by dogs, but... I had to tell someone." I mean that's our cat. I can believe it. But it was pretty funny to watch. I wish I'd gotten it on film.

[–] cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world 4 points 11 months ago

All the rituals that baseball players perform.

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