Suppose I want people to believe that the little red lights atop of traffic lights sets have a funtion other than flashing when a fire truck goes by, how would I get the greatest number of people to believe?
The UL would be that there is also a small camera in them that takes pictures of the licence plates of cars running red lights, and that you’ll be mailed a ticket if caught by the camera. It’s semi-plausable, since if it can tell that a fire-truck is going by, it might be able to sense other things too, right?
I’m just curious how things equally or less plausable than this become “legends.” Any ideas how it happens?
First off you need to get rid of the idea of plausibility.
The bigger the lie the better. It will be believed more and you will get a bigger laugh out of it.
Second, do you have any friends who send you glurg? You know those stupid e:mails that have been fowarded ten housand times and tell stories about dying kids or how Bill and Hill were killing off all the democrates who didn’t support them. Tell that person. Then use some anom e:mail address and send an e:mail to them about it. Be sure to put FW: Please, Please, foward to everyone you know,VERY IMPORTANT as the subject line.
Yeah, I think starting an urban legend is kind of out of keeping the Straight Dope “fighting ignorance” mandate. I mean, Cecil’ll end up having to debunk a story that started right here on his own message board…
I didn’t say I actually ** would** try to start a UL, I just wanted to know if people had ideas on how it could be done.
You never know when that sort of info might come in handy while writing a story. Come to think of it, one of our abandoned interactive stories (link in my sig) is about a UL…Anyone want to add to it? knock yourself out.
In the Washington, D.C. area alone, hidden camera are being installed at traffic lights and at certain intersections to catch red-light runners and speeders. (Also to boost the city’s treasury, but never mind…) It has nothing to do with the flashing red lights. I don’t have the URLs to the appropriate articles, but if you look at recent articles in both the “Washington Post” and the “Washington Times” you will see this new technology is no longer an urban legend…
You had to have heard it from a “friend” who knew someone that was there;
OR
Saw it on the Oprah Winfrey show or read it in an out of state newspaper
It has to be a story that would scare the shit out of the listener if it happened to them
There should be some sort of conspiracy to cover the story up
It should be spooky.
Here we go!
**My next door neighbor’s cousin heard from his dentist that there was a story in the Kenosha Maroon saying that Straight Dope Message Board posters are mysteriously dying one by one thanks to a deadly computer virus installed by an angry banned member.
Apparently all the dead posters used a “magic word” when posting a message, and that word was actually read as a program that activated a deadly electronic signal out of a computer in Illinois. The signal works by sending “death impulses” to the users brain, and that person dies of a brain aneurism days later!
The Straight Dope website OF COURSE denies the story, and is banning all people who post on the subject there! THEY claim it’s because the story is causing panic amongst the Dopers . . .of course, this is what THEY want YOU to believe!
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No word on what that deadly “magic word” might be, since the signal also knocked the users off line . . . . ** :eek:
A good Urban Legend plays on people’s inherent Ignorance (hey, everyone has some… except me, of course, and Cecil). Make one up that sounds like it’s possible and plausible, or it plays off of something that people want to believe. For instance, you can start an Urban Legend that says that Dick Cheney has already written his will, and that it includes a request asking for several parts of the Constitution to be rewritten, and that ol Dubya intends to follow through in case our VP does croak in office.
You’ll get a lot of people who are, A: absolutely clueless about the the Constitution, and B: absolutely hate Dubya and would love another reason to hate him. They’ll pass this story along until voila!, Jay Leno is making jokes about Cheney’s desire to alter the Constitution.
One of my professors wrote a textbook and in one part she perpetuates the “rule of thumb” myth. So I copied http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000512.html and put it in her mailbox. I don’t know what her reaction was, if any.
You know, they caught the guy who started that “butt spider” story. He had his Internet access revoked for life. It’s true! The FCC sued the guy, in Federal Court; to try to stem the rising tide of made up shit on the Internet.
And about time, too!
Tris
" There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it." ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero ~
I heard that some group with close ties to the ACLU is trying to pass a law that prohibits the creation of knowingly-false text on the Internet, calling it “universal libel in general”. One of my dad’s friends is drafting up the law, working with ACLU representatives to ensure that it doesn’t directly violate the First Amendment.
No…I read it in the newspaper. This is a true story, but I was too lazy to look up the URLs at the “Washington Post” and “Washington Times.” They are installing hidding cameras at certain traffic lights, but it has nothing to do with which lights were flashing. However, since people disbelieve me on this thread, I’ll actually search the archives at both web sites and come up with the URLs. I believe the ACLU and certain members of Congress are fighting to get the cameras removied.
This teaches me not to post a fact on an “urban legends” thread without citations to back me up. I was certain that these hidden cameras were common knowlledge that I didn’t have to do so…
This is new? They’ve had systems like this in Europe for years. Great Britain has it for sure, and I think the Netherlands and a spattering of other countries on the continent may have. I was back in the states a month ago at the Car and Driver offices, and it was a pretty big debate in Michigan. Csaba Csere (the editor) said that the system is already implemented in several areas in the US. (See the Washington Post article.) He also said it was tested out in Arizona or New Mexico, but some pissed-off folks shot the cameras down. Heard some local Ann Arbor talk radio station discuss the issue and was surprised that almost all the callers AGREED with it. I thought we were more paranoid of government than that.
An even more interesting system they have in Europe is in France. On the tollways there, at the entrance you get a card, and you pay on exit depending on how many miles you’ve driven. HOWEVER, those sneaky little bastards also time how long it takes from you to get from point A to point B. So if you exit and you’ve made a 60 kilometer stretch of highway in 20 minutes (at 180 km/hr) rather than 30 (at 120 km/hr,) you’ll get a nice speeding fine in addition to your toll. What happens, of course, is you end up seeing a bunch of Porshes or Audis queueing up before the exit, taking a smoke break to make up the time. They’re considering this proposal in Hungary, as well.
OK, and here’s one even more unbelievable, but I’ve found the site to back me up here. The Netherlands are considering a proposal which would use global positioning satellites to determine the amount of road tax paid on roads used and distance travelled, rather than the flat fee they have now.
What next? Satellite-controlled speed limits? Hey, that’s not far off, and what’s todays UL can be tomorrow’s reality.
Damn! I actually was hoping when I got in this monrning as a rib the Moderators would have “banned” me for that story! That would have freaked some people out!
