# Obscure mundane things that kind of blow your mind sometimes **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 10, 2022, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249 "2022-02-10T21:57:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/21 "2022-02-11T19:00:37Z")
A **teaspoon** of productive soil generally contains between 100 million and 1 billion bacteria. That is as much mass as two cows per acre. A ton of microscopic bacteria may be active in each acre. Source: Ohioline, Ohio State University Extension. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/22 "2022-02-11T19:34:12Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Around **60 percent** of the world’s population — 4.5 billion people — either have no toilet at home or one that doesn’t safely manage human waste. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > Just having a device as powerful as a cellphone in my pocket periodically gets my attention. I am too lazy to dig up a cite, but I remember hearing a stat on the BBC that more people in India have cell phones than access to a toilet. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/23 "2022-02-11T19:41:35Z")
Screws. Imagine the gear, materials, skill and patience you’d need to make one ordinary carpentry screw. But you can pick up a box of 100 for about $7. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/24 "2022-02-11T19:49:37Z")
[https://www.pilotonline.com/news/article\_af985e92-70f4-5d16-80e1-18153344757f.html](https://www.pilotonline.com/news/article_af985e92-70f4-5d16-80e1-18153344757f.html) All those pennies together weigh about 2¾ tons. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/25 "2022-02-11T20:30:41Z")
The universe is very empty ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/26 "2022-02-11T20:56:42Z")
Much of how we experience the world (TV, computers, internet, air travel) has only existed within the lifetime of some people walking around. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/27 "2022-02-11T21:06:14Z")
That societies operate on a mutually-agreed-upon concept of time. ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/28 "2022-02-11T21:09:33Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > I’ve got NON-human fur balls cohabitating with me in my home. I often think about that when I walk down the hall and one of our cats walks past going the other direction on the way to do…something. Two cohabiting different species going about their business separately. Each on a different mission. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/29 "2022-02-11T21:09:39Z")
Everything around us (including ourselves) is mostly empty space. It blows my mind that we do not fall through things that are mostly nothing: the solidity of matter. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/30 "2022-02-11T21:20:46Z")
Like this? ![](https://c.tenor.com/d8IpWH6LvsgAAAAC/ballooncat-cats.gif "Balloon Cat Wants Balloon. GIF - Ballooncat Cats Balloons - Discover & Share...") ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/31 "2022-02-11T21:31:41Z")
Baking. How humanity has come up with so many ways to mix flour (or not!) and whatever else to create so many different things, with such precise amounts of ingredients. Bread itself seems amazing to me. Hell, the existence of wheat flour blows my damn mind. Factories also blow my mind. Getting all those machines to work in concert to produce complex things (sometimes they produce bakery!) Woah. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/32 "2022-02-11T21:37:05Z")
That this Rube Goldburg contraption that we call the human body can actually keep going for multiple decades. If you think about all of the myriad things that have to happen in order to keep it going, all of which were kludged together by trial and error evolution, and any of which can go catastrophically wrong in an infinitude of different ways, its amazing that any of us last more than a couple of hours, yet live long enough to make inexact copies of a whole new contraption that also somehow works for decades. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/33 "2022-02-11T21:43:15Z")
I am the product of untold numbers of successful matings, stretching back millions of years. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/34 "2022-02-11T21:48:20Z")
The development of spoken languages fascinates me. There are 7139 known languages in the world at this time. How did they all come to be? Who decided this word means that thing? Look at all the languages spoken among the nations of Europe alone. People in a country right next door to another will speak entirely differently. I’m amazed (in English). In French I would be “etonne”; in Spanish “asombrado”; in Italian, “stupito”; in German, “estaunt.” And should I ever encounter a person speaking Zulu, I would be “mangaza.” And speaking of Germany, it seems every third language has a different name for that country. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/35 "2022-02-11T21:49:29Z")
Going back to post 11, I’d say not millions, but billions of years. Yes, that is amazing. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/36 "2022-02-11T22:29:13Z")
Driving. I actually think about it a lot while I’m participating. We have millions of people who are performing a potentially dangerous activity based on some minimal formal (or informal) training they probably underwent many years ago, obscure and overly-complex statutes that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, signage placed by a variety of civil employees, and a weird mix of cultural and social customs. There’s a whole lot of trust going on there. Piloting an airplane is complex, but only a very limited number of people are permitted to do it and only after significant training and ongoing certification. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/37 "2022-02-11T22:44:39Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > We are all standing on a rotating ball. I never really got it until I took an astronomy class and had to spend a night on a rooftop tracking the movement of the stars. Realizing that we are slowly moving through space at all times makes me slightly dizzy. The part that freaks me out is The Moon. I mean, for all of human existence, we’ve had this giant freaking rock just hanging over our heads. Massive enough that a collision could wipe out every living thing on Earth. And we only avoid that fate because it _just happens_ to have the right amount of lateral velocity that it stays in orbit instead of falling on us. And we just go on about our days, like that’s no big thing… ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/38 "2022-02-11T23:31:55Z")
The [“Pale Blue Dot”](https://www.google.com/search?q=pale+blue+dot&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS768US768&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiw3KKj5vj1AhW5DzQIHbqjAYQQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&cshid=1644622091344452&biw=1680&bih=907) image has always blown my mind, (and made me feel really small and insignificant and humble too) > [@Horatius](#): > > > [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > > > We are all standing on a rotating ball. I never really got it until I took an astronomy class and had to spend a night on a rooftop tracking the movement of the stars. Realizing that we are slowly moving through space at all times makes me slightly dizzy. > > The part that freaks me out is The Moon. > > I mean, for all of human existence, we’ve had this giant freaking rock just hanging over our heads. Massive enough that a collision could wipe out every living thing on Earth. And we only avoid that fate because it _just happens_ to have the right amount of lateral velocity that it stays in orbit instead of falling on us. > > And we just go on about our days, like that’s no big thing… ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/39 "2022-02-11T23:34:22Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > That societies operate on a mutually-agreed-upon concept of time. Also: That societies operate on a mutually-agreed-upon concept of money. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2022, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249/40 "2022-02-11T23:44:24Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > That societies operate on a mutually-agreed-upon concept of money. Lots of other things as well. Imagine that at midnight, every US citizen stopped believing that Biden was the president, and furthermore they knew that everybody else stopped believing it as well (and knew that everyone else knew this, and so on). He would instantly become just some guy occupying the White House. It doesn’t matter what it says on any papers if everyone simply stops believing a thing. Language, too. I have an internal concept for lots of words. I’m making a big assumption that other people ascribe the same meaning to these words. I have no real proof of this aside from the fact that it seems like I can communicate successfully. What if I and everyone else stopped believing this? Language would break down instantly. All of this is why a breakdown in mutually-agreed reality is so incredibly dangerous. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-mundane-things-that-kind-of-blow-your-mind-sometimes/959249.md?page=3)