# Plot holes in reality **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 17, 2014, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533 "2014-02-17T08:22:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/201 "2015-02-25T14:36:49Z")
That you can legitimately wonder if your Blackberry Pearl had Bluetooth, and if so, could it be used for hands-free surfing the Web, perhaps even with Firefox. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/202 "2015-03-09T17:30:23Z")
We should all be dead. I’m cool with the anthropic principal. Sentient life in this universe we call home is not a plot hole. But, life on this planet we call home, particularly human life? Nope, I don’t buy it. We humans simply could not have survived in numbers needed to hold on as a species in this world we created. And yet, we did. It’s a plot hole, I tell you. I mean, it’s bad enough being a squirrel in the woods on Earth. You could choke on an acorn, fall out of a tree, or get eaten by a cat, any time of the day or night. Certainly a squirrel’s life isn’t without danger, but the dangers are relatively few and far between, so I’m not too surprised that the average squirrel lives an average squirrel’s lifespan. The odds don’t appear significantly out of the ordinary. But, with humans, there are just too, too many things that can kill us, right out of the starting gate (i.e. the womb), and for every second thereafter, for ~70 years, on average. On a nice, soft planet with little gravity and nothing sharp and pointy, or fast and penetrating, or heavy and crushing…etc., a life expectancy of 7 or more decades makes perfect sense. But, that’s not the planet we live on (no marmalade skies, cellophane flowers and marshmallow pies for us I’m afraid). Here on Earth we are engaged in a perpetual death-match competition between our bodies (not so well protected against innumerable deadly things.) versus… innumerable deadly things. It’s understandable that our bodies are too fragile to protect us from many modern day perils. We may have had time to evolve brain casings strong enough to protect against falling coconuts, but not speeding bullets, or steam rollers (ewww). Most of us will be alive for ~2-billion seconds. That’s a lot of seconds, and it only takes one of those seconds for any number of perilous things to go tits up and off us. You are surrounded by a myriad of things that can render you dead in a split second: while driving down the highway, you could hiccup, jerking the steering wheel an inch counter-clockwise, taking out you, your dog and a family of 5 in the mini-van you plowed into (or visa-versa); you could walk into a pointy stick, penetrating between your left 4th and 5th ribs, skewering your heart fondue-style; you could sever your spinal cord at C-3 – C-4 slipping on a banana peel; you could inhale an avocado pit into your trachea. Any one of those things, and more besides, could happen to you at any moment in time. But, amazingly, they usually don’t happen. It defies logic. By all appearances Earth seems to be a much more dangerous place than it really is. Let me put it this way: if, before I was born I was shown and given the choice of being born and raised on one of two planets 1. Earth 2. Floatyanus, a pillow-soft, low gravity planet with one sole menace: a monster who appears every 10 years and eats half the population at random. …I’d choose 2) Floatyanus. I’d say, _“forget Earth, I don’t see how anyone could make it past 5 years on that planet!”_ Indeed, a fair percentage of humans do succumb to accidents and premature unnatural deaths. Insurance charts give odds of dying in various manners. It’s those insurance odds that seem unbelievable to me. If, for example, my insurance agent asked me to guess my chances of being eaten by an alligator over the next 5 years, I’d probably reply, _“oh, I’d put my odds at about 50/50. There are a lot of alligators around here and they have big, sharp teeth.”_ Then, I’d be amazed when he said, “nope, your odds are 2.6 million to 1 that you will even be attacked by an alligator.” Yeah, but with my luck… I’m going to bed. Pleasant dreams. Human life on Earth: a plot hole that needs filling. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/203 "2015-03-10T02:16:27Z")
> [@etv78](#): > > Someone survived both the Titanic and Lusitania. How about [Tsutomu Yamaguchi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi)? Working in Japan. Went to Hiroshima for work. Gets hit by an A-bomb. How unlucky can you get? ‘I’m going straight back home where I’ll be safe - Nagasaki’. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/204 "2015-03-10T04:55:43Z")
In the same vein as Tsutomu Yamaguchi: During the Manhattan Project [one of the scientists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr.) is doing a dangerous experiment (by hand) on a plutonium atomic bomb “core” when he accidentally slips and is exposed to an absolutely massive dose of radiation. Less than a year later [another scientist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin) is doing a similar experiment _with the very same core_ when he too slips up and is exposed to a massive dose of radiation–so intense that [he supposedly was able to _taste_ the radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin#Criticality_accident). Now, really, Cosmic Scriptwriters–the very same nuclear core both times? :dubious: (Oh, and the damned thing winds up being nicknamed [“the Demon core”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core)?!? Double-:dubious::dubious:) Proving that whatever genre Reality may be, it ain’t a superhero movie, both Daghlian and Slotin died within days or at most weeks of their respective accidents. They did _not_ become a pair of costumed superheroes–“Dr. Atom” and “the Atomic Avenger”–with radiation-themed superpowers; or alternatively, a superhero and supervillain; or a superhero and a supervillain and/or anti-hero who must reluctantly put aside their differences to save Earth from some greater threat. (Perhaps Mr. Yamaguchi as a supervillain-with-a-sympathetic-backstory, Hibakusha Man.) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/205 "2015-03-10T15:45:22Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Proving that whatever genre Reality may be, it ain’t a superhero movie, both Daghlian and Slotin died within days or at most weeks of their respective accidents. They did _not_ become a pair of costumed superheroes–“Dr. Atom” and “the Atomic Avenger”–with radiation-themed superpowers; or alternatively, a superhero and supervillain; or a superhero and a supervillain and/or anti-hero who must reluctantly put aside their differences to save Earth from some greater threat. Cite? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/206 "2015-03-11T20:30:50Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > There’s also the fact that we had to amend the constitution to outlaw alcohol, and after a decade, changed our minds and amended it back. But the very next decade, nobody blinks when we outlaw marijuana and eventually plenty of other drugs, and that prohibition lasts almost a century. Is this the same country? > > Similarly, we impeached a president for spying on a handful of people. 40 years later and the president spies on literally every last person on Earth – Americans could care less. What happened in the meantime? Plot hole. Who did we ompeach 40 years ago? 1975, that would be Gerald Ford, who took over after Nixon resigned – to prevent him from being impeached! ---
**Author:** ![OffByOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/45deac/32.png) [@OffByOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OffByOne)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/207 "2015-03-11T20:34:19Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > Actually. we impeached the President for covering up and attempting to cover up multiple felonies. Also for not being smart enough to distance himself from the corruption within his own administration. > > The “spying part” was never more than a minor consideration. Nixon was NOT impeached! ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2015, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/208 "2015-03-11T20:39:57Z")
Man, if only several people had made that exact point a year ago. That would have been awesome! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/209 "2015-03-13T20:17:52Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > This one, I really like (I like many of the others, but this one really fits the bill for me). I mean, c’mon… even in a world before cars, who would build a city in the middle of a lake? Obvious fake. (Pretty sure you can tell from the pixels anyway). The Aztecs, among others (or rather, if I understand that bit of history correctly, the guys from whom they took Tenochtitlan). Do castles on lake islands count? You’d have to come to the Continent to see Chillon, but Loch Lomond is a bit north from you I believe… (for certain definitions of “a bit”). Staying away from plot holes and into the realm of “ok, who the hell wrote this and what were they smoking?”, there’s several period-locations combinations where following the tangle of who was afianceed to whom, who actually married whom, who had babies by whose wife… requires multidimensional diagrams. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/210 "2015-04-27T20:01:39Z")
Scientists: “We’re probably right on the precipice of cloning humans. We’re cloning small and midsized mammals. This could potentially be among the most important scientific advances ever made.” People: “Gosh. This raises some potentially threatening ethical situations.” Politicians: “We passed a law. You totally can’t clone people, we just decided.” Scientists: “Oh. Okay. Nevermind then.” ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/211 "2015-04-29T02:59:06Z")
> [@fachverwirrt](#): > > Man, if only several people had made that exact point a year ago. That would have been awesome! And the winner. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/212 "2017-05-10T14:26:37Z")
Proposing a sport where one man stands 60 feet away from another and throws a tiny round object at 95 MPH and the other man has to swing another round object to make contact with it shows a fundamental lack of understanding of basic physics and geometry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Annoying\_Buzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Annoying\_Buzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annoying_Buzz)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/213 "2017-05-11T13:16:53Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Good ones! > > What’s more surprising is that it didn’t appear first in a Tom Clancy novel. Debt of Honor, 1994 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533.md?page=10)