# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/21 "2014-02-17T16:46:56Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Similarly, we impeached a president for spying on a handful of people. No we didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/22 "2014-02-17T16:51:18Z")
This might be more of a coincidence, but I’ll but I’ll drop it here anyways… You’ll have to follow me here, I needed an allergist, I have a lot of contacts in the medical community so I called one of them to get a recommendation for a good allergist, we chit chat for a few minutes and while I’m talking to her someone (I’m at work) interrupts me to tell me the other line is for me. I tell that person I’m busy and to take a message. I get off the phone, call the doctor that was recommended to me and the receptions doesn’t say “Hello, Dr XXX’s office” but rather “Hi, we’d like to place an order”. It was a couple of back and forths with me being really, really confused and her being confused as to why I was confused to get it sorted out. The person that interrupted me was trying to tell me that she, the person I’m calling now, was on the phone. So when I called to make an appointment she just assumed I was calling her back. Complete and utter coincidence. The only reason I dropped it in a ‘plot hole’ thread is because if I had gotten a date out of it it would have been right out of “How I Met Your Mother” and people would have said “yeah, like that happens in real life”. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/23 "2014-02-17T16:54:21Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/24 "2014-02-17T17:56:51Z")
A good estimate of the speed of light came well before we had a good one for the speed of sound. Like a typical reader is going to believe _that_! ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/25 "2014-02-17T18:11:08Z")
The platypus. You’re saying the female beaver-thing kind of “sweats” milk and lays eggs, the male has poisonous spikes on his feet, and it has a bill that has sonar? Suuuure. Oh, and it just so happens that the 4 other species of mammals that lay eggs are also from Australia. _How convenient!_ ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/26 "2014-02-17T18:15:50Z")
America going with serious limitations on building densely in most of its major cities, then making relatively minimal investments in mass transit, so that everyone has to drive further and further, with more and more additional drivers in the way, with the passing of each decade. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/27 "2014-02-17T18:19:24Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > Would you say that Ruby killing Oswald is the prime reason why an industry developed around JFK conspiracy theories? It certainly didn’t hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/28 "2014-02-17T18:35:57Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Less plotholes and more if this happened in fiction everyone would roll their eyes: Good ones! > [@](#): > > The freakish speed of technological and social progress is hard to handwave. In the Civil War telegraphs and hand cranked gatling guns are advanced technology, germ theory is barely known, most people live on farms, etc. A hundred years and change later and we’re landing on the moon and have ICBMs, computers, millions of miles of electrical cables, advanced medicine and surgery, nuclear power plants, etc. The hell happened? And yet we don’t have any of the stuff that science fiction promised we’d have by now. Sigh. My hoverboard is STILL back-ordered. I’m afraid my knees will go bad long before it arrives. > [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > To me Venice always feels like a place from a not very convincing fantasy novel. LOL > [@njtt](#): > > Quantum mechanics makes no fucking sense! No kidding! If it had been discovered but used as the basis of a sci-fi novel, nobody would have been impressed. > [@StusBlues](#): > > I honestly don’t find that surprising at all. The tactic of flying as big an airplane as you can get your hands on into the most vital office building you can find sounds like a rather obvious terrorist idea. What’s more surprising is that it didn’t appear first in a Tom Clancy novel. > [@nevadaexile](#): > > Actually. we impeached the President for covering up and attempting to cover up multiple felonies. Which president was that? You seem to be talking about Nixon, but he was not impeached. The last president we impeached was regarding a blowjob. Now THAT’s stranger than fiction! ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/29 "2014-02-17T21:12:15Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > A good estimate of the speed of light came well before we had a good one for the speed of sound. Like a typical reader is going to believe _that_! Right up there with having a trans-Atlantic telegraph before there was a trans-\*\*continental \*\*telegraph. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/30 "2014-02-17T21:15:41Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > Right up there with having a trans-Atlantic telegraph before there was a trans-\*\*continental \*\*telegraph. Who needs a trans-continental telegraph when you’ve got ponies? ---
**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 17, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/31 "2014-02-17T21:21:17Z")
I think if you weren’t paying close attention to the public’s opinion of him, Michael Jackson seems like kind of a plot hole. It’s weird to listen to “ABC” or “Beat It” and then just yadda yadda Ultimate Weirdo. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/32 "2014-02-17T21:36:27Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Who needs a trans-continental telegraph when you’ve got ponies? FWIW, the Pony Express only ran for eighteen months, and didn’t start until after the trans-Atlantic telegraph. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/33 "2014-02-17T21:47:56Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > FWIW, the Pony Express only ran for eighteen months, and didn’t start until after the trans-Atlantic telegraph. And the fax machine was [invented (1843)](https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+the+fax+machine+invented&oq=when+was+the+fax+machine+in&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3j5.4878j0j9&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8) even before that or the telephone . Someone should have told the people working on this stuff to stick to the right order because it will confuse people later on. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/34 "2014-02-17T21:57:01Z")
A supposedly mature Congressman caught sexting to random women. Fatal flaws, fine, but that’s absurd. World War II was full of absurd plots which should never work in real life, like Operation Mincemeat. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/35 "2014-02-17T22:02:42Z")
[The Antikythera mechanism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism) was a complex and fully functioning analog computer found in an ancient ship wreck. The astounding thing about it is that is is over 2000 years old. It is the only ‘out of place’ technological artifact that is fully accepted as legitimate by mainstream science. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/36 "2014-02-17T23:07:18Z")
Historical polymaths wouldn’t make very good fictional characters because they seem too unbelievable. Leonardo Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin are some obvious examples. I actually find Leonardo Da Vinci a little bit more believable than Ben Franklin for some reason. Leonardo did lots of incredible things but he was an artistic and creative genius and most of his work had some common threads. Ben Franklin was all over the place in ways that just aren’t natural. He did everything from serving as a key figure in the founding of the U.S. while taking on like little sidelines in electrical science and inventions (bifocals, the public library, a new type of stove, an odometer for carriages among many other things). He still found the time for other little diversions like publishing Poor Richard’s Almanac, serving as ambassador to France and being an all-around ladies man. That is just a sample of everything he did. We had a thread here once that asked if there is any good evidence for time travelers. Ben Franklin was a top choice and I admit that the preponderance of evidence does make it look very suspicious. He isn’t a realistic sounding character at all. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/37 "2014-02-17T23:38:05Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > To me Venice always feels like a place from a not very convincing fantasy novel. There’s this place where everything is done by boat, from moving house to ambulances. Set in a world totally dominated by cars. Nice idea, but not very realistic. 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). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/38 "2014-02-18T00:04:54Z")
Lee’s Lost Order during the Confederate invasion of Maryland in 1862. At a point in the operation where Lee’s forces were split up and vulnerable, Lee wrote the location of all of his units down and issued orders to everyone on where he wanted them to go in the next few days. He then sent out copies of this order to all of his senior commanders. And one of them got lost. And lost in such a way that Lee didn’t know it had been lost. And then found by some Union soldiers. And then send up the chain of command of the Union army rather than tossed out. And then when somebody raised the possibility that the orders were a forgery, an officer who was present said that he had worked on Lee’s staff before the war and recognized the handwriting of Lee’s clerk and could verify they were authentic. ---
**Author:** ![pojimba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@pojimba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pojimba)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/39 "2014-02-18T00:11:34Z")
Water expands when it freezes. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533/40 "2014-02-18T00:13:57Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > The platypus. > > You’re saying the female beaver-thing kind of “sweats” milk and lays eggs, the male has poisonous spikes on his feet, and it has a bill that has sonar? Suuuure. > > Oh, and it just so happens that the 4 other species of mammals that lay eggs are also from Australia. _How convenient!_ Actually, Australia in general is rather difficult to believe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/plot-holes-in-reality/681533.md?page=3)