In a word, YES, most people are gulible and will believe anthing that they read or see.
They don’t belive you when you tell them Mr. Rogers doesn’t wear a sweater to cover either prison tats, or tat’s and/or scars from being a Navy Seal in Viet Nam. Or that Captain Kangroo raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
You show them proof and they will say that’s made up and the other is the real story.
People like excitement, and if they have none in their own life thay want to believe it of others.
In a word, YES, most people are gulible and will believe anthing that they read or see.
They don’t belive you when you tell them Mr. Rogers doesn’t wear a sweater to cover either prison tats, or tat’s and/or scars from being a Navy Seal in Viet Nam. Even when you point out that his show was on during that war. Or that Captain Kangroo raised the flag on Iwo Jima.
You show them proof and they will say that’s made up and the other is the real story.
People like excitement, and if they have none in their own life thay want to believe it of others.
I finally convinced my mom to check Snopes before forwarding along obvious urban legends, and then the UL-originators upped their game.
I started getting stuff from her that would say something like “Snopes confirms that <bullshit>” with either a broken link or no link at all. Which she would believe and not actually check Snopes. ::sigh::
I’ve noticed this with a lot of people who get fooled by scams and hoaxes: they don’t seem to internalize the idea that untrusted information must be verified through some other channel.
[QUOTE=Just Asking Questions]
{snip} Can cell phone calls from particular phone numbers cause brain hemorrhage and death? {snip}
[/QUOTE]
About 40 years ago, when I was 13 years old, I saw a headline in The National Enquirer claiming the Soviets had developed a special electronic tone that they transmitted in telephone calls to zombify? brainwash? brain-deaden? (heck, I forget) western intelligence officers.
At the time I believed it–hey, I said I was 13 y.o. Maybe that “article” morphed into the above-quoted rumor.
But it’s more like she imbues the info with her impression of the trustworthiness of the person who forwarded it to her. IOW if it comes from her friend Jane it must be true because she knows Jane is sweet, kindly, and would never steal from her. And because Jane is honest, somehow anything Jane carelessly forwards is also somehow honest, or is converted to honesty by Jane’s touching it.
I finally persuaded her that one old friend is a clueless idiot who’ll forward anything, the glurgier the better. So she (MIL) has agreed that that one old lady is untrustworthy on email forwards.
But I cannot get her to accept the idea in general for all forwards from all sources. If her cousin Ida sends it, it must be true, no matter how many counterexamples I’ve snopes’d up for her that came from Ida.
The only way businesses like Snopes could prosper is to rely on the practically unlimited supply of profoundly stupid people in our society.
The percentage of serious dumb-asses has been growing since about the early 80’s. It would be interesting to know what’s causing this as we’re approaching the point that we have to find a way to reverse it, or, sayonara to America as we know it !
Well, that and stupid popup ads. People complain about the quality of ads here, but the ones on Snopes back in the day were why I first learned of the existence of adblockers. (It came with the popup blocker–which was my main problem.)
I would guess they don’t still use 'em, simply because all browsers block popups by default now, but who knows.
Yes, but not in baby form. There are specific parameters. He has to descend from heaven the same way his followers saw him go up, i.e., a fully grown man.
Also, as JAQ says, it would be pretty big news. He doesn’t come back secretly. He comes back to take over the world, and everyone bows down to him, not being able to respond in any other way. Not to mention the enemy combatants that die of supernatural causes, the Rapture that may happen then or up to 7 years before he comes back, and the dead people who come back with him.
For a while, several years ago and before I finally alienated them all, I had several people who would send me every stupid/crazy/cutesy/ link that dropped into their inbox. You know, the sort of person who would get some stupid email, then blindly choose “forward to all” in their inbox. Many times per day.
So I would “reply all” with a snopes link, and often a quick note about what BCC meant and why it was a good idea. What amazed me? Was the number of complete strangers who would then send me extremely indignant and pissed-off emails because I was refuting their speshul beliefs. More people than I would have expected got really angry at me.
There are a lot of ignorant people out there. With internet connections and the right to vote.
Nope, they still do. At least, pop under ads. I wanted to confirm they had ads before I posted my comment about revenue, and looked at their site with ad blocker off. Sure enough, they still have them.
They’re using disposable* coffins wrapped in heavy plastic then cremating them. At least that’s what ABC news said last night.
They don’t usually cremate in wooden coffins because it causes a larger amount of cremains. They’d have to make bigger urns to hold it all. I’m sure there are other reasons, but that’s all the mortuary told me, or maybe that’s all I remember.
One disposable coffin, retail (read, heavily marked up) cost about $60 fourteen years ago. That’s what I paid for my son’s.
*Made of heavy-duty wax covered cardboard.
I can tell you, but you might not like the answer…It’s us, the parents and grand parents of those people. We wanted our children to be F R E E! In allowing them to be free, we finished their home work and blamed the teachers when they failed. We gave them trophies for just showing up. We wanted to eliminate competition. By doing so, we took away any reason to strive. We killed curiosity. Without curiosity, a person will believe anything presented with little authority.
Eventually, they all got through the public school system and went out and reproduced. We didn’t teach them to think.
I know this is probably going to start something. Please, remember, I’m generalizing. I’m not talking about your child or grandchild.
