Inspired by the “shocked by what people don’t know thread”…
I am constantly amazed by scams, hoaxes, gags, etc. that reasonably intelligent people are suckered into believing. My mom is generally pretty clever, but she periodically astounds me with her gullibility. She recently got an email about “Giants Unearthed in Greece” which she completely fell for.
You know the conservatives everyone bitches about? I’m not that kind of conservative, I’m a libertarian leaning moderate who doesn’t watch FOX news or listen to political radio. But I have relatives…
One is convinced that the government is keeping lists of subversive people that they think are potential domestic terrorists: like people who go to support the troop rallies like my family did during the 1st Gull war, people with gun permits, and people who have anti-Obama bumper stickers like my dad does. Oh, and if there’s a problem with e-mail, it’s because Big Brother is watching people with political-themed e-mail addresses like hers. Usually these declarations of truth are prefaced with “according to [political pundit] the government is…”
Sounds like my dad. When I spoke to him last week, he informed me that Obama recently signed an agreement with Canada to allow their military to police American streets. When I replied that I would need to see some evidence of this before I believed it, he told me that obviously that was impossible because they don’t report this kind of thing; however his source was very reliable because he used to be in the military (or something.)
In other alarming news, Obama has also passed a law making it illegal to kill all animals, including rats and mice. I’m sure you’ve all seen the effects of this since meat and mousetraps are no longer available in stores, right?
I don’t talk to him much, and when I do I usually regret it.
My dear old mum fell for “pendulum” mysticism. You’d take a length of string, tie a small weight to it, and hold it “perfectly still.” This is important: you hold it absolutely motionless. But, look! It’s moving! It’s moving all by itself! This MEANS SOMETHING!
I tried to explain about micro muscular movements, and how we cannot hold our arms “perfectly still.” I hung the pendulum from a nail in the wall, and showed her that it doesn’t move, no matter how much “bioetheric energy” I project along the string.
No good. To her, it was a sacred revelation. It was deep and profound and…
My mom recently informed me that no one over the age of 60 will be allowed to operate power tools, no one can now have their own children working for them, and finally, no matter how much land you own, it will be against the law to build a well on your own property. All this due to our overreaching, socialistic government. Or Obama specifically, take your pick.
Trying to google any of that to disabuse her of these notions was futile. Even a link to Snopes, if there was one, wouldn’t do the trick as they’re all liberal, commie atheists. Sigh.
My dad is convinced that he needs to give away all of his money to his kids (me and bro) before he dies because the government is going to take it all from us via taxes when he dies. He’s got hundreds of thousands but nothing near a million.
I of course benefit from this misconception of his but I don’t want his money. He doesn’t understand that neither does the government.
You have to admit that the evil government did a damn good job in hiding the Gull wars.
I’m not sure exactly why though. I’m fairly liberal and hell, I’d sign up for a Gull war or two.
My mom cracks me up, because she falls HARD for these things… For a day. The next time I see her, she’ll have gotten over it and will be talking about the silly women she works with. “Haven’t they heard of Snopes?” then another new miracle product/ scam will come out, and she’s hook, line and sinker for another day. Fortunately it rarely gets to the point of spending money on these things, but I still find it a bit funny.
I should point out that while she’s conservative, she’s not too much of a sucker for the “death panel” type nonsense, or if she is she keeps it fom me (for which I am eternally grateful).
My mom was a sensible woman. She’d never have fallen for any of those things. I wish she’d lived long enough to experience the internet. I know she would have loved it as much as I do.
My best friend is a Mercola fanatic. She’s convinced artificial sweeteners are killing our children and fluoride is poisoning us all. She refuses to use a cell phone…no not even a cordless phone because she fears brain cancer. And she defends Jenny McCarthy, not because she agrees with her on the autism thing but because “at least she stands for what she believes in”.
What’s discouraging about the human condition is that these little nuggets of misinformation are ingested like salted peanuts, but sites like Snopes, My Right Wing Dad, What’s the Harm, etc. that de-bunk them are viewed with suspicion; or are simply too much work.
My grandmother was absolutely convinced the world was running out of cork. She must have read about a drought in cork-growing countries and that little bit of information stuck. Yes, it seems like a minor thing to be obsessed about, but she brought it up at every available opportunity. Someone had a bottle of wine? “Someday they won’t have corks anymore!” Someone had a box of wine or wine with a plastic stopper? “That’s because corks are expensive because the world’s running out of them.” My aunt (a teacher) had a corkboard in her room, and grandma once said she was lucky she had it “because cork is really expensive now and the school probably couldn’t afford them now.”
It became a running joke in our family that “the most expensive part of the wine bottle is the cork” and that there was a big cork-smuggling operation in Portugal.
My mom actually believes that the goal of Obama (and all liberals) is to destroy this country. Now, disagreeing with somebody’s opinions and methods is one thing. I’m okay with that. But what possible motivation could there be for people with power in the USA to destroy it? I don’t think she believes Obama is the Antichrist…but give her time.
She once fell for a $5 a gallon water scam. These people were selling two kinds of water: one allegedly had a positive electrical charge and the other allegedly had a negative electrical charge. One was for drinking, the other for washing. Amazing health benefits would result. She actually drove about 100 miles to buy the stuff. Fortunately, this delusion was short-lived.
She wasn’t totally wrong - cork is indeed becoming rare. But the reason is the other way round from your granny’s reasoning: the wine industry is using plastic more often so cork plantations are going out of business.
Meanwhile my girlfriend, who is Italian, refuses to believe that you could ever possibly get good wine in a bottle that has a plastic stopper. She actually won’t drink it if she discovers it doesn’t have a cork in the top. I’m planning to have an old cork in my pocket the next time I serve her wine, and do the old switcheroo to hide the plastic top.
Amusingly, trying to convince grandma that cork was made from cork trees, and so if the world needed more cork all people needed to do was plant more cork trees, was just as lost a cause.
Whereas I once bought a bottle of $6 wine at wal-mart only to get it home and discover it was corked, and me without a corkscrew. I’d have only myself to blame if it were even a $12 wine, but nooooo.
My mother is disabled and doesn’t get out much. So she’s very isolated and this has created an echo-chamber effect so nasty that it’s very difficult to talk to her about certain subjects, because she won’t accept what she doesn’t already “know.” (I use the term loosely. At least she doesn’t watch Fox News.)
This means that she’s dyed-in-the-wool, foaming-at-the-mouth, loony left-winger. She is to the Democratic Party what the Teabaggers are to the Republicans. It makes me crazy on so many levels that I won’t talk to her more than once a week. The worst part is that her behavior and her opinions have alienated other people to the point that she doesn’t have many friends. But you can’t tell her that. “They just don’t want to hear the truth!”
Whatever, Mom. Talk to you next Tuesday. :rolleyes:
