I am beginning to think that the entire purpose of EMAIL is:
send really bad jokes to people that really are not that funny.
perpetuate urban legends and myths that one would think someone with a room temperature IQ could spot as a phoney a mile away.
Apparently, I am wrong. It just blows my mind how many seemingly normal and intelligent people will believe everything thrown at them.
I just received an email from one of my cousins by marriage that was an email chain letter get rich quick scheme. This totally blows my mind that HE would even think this was remotely true. In another situation a year or so ago, his brother in law ( my cousin) actually called Disney about the free stay at Disney scam that circulated a while ago. I mean, fercryin’ out loud. It’s enough to make we want to start a Ponzi Scam within in my own family tree.
Even before I discovered SDMB or the brilliant Cecil Adams ( which was before I had a computer or knew what the internet was) I would not have fallen for crap like this. I would tell whomever was sure that Richard Gere had once had a gerbil shoved up his ass because a friend of a friend told him so, that until real validation was offered, they were full of shit.
Of course, I’m viewed as the BAD COP because I have the ability to think for myself and disseminate crap from facts and, more importantly, the ability to articulate (for the most part) why it is garbage. Sorry, my last name is not Lemming. Doesn’t that surprise you?
SDMB and it’s intelligent people and their wide ranging talents, skills and funky websights have made me, Shirley Ujest, a better person.
If my gratitude were dollars, every poster here ( including the Farrah Faucett in the bikinin one that always makes the Mock Election Polls.) would have a bucket of bucks at your feet for my thanks for being the honest, straight forward (and sometimes very funny) skeptics that I’ve looked for my entire life.
The early bird gets the worm but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Many of my friends and acquaintances seem to think that skepticism is a bad thing. It’s refreshing to mingle with a group of people for whom skepticism is a way of life.
I would say that skepticism on this message board is only outweighed by the desire to make smart-ass comments.
“If ignorance were corn flakes, you’d be General Mills.”
Cecil Adams The Straight Dope
I agree, Shirley. My mom, who is a college-educated, intelligent person, believes anything anyone emails to her. Presumably because her friends (the ones who email junk to her in the first place) are also college-educated intelligent people. Maybe cynicism is bad (MAYBE), but a little bit of skepticism is a good thing.
~Kyla
“You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.”
My friend, who btw has an electrical engineering degree from Notre Dame, sent me and a whole slew of people the DisneyWorld (the first 2000 people who respond…will win a free trip…yada yada yada) chain letter, with a note attached, “We’ll all go!”
Geezz Shirl, I thought I was the only one who got that from others… and if I even lightly mention that what they are reading may be right up there with the articles in the National Enquirer… I get all sorts of shit. It’s damn tough to be intelligent in a world of morons these days! Part of the reason I play blonde
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
