# Unpopular Opinions You Can’t Prove **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148 "2020-09-21T14:38:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/1 "2020-09-21T14:38:47Z")
As the title says. Things you believe which may not be popular or provable. What are your opinions? 1. Despite government support for electric vehicles, it will be another twenty years before they become popular, and traditional gas vehicles will still be common. 2. After a few accidents, insurance debacles and wanna-be terrorist attempts, the self-driving movement will fizzle. 3. A cheap way to manufacture quality diamonds will be found in ten years, causing prices to decrease and leading to ridiculousness (teeth implants, huge tennis bracelets and incorporation into clothing). 4. Diligent scientists will finally discover a cure for Donald Trump. Won’t you help fund this important research? For just pennies a day, less than the price of a cup of coffee, we will find a solution to this nattering nabob of narcissism. 5. It will be another twenty years before we really understand the basics of viruses, nutrition and the popularity of “Love Island”. 6. Cyber concerns become so widespread that there is a return to archaic paper records when any degree of sensitivity is involved. 7. In ten years, a cheap medicinal cure for dental cavities will be available. 8. In medicine, machines will be able to read X-rays and other radiographic images as well as specialists. And identify skin rashes as well as dermatologists. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/2 "2020-09-21T15:04:50Z")
A great many Americans of all political stripes (and, frankly, people worldwide) are far more comfortable with things like torture, murder or Holocaust-style genocide than they’d ever be willing to admit publicly or privately. If given absolute power to dispose of anyone in the world they wanted, they’d make Hitler’s actions pale in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/3 "2020-09-21T17:50:20Z")
1. Electric cars will be popular and traditional gas vehicles will still be common 2. THe self driving movement will be ‘driving assisted’, “Self-Driving” will be a matter of opinion…at what point is there not going to be a need for a person behind the wheel? 3. cheap, high purity diamonds are currently available and have been for nearly 20 years. Prices continue to hold 4. Can I have one thread or at least 15 minutes where I’m not reading some politically motivated jab? 5. we understand the basics…its the more detailed stuff thats not easily understood that requires exponentially increasing effort and money 6. I don’t think so. THere will always be paper, but ‘return to’ is subjective. How many instances of paper use, is required to be defined as ‘return to’? 7. I think there is some work on this, I don’t remember where we are, but I can see this. It won’t be cheap though. It will cost what the market will bear. 8. This is a widespread and popular movement in innovative commercial research. I work with small technical companies on a regular basis and I see this as the most common technology that comes to me. Its become a ‘roll my eyes’ joke…not ANOTHER image analysis using ‘deep machine learning’ idea… If I see 100 ideas, probably 10-20 are specifically this particular type. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/4 "2020-09-21T18:17:48Z")
Dark matter doesn’t exist, or if anything remotely describable as dark matter does, it’s so far from the current models that everyone will agree the current models are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/5 "2020-09-21T18:28:41Z")
The universe is deterministic. The future is as fixed as the past. That which will be will be. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/6 "2020-09-21T18:31:39Z")
Canadians are even more nationalistic and jingoistic than Americans, and are overall worse people who only get away with it due to the myth of them being “Nice guys” but also because of the weird stranglehold they have on message boards. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/7 "2020-09-21T18:48:32Z")
That last post is not unpopular at all and can be easy proved. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/8 "2020-09-21T19:43:09Z")
Canadians are less nationalistic, becoming more jingoistic, and are about as nice as Americans — but not more or less. Certainly less evangelical. Less charitable too. Image and computer analysis have proven disappointing so far in medicine. Even ECGs - “tracings of the heart” - an easy and limited area, routinely diagnose things like pericarditis as “_ACUTE MI_” when treating it as such will be a disaster. The Dr\_Paprika Corporation reserves all Amendment rights to express disdain for certain political figures. We have obtained express written permission from the MLB, NBA, the Bildenberg, The Chubb Group, The Adeptus Major Foundation and Project Arcturus. Copyright 2020. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/9 "2020-09-21T20:01:08Z")
This thread appears today thanks to the generosity of the Better Angels Society. And viewers like you. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Dark\_Sponge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dark_sponge/32/121_2.png) [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/10 "2020-09-21T20:12:27Z")
Apple products are equivalent to or worse than their competitors in the same class (high end phones & PCs) but cost twice as much. Most men are actually brave and self-sacrificing; they would volunteer to die in place of their wives and children without hesitation. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/11 "2020-09-21T21:11:44Z")
Most of “the finer things in life”, e.g. expensive foods, drinks, cigars, and the like, are mostly the result of hype and people’s imaginations. This has actually been proven in the form of blind taste tests, but it has not really taken hold of public perception, so I think it’s still an “unpopular” opinion. I also believe the same is true of art. And not just modern art, which people like to mock but are afraid to genuinely downplay, but even classic art e.g. the Mona Lisa and the like. Extremely overhyped and the value is largely imaginary and the result of people being intimidated into pretending to themselves that they see the value in it. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/12 "2020-09-21T21:33:39Z")
Years ago, I went to see the Fricke Collection. Most of the pieces, while good, didn’t rate as great for me. Then, I saw a statue of Hercules. Even at a foot or so tall, it looked so real and so dynamic that I expected it to break the pose and complain at any minute. I looked it up in the guide. The artist was Michelangelo. I immediately thought ‘well, he has certainly lived up to his reputation.’ I’ve visited the Art Museum here in Philly a few times (I recommend it highly). Again, while good most of the art fails to wow me. But, when I look at Van Gogh in person I am caught up in a timeless rapport with Vincent. I all but swoon. That said, I largely agree with you. I don’t even know that it’s an unpopular opinion. Van Gogh’s Sunflowers is good- I would say it’s great. But, I can’t see how it’s worth $250 million. I hold, and I know I’m not alone, that some of the pieces in the museum are crap that became popular and people bought into the hype. Murphy Brown did an episode on this. I was stunned when an artist friend informed me that the pile of Sweet N Low packets with a single packet of real sugar at the bottom, the clear shower curtain hung on a museum wall, and With 12 You Get Eggroll ( a printed copy of DaVinci’s Last Supper with the faces painted out and Chinese take out painted over the food) were all real pieces that had sold for over a hundred thousand dollars. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/13 "2020-09-21T22:04:52Z")
Thanks to the laws of supply and demand, a unique one-of-a-kind piece of art is worth whatever some idiot can be convinced to buy it for. The chronic mistake the art world makes, in my unproven opinion, is forgetting that it only has that value during the instant of the sale. After that it becomes valueless again (from a dollar perspective) until the next sale, at which point the prior sale price is nothing more than a historical curiosity. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/14 "2020-09-21T22:12:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Most of “the finer things in life”, e.g. expensive foods, drinks, cigars, and the like, are mostly the result of hype and people’s imaginations. This has actually been proven in the form of blind taste tests, but it has not really taken hold of public perception, so I think it’s still an “unpopular” opinion. I’d agree with you from my experience with truffles. I had read about how super-expensive and gourmet they were, but from eating pricey food with it, it is like…the aroma from cheap toothpaste. Nothing to it except hype. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/15 "2020-09-21T22:33:53Z")
I believe that if the current political meltdown concerning Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement were reversed with a deeply unpopular and polarizing Democratic president nearing a probable losing re-election in cooperation with a compliant Senate were faced with a sudden SCOTUS vacancy, they would be pushing to fast track their chosen replacement ASAP and to hell with the consequences. Pushing the opposition to near armed rebellion is just icing on the cake. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/16 "2020-09-21T22:46:35Z")
Someone sounds bitter that “Schitt’s Creek” swept the Emmys. I’ll have to give it another try. I just saw the first two episodes and thought it was okay, but not amazing. But I hear later seasons were much better and they built on previous episodes well. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/17 "2020-09-21T23:12:57Z")
Hiccups are contagious. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/18 "2020-09-22T12:52:40Z")
I’m of the opinion that Julian Jaynes’s hypotheses w/r/t _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ [and related works] are more likely true than not. They are of course, and admittedly, entirely speculative and both unfalsifiable and impossible to prove; but they cohere well. Some Wiki for the curious: [Bicameral mentality - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)) ---
**Author:** ![bodangus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@bodangus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bodangus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/19 "2020-09-22T14:06:30Z")
After seeding the Pizzagate thing in October of 2016 as an experiment and seeing how successfully it took off in the gullible whackjob arena, Trump, Stone, Bannon and ??? seeded the now popular Qanon in the spring of 2017. Look how perfect Qanon is as a trump tool. Trump as some sort of chosen one, Democrats as some sort of demonic pervs connected to a cabal of mysterious and equally pervy world controllers. All they had to do was anonymously seed it in the right places, feed it a little now and then, and the gullible whackjobs of the internet world ate it up and gave it a real life, feeding it themselves without any more input from the originators. Look how it’s grown. Look how evil it really is. These gullible whackjobs can vote too. Another group to add to trumps ‘base’. It’s just too perfect. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148/20 "2020-09-22T14:31:05Z")
I don’t know much about that. But I’m under the impression that there was often ample feeding. I also think, just as there is genuine humour in _Boaty McBoatface_, quite a few see a certain humour or secondary gain in feeding the gullible, or even pretending to appear gullible (given the novelty of the Net or the nature of narcissists). It’s sometimes hard to know where Trump lies - but not usually. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-can-t-prove/921148.md?page=2)