What's the craziest thing you absolutely 100% believe?

[aruvqan]

@Leaffan

Nuclear energy is fundamental to the survival of our species.

@JohnT

I have 99.999% convinced myself that McAfee, Norton, etc, are the primary developers of most computer viruses.

@Martian Bigfoot

I believe our overblown fears of serial killers and pedophiles have just taken over from the werewolf and vampire legends.

@MandaJo

As a culture, we are as weird about food as the Victorians were about sex, and future anthropologists will write books deconstructing our weird food fetishes, obsessions, phobias, and rituals.

All of these =)

[HubZilla]

@YogSosoth

Even though its impossible to predict the next 30 years, I believe that Kennedy made a miscalculation during the Cuban Missile Crisis and that the Soviets were not the evil that many portrayed them as such. Instead of blocking the ships, Kennedy should have let them set up missiles in Cuba and do nothing to retaliate. Nothing would have come of it, nobody would nuke the US. Decades later, they probably would have been dismantled peacefully. Instead, the world came to the edge of a nuclear war all because a couple of men wanted to prove they had the bigger balls

I believe it would’ve been better if the Germans won World War I. I’ll assume they weren’t going for the conquest of France (they weren’t in 1870). While it’s hard to see the trajectory of history, I simply believe we would’ve avoided the horrors of World War II.

If it was an early German victory (they got Paris after the Marne): No Treaty of Versailles, no Hitler, (probably) no Russian Revolution, no Stalin, no Tojo, no Mao.

Granted, it may have been replaced by another war, but I cannot imagine it would be more vicious than WWII without those key players.

[AncientHumanoid]

You’re forgetting the Eugenics Wars.

[Darth_Sensitive]

Sports outcomes are related to what I wear or where I am located when watching.

[Trinopus]

@HubZilla

I believe it would’ve been better if the Germans won World War I. . . .

Two of my crazy beliefs are historical determinism (driven by technological advances) and geographical determinism.

(“The windmill produced the feudal lord, and the steam engine produced the capitalist.” And “Britain, Japan, and the U.S. had to become great Naval powers.”)

A vast, continent-sweeping war on land, sea, and air was inevitable; once the tank, the bomber aircraft, and the battleship were invented, they had to be used.

(I do not generalize this to an universal. Nuclear-tipped ICBMs and plague warfare haven’t been used – but they are self-destructive weapons in a way that bombers and tanks aren’t.)

[JohnT]

The tank was invented during a continent-sweeping land war and first used in 1916.

[kaylasdad99]

@Sicks_Ate

The main reason that the nation of Israel was created, and we’re “friends” with Israel now, is to ensure the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

Sorry, I’m finding your phrasing to be somewhat ambiguous. Were these things made inevitable by the biblical prophecy, or were they undertaken arbitrarily in a effort to manipulate the Divine Inspirer of the prophecies into getting off His Holy Butt and starting the Tribulations already (in your belief)?

[jtur88]

That the ultimate demise of your car will be for reasons unrelated to engine failure, so it doesn’t matter if you religiously change the oil every 3,000 miles with synthetic oil and a high-priced filter.

[Isosleepy]

Not only does it matter if I wear a Steelers shirt while watching any Steeler game - it matters which player’s, depending on the record we have at the time.

Also, I wear a Holland shirt during a cup game, Holland loses - unless it’s a Van Nistelrooy shirt. I can’t find the v. Nistelrooy shirt, so it’s not looking good for het Nederlands elftal tomorrow…

[Sicks_Ate]

@kaylasdad99

Sorry, I’m finding your phrasing to be somewhat ambiguous. Were these things made inevitable by the biblical prophecy, or were they undertaken arbitrarily in a effort to manipulate the Divine Inspirer of the prophecies into getting off His Holy Butt and starting the Tribulations already (in your belief)?

The latter. Can’t have Armageddon until the Jews are back in the Holy Land, you know.

[Lumpy]

@HubZilla

I believe it would’ve been better if the Germans won World War I. I’ll assume they weren’t going for the conquest of France (they weren’t in 1870). While it’s hard to see the trajectory of history, I simply believe we would’ve avoided the horrors of World War II.

If it was an early German victory (they got Paris after the Marne): No Treaty of Versailles, no Hitler, (probably) no Russian Revolution, no Stalin, no Tojo, no Mao.

Granted, it may have been replaced by another war, but I cannot imagine it would be more vicious than WWII without those key players.

I posted something along these lines awhile back:

How about Germany wins WW1? Either (a.) the Germans manage to move fast enough at the start to avoid running into entrenched positions, or (b.) their first use of gas is better planned, and catches the Allies completely off guard. Either way, we see German troops march to the Atlantic. France is forced to sign a truce. With no effective way to land troops on the Continent, Britain tries a naval attack. The Second Battle of Jutland is also a draw: after heavy fighting, both sides lose about half their fleet, resulting in the same stalemate but with half as many ships. By 1918 the Russian war effort collapses. Germany and Britain remain technically at war into the 1920s, but eventually the British public balks at continuing a fruitless state of hostility.

What’s really interesting is the postwar scenerio: In this history, a defeated humilated France might go fascist. Germany is victorious, but the Kaiser’s regime comes under pressure from liberal and communist elements. Germany helps to suppress the Bolsheviks and Russia becomes a weak, marginal republic. Britain takes a “Cold War” stance towards Germany, to the point that Britain and the US nearly come to blows over Britain’s interference with neutral trade. The US and Britain engage in a huge battleship arms race. The international scene is much more multipolar, with everyone suspicious of everyone else, and treaties and alliances constantly breaking and reforming.

[epbrown01]

@jtur88

That the ultimate demise of your car will be for reasons unrelated to engine failure, so it doesn’t matter if you religiously change the oil every 3,000 miles with synthetic oil and a high-priced filter.

Umm…

[Isosleepy]

@Isosleepy

Also, I wear a Holland shirt during a cup game, Holland loses - unless it’s a Van Nistelrooy shirt. I can’t find the v. Nistelrooy shirt, so it’s not looking good for het Nederlands elftal tomorrow…

Well, I found the shirt, late in the first half.

[An_Gadai]

That we are fast approaching a techno-political system where dissidence of any meaningful kind will be impossible.

[TonySinclair]

@Quimby

I am convinced that Karl Rove used computer trickery to steal Ohio for George Bush in 2004 and tried to do it again for Romney but was stopped by Anonymous (the computer hacker outfit)

Speaking of Rove and Bush, I never saw it mentioned anywhere else, but I am convinced that they digitally altered Bush’s voice on his weekly radio addresses. Live, he sounded very nasal and whiny. In his recorded radio addresses, his voice was much deeper and more resonant.

[KneadToKnow]

I believe I will never find the CD I lost in 2010.

[epbrown01]

@JohnT

Not necessarily. We could develop FTL, then, when we try to get out of the solar system, run into those crystal spheres Kepler told us were out there.

What… too crazy?

How about we’re able but just can’t be bothered? You know, like now?

[bobot]

I am absolutely, 100% sure that IF there is a god, then there is only one god, and all the worshipping people in the world are all worshipping the same god.

[kayaker]

@KneadToKnow

I believe I will never find the CD I lost in 2010.

Huh. I found a CD in 2010. Best of Bread. Care to claim it?

[kambuckta]

I believe that vitamin tablets, especially vitamin C are impregnated with viruses intended to give you a minor cold.

So when you start taking them at the beginning of winter (to avert a cold) you get crook, and take even more Vit C to hasten the progress of your illness!