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submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] Comment105@lemm.ee 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Never underestimate just how clueless the general population is about how the world works. More than you'd expect would prove to not really grasp even the most basic mechanisms of their environment.

People turn to religion for a reason.

To the majority of people, understanding the world beyond "inexplicable god magic" is difficult to learn good-for-nothing trivia unless it's needed for a good grade and maybe a job if you're cut out for it. Only the parts specific to surviving in the wild get a different treatment.

Even the non-religious seem to make a habit of thinking like this. The kind of "not a Christian" alcoholic that is completely disinterested in the actual philosophies that allowed for a world where open disbelief is safe, and vocally in favor of "rights" of some sort for currently relevant minorities, with maybe a rare acknowledgement of some surface-level misunderstanding of humanitarian ethics.

[-] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 31 points 2 months ago

Pump the brakes.

She isn't saying that she doesn't know about photosynthesis. She is saying she didn't understand what the child was actually asking about.

There is a world of difference between knowing the answer and understanding the question, especially if the question was asked by someone who doesn't even really know what they're trying to ask either.

[-] Comment105@lemm.ee -4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yes. She didn't understand what the child was actually asking about.

Because to her, oxygen tanks are for other people who use them. To her, any information about it and the contexts of it is not relevant, it is not important for her, and it's not very interesting to her. To her it is a weird question, despite her stated interest in not wanting to make it seem weird. Normal people do not need oxygen tanks and don't need to concern themselves with them.

I want to really emphasize that all information like this is genuinely seen as trivia, and only gets to feel like it's really worth having someone knowing the very moment it becomes tangibly useful, and when the usefulness of the information expires, it becomes trivia again.

Respect for a researcher wavers in almost the exact same way, although a great achievement would be respected possibly for a lifetime if the public understands and appreciates it. Still, anything they learn after that is going to be treated like trivia again.

You want me to pump the brakes? Why would I? Our entire civilization is incapable of pumping the brakes on self inflicted and wholly deserved extinction by way of choking our world in the emissions of our desperate works to create decorative steel flowerpots and heavily marketed plastic garbage, because we cannot stomach the thought of feeding a man that does not create his share of junk.

[-] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 months ago

Wow you're making some absolutely WILD assumptions about what the poster believes, and in generalizing it to the populous. You'd win Olympic gold in long-jumping-to-conclusions with the distance of that jump.