In the late 90s, back when Al Gore's Internet was still shiny and brimming with possibilities, I worked as a tech support rep at a large software company. My boss at the time was a good-natured dufus that I'll call Chad. Chad drove a blue Camaro with the license plate YAHOOO, not because he was a fan of the then-nascent web portal but because he was, in fact, a moron. Chad would demonstrate his cognitive deficit by forwarding emails of dubious origin to our entire department. I'm not sure if he ever sent his bank account number to a desperate Nigerian, but one time he did forward the one about people being drugged and having their kidneys cut out. You remember
that one, right?
At this point I should mention that I'm a big-time skeptic. Not a Skeptic with a capital
S, but a person who tends not to believe anything that sounds a little fishy without some hard evidence. I mean, I believe in UFOs because, well, I've seen one, but I don't buy the rumor that
Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite because, well, I've also seen
True Lies.
So I read the kidney theft email, complete with testimonials from people with reputable sounding names and titles, and thought to myself,
Bullshit. I did a web search and found statements by several reliable authorities, including the Las Vegas police department, attesting to the fact that this story was indeed bullshit. I forwarded the information to all the recipients of the original email, along with my own editorial commentary -- which I don't recall in detail, but which I can only assume was an extremely tactful and subtle rebuke of people in positions of authority who should know better than to infect the entire company with their own stupidity. (This job was, surprisingly, not one of the many I was fired from.)
I continued to do my best to counteract this sort of idiocy for several years. Whenever an email started to circulate about little Jimmy whose dying wish was to crash the world's email servers through infinite recursion, I would do a quick search and then pound out a debunking email. I would try to respond almost instantaneously, as if to say, "Hey, it took me 26 seconds to figure out that your email was bullshit... so exactly how much research did you put into this before sending it to 300 people?"
Then, in the early naughties*, something strange happened: People got a little bit smarter. Not a
lot smarter, mind you, because they were still people and people are inherently stupid. But for the most part they stopped forwarding ridiculous stories like these, which was of course a good thing. But then people started doing something even more irritating than mindlessly distributing lies: They started mindlessly distributing
facts. Or, perhaps more accurately,
factoids.
Factoids are more subtle than the Look Ma No Kidneys variety of nonsense, but they are just as widespread and even more difficult to dispose of. A factoid is a kernel of truth wrapped in an oversized package of misleading implications. What happens is that someone picks up -- usually from the internet -- some intriguing 'fact' which runs contrary to conventional wisdom, and then repeats that fact,
sans context, at every opportunity.
I was recently treated to a factoid-based discourse prompted by my bout of the "stomach flu." Now if you've had the stomach flu lately, you know that the standard response to this statement these days is: "There's no such thing as the stomach flu." And technically this is true: What we generally call the "stomach flu" is not in fact caused by the
influenza virus. Which, while we're being technical, I don't give a shit about.
Look, I'm not using the term "stomach flu" in a clinical sense. I'm using it in place of saying "Hey, I spent all day Monday Voldemorting into a tupperware bowl next to my bed." If you prefer the more graphical description, let me know. In any case, if
Sports Illustrated can get away with an
article saying that Kobe Bryant had the "stomach flu," then maybe you can let it go, Dr. Literal.
Anyway, the statement that "stomach flu" doesn't exist is an accurate, if entirely superfluous, correction. But the follow-up to this statement -- complete with knowing look and raised eyebrows -- is always: "It was probably
food poisoning."
Look, I've eaten
bad McNuggets. I know what food poisoning is. And yes, it's remarkably similar to the "stomach flu." But here's the thing about food poisoning: You get it from
food. So if my mother-in-law gets sick, and then a few hours later my nephew, whom she was babysitting, gets sick, and then two days later my kids, who were playing with my nephew, both get sick, and then two days later I get sick, and then two days after that my wife gets sick, all with the same symptoms, guess what?
It's not friggin' food poisoning. The only way that the food poisoning diagnosis makes any sense is if my family members were
eating each other. And I think I would remember something like that.
Oh, and one more thing before I let this one go: Food "poisoning" isn't poisoning. It's caused by a virus, not a poison. So even if you're right, you're still wrong. Suck on that.
Another example is the old canard about how "Most accidents occur within
x miles of home." When someone says this to me, I respond, "Wow, I should move somewhere less dangerous!"
The point, of course, is that you spend
most of your time within
x miles of home. When you say that most accidents occur within
x miles of home, all you're saying is that
most accidents occur in places where you spend the most time. Gee, thanks for the tip, Mr. Safety. In reality, my odds of getting into an accident on the way to Disneyland are probably 10 times the odds of me getting into an accident on the way to work -- they key difference being that I don't drive to Disneyland 20 times a month. Of course, if you work at Disneyland you're pretty much screwed, but I suppose that goes without saying.
Or how about this one: Someone once told me, in regard to jogging during the winter, that it was important to wear a hat because "you lose 75% of your heat from your head." Again, this is probably technically true. Of course you'd have to stuff the hat down your throat, because you're losing that heat by
breathing. But hey, don't let me stop you. Two birds, one stone.
So here's the deal: Reading some factoid off the Internet doesn't mean you know any more than someone who didn't read that little nugget of wisdom. In fact, often the people promulgating those factoids are pushing some sort of agenda that they're hoping you'll help them with by mindlessly regurgitating their blather. Don't buy it. If you want to pontificate on a subject, do a little research.
And when in doubt, think
bullshit.
*Come on, people, am I still the only one using this term?
CORRECTION: As the
Amoeba points out, what is commonly called "food poisoning" is not caused by a virus, but rather bacteria. Proving that even when I'm right, I'm wrong. Or something.
Humor-blogs.com is a hermaphrodite that had its kidneys forcibly removed.
Labels: Anecdotes, Rants, Technology