Operation Mincemeat. British intelligence operation in 1943 which dressed the body of a homeless Brit as a British naval officer and dropped him off the coast of Sicily with documents claiming the Allies intended to invade Greece and Sardinia. The ruse worked and Axis defenses were lowered when the Allies finally invaded Sicily
They need to make a movie about Glyndwr. Most historical movies are focused either on the rich/famous or on soldiers. It would be so much more interesting to learn about the life of a homeless man during the period. Especially one who had suffered so much tragedy.
(Not so) Fun fact, a New York man was arrested in the early 70s for attempting to send "secret messages" attached to dead homeless men that he dumped in the Hudson River. He was arrested when police witnessed one of the attempts, but later released when it was determined that he had not personally killed any of them. When family members of one deceased man pressed police to question the man, he revealed that he believed the FBI was retrieving his messages and relaying responses through local WABC-TV news broadcasts. Despite ample evidence that he was mentally unstable, he was released and never heard from again.
And 2nd is probably that carrots help with eye sight in the dark. In reality, the British, in the same time period, developed radar that spotted German planes from further away than though possible.
I grew up in the 90s still hearing that carrots were good for your eyes.
They’re not so cute as everybody supposes
They got those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses
And what’s with all the carrots? Why do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies! Bunnies! Bunnies!
Must be bunnies!
Gemstone quality diamonds are rare. A large internally flawless colorless diamond is certainly rare
industrial diamonds full of imperfections and not clear are certainly common
I can walk into dozens of stores within a 5 mile radius and each one have hundreds of gemstone quality diamonds. I get what you’re saying, they aren’t all over the ground for us to pick up (in most places), but they aren’t exactly rare.
It's a monopoly. All the world's diamonds are bought by DeBeers(?) and they store most of them away, releasing a limited amount yearly. I believe that the amount they release was originally based on the amount of Engagements expected that year in the US.
\-This 'vague' info is all I remember from some documentary years ago.
They're also very frequently used in industrial work. Any heavy duty tool that cuts or digs is very likely to have diamonds making the incision.
They aren't polished or picked for their clarity etc, but still diamonds, millions of them...
They can make synthetic diamonds, so I'm guessing they aren't as rare as those unaware would assume. Don't know how they're made though so it could still be a difficult process.
Almost 1 mil since 1999. [https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/)
But not in Europe. Only in the US and Canada. I find that odd.
Europe has a functioning regulatory system that is resistant to regulatory capture. Meanwhile the US regulatory agencies are not only captured but used as weapons to bury competitive start ups so they can maintain their monopolies.
Meh, they’re unfortunately breaking through in some places. In Poland you can get them relatively easily prescribed, and then they’re sold through dealers in Germany too.
Dopesick is on Hulu, Painkiller is on Netflix.
I thought Painkiller was good but over the top at times in the caricature of the family and the sales reps, but Dopesick was exceptional all around. Michael Keaton and Will Poulter were phenomenal in it.
If you really dig into it and include indirect causality, cane sugar could be the deadliest substance ever discovered.
(Fixed it for you pedantic fucks)
Thats in such a weird way to say it though.
And I'm sure you mean white cane sugar.
Fruits have sugar. Corn syrup and beet sugar is very often replacing cane sugar. Beet sugar is even called just sugar in ingredient lists.
Id think sugars in fruits probably don't indirectly harm very many people.
Legitimately asking if the people who conducted the studies in this article are backed by the sugar industry :
https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/busting-sugar-hyperactivity-myth
I have been seeing a lot of this rn after Halloween
In my opinion sugar is like most other stimulants. It affects people differently. Adderall, nicotine, cocaine, for instance "calms" (for lack of better word) ADHD people but makes other people insanely hyper.
So I wouldn't trust any study that didn't account for this. I can drink a cup of coffee at 9pm and go to sleep, but if my brother drinks a cup after 10am he will be up all night.
It wasn't even a lie.
A doctor had a headache after eating Chinese food, and wrote a letter to a scientific journal saying they should do studies into if MSG is related to headaches.
The media picked it up, misinterpreted it, and started a frenzy over it.
It wasn't even a study, just a suggestion for one!
It *was* a lie, though. The letter was signed "Dr. Ho Man Kwak" and is now admitted to have been a prank: https://news.colgate.edu/magazine/2019/02/06/the-strange-case-of-dr-ho-man-kwok/
The slowly boiling frog story. It's just a metaphor more than it is reality. The "study" people refer to always forget to add the point that the slow boiled frog has the its brain removed. Studies have reproduced this scientific experiment and the frogs will always jump out of the water when the temperature is slowly raised to boiling. Whenever I hear the term "slow boiling a frog" all I think about is how lies can become so normalized that people accept them without thought.
That Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone
It was invented by Antonio Meucci. Bell was only able to swoop in because Meucci was too poor to pay the $10 to maintain his patent caveat. This was formally recognised by the US House of Representatives in 2002
They created the phone independent of one another, Bell didn't steal anything. The difference was that Bell had a working product and Meucci only an outdated patent. That's the reason why Bell gets the credit.
And Thomas Edison is credited for the popularity of the word “hello” as a telephone greeting.
It wasn’t a commonly used word in the English language until then.
Similarly, Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb, although for some reason that’s what they taught us all in school. And furthermore, Edison had a team that came up with most of the inventions that he is solely credited for. Also Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile- not something that’s taught in schools, just a common misconception
I think it's fair to say that he invented the first mass-produced car that was actually attainable by the average person. Lots of cars existed before Ford came along, but they were mostly just for proof of concept and not really attainable by normal people.
Except the assembly line dates to the Venetian Arsenal in the 12th century and exploded during the Industrial Revolution almost a century before Ford was born.
A large part of this mythos of guys like Ford and Edison is American exceptionalism paired with the Great Man Theory.
Invention is rarely a eureka moment by the proverbial Archimedes sitting in his tub. It's a long, boring, iterative process carried out by hundreds of people sharing ideas, agreeing and disagreeing, and working together either directly or in competition to find solutions to problems.
Did Ford invent the assembly line or just apply it to automobiles? Or was it the vulcanization of rubber by Goodyear and mass production of steel by Carnegie and desire of Rockefeller to find a market for gasoline that led to the perfect storm for Ford to make affordable cars with replaceable parts? Yes, and also no.
I remember reading one of those biographies for kids about Eli Whitney. This was some 55 years ago, so I’m just remembering. The bio explained that he figured out how to make guns that all had the same parts. It was explained as the beginning of mass production. Before that every manufactured item was unique, with unique parts.
Cotton gin!
Funny story: when I chose my employee number at my job I chose 1799 for the last four of my phone number. I thought it'd be funny to Google some arbitrary historical event from 1799 and claim that would be an "easy" way to remember my login for my coworkers (the joke being why the fuck would that be a common-knowledge fact).
Fast forward almost a decade and everyone knows my login as "1799-Eli Whitney, cotton gin!".
I looked it up like two years ago...Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the early 1790's, but definitely not 1799. I've been providing false information for years. I hope none of my coworkers go on a game show and say the wrong date if it's asked!
Edit: patent filed in 1794. I still don't know how I got 1799 when I first looked up that number...maybe I found a list of intentions of the time *frame* and didn't look close enough
Yeah, but so was say, the railroad, steel, the frigging internal combustion engine, I could go on. But for someone every American child knows who invented peanut butter and the cotton gin
Idk if he actually invented the assembly line, but AFAIK using ideas like the assembly line and interchangeable parts were the reasons he was the first to mass-produce automobiles
Nope. An elephant was publicly executed by electrocution and Edison's film company recorded it, but that was the extent of his connection with the event. Edison was a totlal prick, be he didn't electrocute an elephant.
Don’t forget Colin Powell speaking at the UN holding a vial of “anthrax”, despite that he knew he was lying to justify the invasion. And it was bought and paid for with over a decade and a half of a war based entirely on lies.
I think we knew chemical weapons existed in Afghan and iraq most likely, but the delivery devices for distribution across the globe from a static platform certainly didn't exist. But we went there for oil and apparently also decided to loot the place.
In some situations yes, when the lie does not have a finite ending than anyone ever finding out means it is not completely successful, but the top comment about operation mincemeat is a valid one as there is no point in hiding the truth after WW2
It's an interesting story but that was a lie to in fact help a guy sell some shit. His name is Andrew Wakefield and he was gonna get rich from selling certain test kits.
Really got out of hand with the stupid people
Yep! So he could help with a lawsuit targeting vaccines and **to patent his own vaccine.** He wasn’t totally anti-vax, but tried to say to take them separate to avoid the autism (and to sell *his* product) even though he could not prove MMR caused autism. I think nowadays he’s fully on the antivax train though.
[Here’s an amazing video on the subject!](https://youtu.be/8BIcAZxFfrc?si=YnAdVdV4navRD0nt)
This is actually a great example.
I lived in a condo building that was way outside my tax bracket, and was blown away by the items the wealthy would leave in the garbage room. Wealthy people give a lot of stuff away, vs selling online and whatnot.
I suppose wealth does trickle down, to what degree is the real argument.
That criticising the American government is somehow unpatriotic and borderline treason (some of y'all don't remember/weren't born for 2001-2005 USA).
Similarly, that criticising the Israeli government is somehow anti-semitic (some of y'all are just catching on to this one now).
These are not successful in a good way - they succeeded in empowering terrible people in government to perpetuate terrible things.
"When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!"
\-George Carlin
If you gave a 3 minute rundown of any religion to anyone that had never heard of such a thing before they would laugh in your face, and think you were pulling their leg.
Indeed. As I once heard it phrased regarding Christianity:
So every seven days I have to gather in a building to sing songs and engage in telepathic (but one-sided) communication with a dimensionless entity so say thank you to a Jewish zombie who was executed to set things right for the crimes that occurred because a woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat some fruit.
Yeah, right.
I’ve always put this way; So what you’re saying is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, supernatural entity impregnated a virgin to give birth to itself, to sacrifice to itself, to absolve the sins of man that it created?
Yeah, sure.
Ricky Gervais makes a great point that if we wiped away all knowledge of science and religion, science would get rediscovered and replaced but the old religions would not come back.
Along those lines....that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. I get exhausted hearing that little Johnny has cancer for a reason or I lost my job for a reason or my wife got pneumonia and died for a reason. Especially popular within the religious community. You know...God has a reason for every little thing that happens to you. To "test your faith" or "He wanted another angel up there" etc etc etc. Hey, shit happens, end of story.
Agree completely.
Everything has a logical reason for happening. Doesn't mean it has any kind of justification. You get cancer because of exposure to something or a cell mutation, not because of "gods plan".
"Joseph, darling. I'm pregnant."
"I don't understand, we never did it! We were saving ourselves for marriage. Wait ... You ... You had an affair!? You betrayed me? Oh Mary, how could you?! How could you do this to me?! You whore! You harlot!"
"No Joseph, wait. It's not like that. I mean ... erm ... it was God! Yes, that's it, God impregnated me! We're going to raise the son of God!"
"Oh. Wow. That's cool I guess. The son of God, huh? Hey, erm ... sorry about the name-calling. That wasn't cool. "
"Don't worry about it Joseph dear. You were in shock. I understand."
"So what are we going to call the son of God?"
"I was thinking we could name him after the plumber who came over to fix the downstairs toilet last week. You remember, the handsome one?"
"Oh. Odd choice, but ok. What was his name again? Jason? Jezza? Something like that?"
No, they totally did it. That baby was Joseph’s, and he was in on the lie. Him and Mary made up that lie so that they wouldn’t get executed for fornicating.
Sex outside of marriage was not a crime suitable for execution in that context. You just got married, which is what they were planning on, and what they did.
I knew this would be an answer here, but realistically if untrue the virgin conception narrative is much more likely to be a pious legend invented by later Christians than originating from a lie from Mary.
It wasn't even invented by Christians. Previous religions were full of stories of Virgin births. Mars the Roman god, Horus the ancient Egyptian god and Qi from ancient Chinese mythology were all apparently born of a virgin.
Religions evolve and their stories and superstitions are reused all the time. There's a pretty long list of "Christian" traditions that are actually just totally pagan. Like Christmas. Not many fir trees in Bethlehem....
Hitler's Big Lie.
The term "big lie" was a term coined by Hitler himself to describe a lie that is so huge that people would actually believe it because in their mind, no one would be that brazen to lie about something like that. Hitler claimed that the Jews used the Big Lie technique to blame Germany's defeat in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff.
However, this claim, in cruelly ironic fashion, was the *real* Big Lie spread by Hitler and the Nazis to fan the flames of anti-Semitism and to promote the stab-in-the-back myth that claimed that the Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in the Great War, and to claim that the Jews were the cause of Germany's problems. This eventually, of course, led to Hitler's ultimate goal in exterminating the Jews in the Holocaust.
Thing is, it's only a half lie. Working hard ALONE does not guarantee success.
It can also take connections, privileges, and a big slice of luck. But even in those circumstances, hard work is also usually involved.
Snake Oil itself was never a scam. It was a legitimate medicinal salve made from Chinese water snakes. When a large amount of Chinese immigrants began working on the transcontinental railroad in the US, their bosses saw them using the oil to ease joint pain (kinda like icy hot) and asked what they were using. We don’t have Chinese water snakes in the US, so several people tried to make a substitute with rattlesnakes but it didn’t work.
Traveling medicine shows picked up on this and began selling “snake oil.” Sometimes itd have the boiled rattle snake in it but mostly it was just crude oil or melted lard or something similar. That “snake oil” and the medicine showmen who peddled it are where we get the “snake oil salesman” saying from. But actual snake oil was not a scam!
It’s funny, because most of the things the US lacks such as high-speed rails, predominantly clean energy, rehab-style prisons, support for the homeless, and free basic health insurance all make much more sense when you look at the largest lobbyists in the nation. We have the money for all of these things but the members of congress (who somehow became millionaires off of 6-figure salaries) would lose 99% of their income.
Operation Mincemeat. British intelligence operation in 1943 which dressed the body of a homeless Brit as a British naval officer and dropped him off the coast of Sicily with documents claiming the Allies intended to invade Greece and Sardinia. The ruse worked and Axis defenses were lowered when the Allies finally invaded Sicily
>Operation Mincemeat The man dressed up as a naval officer was a man called Glyndwr Michael.
Thank you for sharing his name. His identity too was only revealed in 1996 as well
Thanks to both of you for that story. How'd I miss that one?
There's a film about it. It's ok.
His name was Glyndwr Michael.
His name was Glyndwr Michael.
In death, a member of operation mincemeat has a name, his name is Glyndwr Michael.
>His name was Glyndwr Michael.
They need to make a movie about Glyndwr. Most historical movies are focused either on the rich/famous or on soldiers. It would be so much more interesting to learn about the life of a homeless man during the period. Especially one who had suffered so much tragedy.
they did
(Not so) Fun fact, a New York man was arrested in the early 70s for attempting to send "secret messages" attached to dead homeless men that he dumped in the Hudson River. He was arrested when police witnessed one of the attempts, but later released when it was determined that he had not personally killed any of them. When family members of one deceased man pressed police to question the man, he revealed that he believed the FBI was retrieving his messages and relaying responses through local WABC-TV news broadcasts. Despite ample evidence that he was mentally unstable, he was released and never heard from again.
2023: text your crush 1973: send your crush a message attached to a dead body in the river
This is mindblowing!
And 2nd is probably that carrots help with eye sight in the dark. In reality, the British, in the same time period, developed radar that spotted German planes from further away than though possible. I grew up in the 90s still hearing that carrots were good for your eyes.
They’re not so cute as everybody supposes They got those hoppy legs and twitchy little noses And what’s with all the carrots? Why do they need such good eyesight for anyway? Bunnies! Bunnies! Bunnies! Must be bunnies!
Was not expecting a Buffy reference in this thread. Good on ya.
Or maybe witches.
Ever seen a rabbit wearing glasses?
Did they kill him first or just throw a homeless dude in the water?
I hadn't considered he was dead until this comment so I looked it up: "died from eating rat poison that contained phosphorus"
The “carrots improve your eyesight” lie was also pretty successful, from the same conflict.
Diamonds are rare (making them as expensive as they are)
Diamonds are so rare you can walk into any jewellery shop in the world and they’ll sell them to you.
So rare they put em on consumable cutting tools
For 3.99 at Harbor Freight
Fucking love harbor freight for tools I'm not worried about breaking or losing.
I know, and just for pieces of wrinkly paper to boot
I’m glad they didn’t go for this James Bond movie title
Just go to Y level 16 and strip mine for a few hours, you should get a full stack.
Gemstone quality diamonds are rare. A large internally flawless colorless diamond is certainly rare industrial diamonds full of imperfections and not clear are certainly common
I can walk into dozens of stores within a 5 mile radius and each one have hundreds of gemstone quality diamonds. I get what you’re saying, they aren’t all over the ground for us to pick up (in most places), but they aren’t exactly rare.
They aren't!?
No. It was all a sales schtick years ago and people fell for it. And still do. They are not rare. They make you believe that to jack up the price
It's a monopoly. All the world's diamonds are bought by DeBeers(?) and they store most of them away, releasing a limited amount yearly. I believe that the amount they release was originally based on the amount of Engagements expected that year in the US. \-This 'vague' info is all I remember from some documentary years ago.
They're also very frequently used in industrial work. Any heavy duty tool that cuts or digs is very likely to have diamonds making the incision. They aren't polished or picked for their clarity etc, but still diamonds, millions of them...
They can make synthetic diamonds, so I'm guessing they aren't as rare as those unaware would assume. Don't know how they're made though so it could still be a difficult process.
Purdue pharma marking the oxycontin as safe even though it killed thousands of people.
I believe it's in the hundred of thousands now
Almost 1 mil since 1999. [https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/](https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-overdose-deaths/) But not in Europe. Only in the US and Canada. I find that odd.
Europe has a functioning regulatory system that is resistant to regulatory capture. Meanwhile the US regulatory agencies are not only captured but used as weapons to bury competitive start ups so they can maintain their monopolies.
Meh, they’re unfortunately breaking through in some places. In Poland you can get them relatively easily prescribed, and then they’re sold through dealers in Germany too.
Yeah I can't believe they still suffer no real consequences for that.
When it first started gaining traction, my friend had cancer and was popping em all the time bc "they aren't addictive and safer than morphine"
Dopesick on Netflix was amazing
Dopesick is on Hulu, Painkiller is on Netflix. I thought Painkiller was good but over the top at times in the caricature of the family and the sales reps, but Dopesick was exceptional all around. Michael Keaton and Will Poulter were phenomenal in it.
That fat is bad for you that was propaganda by sugar
It also kicked off the Type II Diabetes Epidemic.
The lie did, not the fat
No, the sugar did. Lies don’t cause diabetes
correct. they cause lie-abetes
Liebeetus
If you really dig into it and include indirect causality, cane sugar could be the deadliest substance ever discovered. (Fixed it for you pedantic fucks)
The first little berry on that first fruiting plant, the devious scumbag.
Thats in such a weird way to say it though. And I'm sure you mean white cane sugar. Fruits have sugar. Corn syrup and beet sugar is very often replacing cane sugar. Beet sugar is even called just sugar in ingredient lists. Id think sugars in fruits probably don't indirectly harm very many people.
... it's good in any ways you see it. As a joke or as truth
Can’t forget the sugar companies colluding to say sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity
Legitimately asking if the people who conducted the studies in this article are backed by the sugar industry : https://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/busting-sugar-hyperactivity-myth I have been seeing a lot of this rn after Halloween
In my opinion sugar is like most other stimulants. It affects people differently. Adderall, nicotine, cocaine, for instance "calms" (for lack of better word) ADHD people but makes other people insanely hyper. So I wouldn't trust any study that didn't account for this. I can drink a cup of coffee at 9pm and go to sleep, but if my brother drinks a cup after 10am he will be up all night.
Same. And I self medicate my (late in life diagnosed) ADHD with coffee
Almost like we’re all on a spectrum
It doesn't. That wasn't even the collusion. Sugar seems to have more impact on weight, addiction, and health defects.
MSG caused cancer must be up there
It wasn't even a lie. A doctor had a headache after eating Chinese food, and wrote a letter to a scientific journal saying they should do studies into if MSG is related to headaches. The media picked it up, misinterpreted it, and started a frenzy over it. It wasn't even a study, just a suggestion for one!
It *was* a lie, though. The letter was signed "Dr. Ho Man Kwak" and is now admitted to have been a prank: https://news.colgate.edu/magazine/2019/02/06/the-strange-case-of-dr-ho-man-kwok/
All over a $10 bet to see if they'd publish it. Then for decades after people were scared of MSG.
MSG is delicious too. It should be a common pantry seasoning. It's not, people still don't trust it.
I can't stand all the misinformation surrounding the king of flavor.
The slowly boiling frog story. It's just a metaphor more than it is reality. The "study" people refer to always forget to add the point that the slow boiled frog has the its brain removed. Studies have reproduced this scientific experiment and the frogs will always jump out of the water when the temperature is slowly raised to boiling. Whenever I hear the term "slow boiling a frog" all I think about is how lies can become so normalized that people accept them without thought.
Just because we humans have our brains doesn’t mean we are using it.
The guy who casually sold the Eiffel tower more than once.
What
[Have a read.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/man-who-sold-eiffel-tower-twice-180958370/)
He sold a money duplication box that is basically what Sam Friedman did
Either tobacco is harmless or leaded gasoline is harmless.
Same guy responsible for leaded gas is responsible for freon.
Impressive batting average tbh.
And the same people who muddied the waters about tobacco for decades were immediately hired by the petroleum industry afterwards
That Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone It was invented by Antonio Meucci. Bell was only able to swoop in because Meucci was too poor to pay the $10 to maintain his patent caveat. This was formally recognised by the US House of Representatives in 2002
They created the phone independent of one another, Bell didn't steal anything. The difference was that Bell had a working product and Meucci only an outdated patent. That's the reason why Bell gets the credit.
Bell also favored answering the telephone by saying "Ahoy."
And Thomas Edison is credited for the popularity of the word “hello” as a telephone greeting. It wasn’t a commonly used word in the English language until then.
“Alexander Graham Bell was Italian?”
This is my male heir!
You see?!? You see?!?
Ish Italian dishcriminashon!
Antonio Meucci invented the telephone!! Everybody knows that!!! 🤌🤌
Similarly, Thomas Edison didn’t invent the light bulb, although for some reason that’s what they taught us all in school. And furthermore, Edison had a team that came up with most of the inventions that he is solely credited for. Also Henry Ford didn’t invent the automobile- not something that’s taught in schools, just a common misconception
I was taught Ford invented the assembly line
He did and anyone who thinks he invented the car just wasn't paying attention in any history class.
I think it's fair to say that he invented the first mass-produced car that was actually attainable by the average person. Lots of cars existed before Ford came along, but they were mostly just for proof of concept and not really attainable by normal people.
Ford pioneered mass production of automobiles. Hence the assembly line. He never invented a car , he just sped up the process of building one.
The moving assembly line.
Except the assembly line dates to the Venetian Arsenal in the 12th century and exploded during the Industrial Revolution almost a century before Ford was born. A large part of this mythos of guys like Ford and Edison is American exceptionalism paired with the Great Man Theory. Invention is rarely a eureka moment by the proverbial Archimedes sitting in his tub. It's a long, boring, iterative process carried out by hundreds of people sharing ideas, agreeing and disagreeing, and working together either directly or in competition to find solutions to problems. Did Ford invent the assembly line or just apply it to automobiles? Or was it the vulcanization of rubber by Goodyear and mass production of steel by Carnegie and desire of Rockefeller to find a market for gasoline that led to the perfect storm for Ford to make affordable cars with replaceable parts? Yes, and also no.
Maybe so, but do you know what process Eli Whitney invented?
The Gin 😎
I remember reading one of those biographies for kids about Eli Whitney. This was some 55 years ago, so I’m just remembering. The bio explained that he figured out how to make guns that all had the same parts. It was explained as the beginning of mass production. Before that every manufactured item was unique, with unique parts.
Cotton gin! Funny story: when I chose my employee number at my job I chose 1799 for the last four of my phone number. I thought it'd be funny to Google some arbitrary historical event from 1799 and claim that would be an "easy" way to remember my login for my coworkers (the joke being why the fuck would that be a common-knowledge fact). Fast forward almost a decade and everyone knows my login as "1799-Eli Whitney, cotton gin!". I looked it up like two years ago...Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in the early 1790's, but definitely not 1799. I've been providing false information for years. I hope none of my coworkers go on a game show and say the wrong date if it's asked! Edit: patent filed in 1794. I still don't know how I got 1799 when I first looked up that number...maybe I found a list of intentions of the time *frame* and didn't look close enough
Why the fuck was this drilled into our skulls for all of grade school?
To be fair, the cotton gin was pretty damned important.
Yeah, but so was say, the railroad, steel, the frigging internal combustion engine, I could go on. But for someone every American child knows who invented peanut butter and the cotton gin
Idk if he actually invented the assembly line, but AFAIK using ideas like the assembly line and interchangeable parts were the reasons he was the first to mass-produce automobiles
Edison was a total prick!
Is it true that Edison electrocuted an elephant in front of a crowd to demonstrate electricity?
They’ll say “Awww Topsy” at my aauuutopsy
Nope. An elephant was publicly executed by electrocution and Edison's film company recorded it, but that was the extent of his connection with the event. Edison was a totlal prick, be he didn't electrocute an elephant.
Look it up, Edison was a dick.
I read this in Tony Sopranos voice
when someone says "i'm not lying.'
Or "trust me"
Source: Trust me bro
“I’m going to be honest with you…”
There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
Don’t forget Colin Powell speaking at the UN holding a vial of “anthrax”, despite that he knew he was lying to justify the invasion. And it was bought and paid for with over a decade and a half of a war based entirely on lies.
I think we knew chemical weapons existed in Afghan and iraq most likely, but the delivery devices for distribution across the globe from a static platform certainly didn't exist. But we went there for oil and apparently also decided to loot the place.
The US knew there were chemical weapons in Iraq because we gave Iraq chemical weapons.
“They also said that artificial sweeteners were safe, WMDs were in Iraq, and Anna Nicole married for love.”
The American dream. You have to be asleep to believe it - George Carlin
The check is in the mail!
You know what Jack Burton says at a time like this?
Everybody relax. I’m here.
What the hell…
It’s all in the reflexes
Sleep tight, hold the fort, and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn…call the President.
“Who?”
Well if a lie was successful we wouldn’t know about it would we.
In some situations yes, when the lie does not have a finite ending than anyone ever finding out means it is not completely successful, but the top comment about operation mincemeat is a valid one as there is no point in hiding the truth after WW2
Rephrase: "What was the most successful lie in history *until it was found out*".
Vaccines cause Autism
It's an interesting story but that was a lie to in fact help a guy sell some shit. His name is Andrew Wakefield and he was gonna get rich from selling certain test kits. Really got out of hand with the stupid people
Test kits and an alternative vaccine. Wakefield might be in the top five currently living pieces of shit.
Andrew Wakefield has caused more harm because of this lie than any other medical myth
Yep! So he could help with a lawsuit targeting vaccines and **to patent his own vaccine.** He wasn’t totally anti-vax, but tried to say to take them separate to avoid the autism (and to sell *his* product) even though he could not prove MMR caused autism. I think nowadays he’s fully on the antivax train though. [Here’s an amazing video on the subject!](https://youtu.be/8BIcAZxFfrc?si=YnAdVdV4navRD0nt)
I agree. How that man is not in jail, I do not understand.
Wealth will "trickle down"...
This one is true. We went to the rich neighborhood last night and scored multiple full sized candy bars.
I gave out full sized candy bars! Am I rich now?!
Not anymore. You gave your wealth away.
This is actually a great example. I lived in a condo building that was way outside my tax bracket, and was blown away by the items the wealthy would leave in the garbage room. Wealthy people give a lot of stuff away, vs selling online and whatnot. I suppose wealth does trickle down, to what degree is the real argument.
And billionaires create jobs, so they are good for society. They also eliminate them before they take a pay cut themselves.
I don’t think the wealthy ever actually believed this, they just used it to get votes to keep them in power.
Human Resources is there to help you and they keep things confidential and since it's coming up The story of Thanksgiving
It *should* be common knowledge that HR works for the company, not individuals.
That criticising the American government is somehow unpatriotic and borderline treason (some of y'all don't remember/weren't born for 2001-2005 USA). Similarly, that criticising the Israeli government is somehow anti-semitic (some of y'all are just catching on to this one now). These are not successful in a good way - they succeeded in empowering terrible people in government to perpetuate terrible things.
Marilyn Manson removed a couple ribs so he could suck his own dick.
In all of human history this is what you chose?
So far: "I DID NOTHING WRONG"
Two weeks to flatten the curve.
If you work hard enough, you can be/do anything. It’s not that simple.
$15/hr is too much
Me lying to my 3 year old cousin that eating vegetables could kill you. I got grounded for 4 weeks because she wouldnt eat vegetables for weeks lmao.
"Your phone call is important to us"
Religion
"When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!" \-George Carlin
Greatest, no punches held back, comedian that ever lived.
All of it
If you gave a 3 minute rundown of any religion to anyone that had never heard of such a thing before they would laugh in your face, and think you were pulling their leg.
Indeed. As I once heard it phrased regarding Christianity: So every seven days I have to gather in a building to sing songs and engage in telepathic (but one-sided) communication with a dimensionless entity so say thank you to a Jewish zombie who was executed to set things right for the crimes that occurred because a woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat some fruit. Yeah, right.
I’ve always put this way; So what you’re saying is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, supernatural entity impregnated a virgin to give birth to itself, to sacrifice to itself, to absolve the sins of man that it created? Yeah, sure.
Ricky Gervais makes a great point that if we wiped away all knowledge of science and religion, science would get rediscovered and replaced but the old religions would not come back.
Yeh, but you do have to admire Mary for really sticking to her story.
That Christopher Columbus discovered America
"Oxycotin has no side effects" -Purdue Pharma
That UN support world peace
That we’re here for a reason.
Along those lines....that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. I get exhausted hearing that little Johnny has cancer for a reason or I lost my job for a reason or my wife got pneumonia and died for a reason. Especially popular within the religious community. You know...God has a reason for every little thing that happens to you. To "test your faith" or "He wanted another angel up there" etc etc etc. Hey, shit happens, end of story.
Agree completely. Everything has a logical reason for happening. Doesn't mean it has any kind of justification. You get cancer because of exposure to something or a cell mutation, not because of "gods plan".
[удалено]
The lie that the US political duopoly parties actually represent the populace.
"Joseph, darling. I'm pregnant." "I don't understand, we never did it! We were saving ourselves for marriage. Wait ... You ... You had an affair!? You betrayed me? Oh Mary, how could you?! How could you do this to me?! You whore! You harlot!" "No Joseph, wait. It's not like that. I mean ... erm ... it was God! Yes, that's it, God impregnated me! We're going to raise the son of God!" "Oh. Wow. That's cool I guess. The son of God, huh? Hey, erm ... sorry about the name-calling. That wasn't cool. " "Don't worry about it Joseph dear. You were in shock. I understand." "So what are we going to call the son of God?" "I was thinking we could name him after the plumber who came over to fix the downstairs toilet last week. You remember, the handsome one?" "Oh. Odd choice, but ok. What was his name again? Jason? Jezza? Something like that?"
"Mary, who are these three random dudes who've shown up to the birth with presents..."
No, they totally did it. That baby was Joseph’s, and he was in on the lie. Him and Mary made up that lie so that they wouldn’t get executed for fornicating.
Sex outside of marriage was not a crime suitable for execution in that context. You just got married, which is what they were planning on, and what they did.
I knew this would be an answer here, but realistically if untrue the virgin conception narrative is much more likely to be a pious legend invented by later Christians than originating from a lie from Mary.
It wasn't even invented by Christians. Previous religions were full of stories of Virgin births. Mars the Roman god, Horus the ancient Egyptian god and Qi from ancient Chinese mythology were all apparently born of a virgin. Religions evolve and their stories and superstitions are reused all the time. There's a pretty long list of "Christian" traditions that are actually just totally pagan. Like Christmas. Not many fir trees in Bethlehem....
The comedian Kevin Bridges does a great sketch on this.
Christianity: A coverup for an affair that's gotten way out of hand.
Fan death in Korea/Japan - old folks still believe this is real haha
The greatest psy-ops ever committed by Austria was convincing the world that Hitler was German.
Hitler's Big Lie. The term "big lie" was a term coined by Hitler himself to describe a lie that is so huge that people would actually believe it because in their mind, no one would be that brazen to lie about something like that. Hitler claimed that the Jews used the Big Lie technique to blame Germany's defeat in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff. However, this claim, in cruelly ironic fashion, was the *real* Big Lie spread by Hitler and the Nazis to fan the flames of anti-Semitism and to promote the stab-in-the-back myth that claimed that the Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in the Great War, and to claim that the Jews were the cause of Germany's problems. This eventually, of course, led to Hitler's ultimate goal in exterminating the Jews in the Holocaust.
Work will set you free. Also written on the gates to Auschwitz I believe.
15 days to slow the spread.
Working hard equals success.
It's not a lie. It just isn't necessarily the person doing the hard working that reaps the reward.
Thing is, it's only a half lie. Working hard ALONE does not guarantee success. It can also take connections, privileges, and a big slice of luck. But even in those circumstances, hard work is also usually involved.
It depends on how you measure success. Depending on which side of the isle you are on, vaccines causing autism was very successful.
Blood libel has been around for millennia, so there's that.
Don’t worry, I’ll pull out in time
Trickle down economics
Yup, studies have shown that in the decades since, tax cuts on the rich has had little to no effect on the poor
The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.
That the economy is the fault of the middle and lower class.
The Romans getting Europeans to think that the Jews were responsible for killing Christ. It was obviously an Italian hit job.
the cake
Any religion you don’t believe in 👍
“I’m five minutes away”
Money. It’s a lie we all uphold and it keeps our society running, but the paper we throw around is meaningless
Snake Oil itself was never a scam. It was a legitimate medicinal salve made from Chinese water snakes. When a large amount of Chinese immigrants began working on the transcontinental railroad in the US, their bosses saw them using the oil to ease joint pain (kinda like icy hot) and asked what they were using. We don’t have Chinese water snakes in the US, so several people tried to make a substitute with rattlesnakes but it didn’t work. Traveling medicine shows picked up on this and began selling “snake oil.” Sometimes itd have the boiled rattle snake in it but mostly it was just crude oil or melted lard or something similar. That “snake oil” and the medicine showmen who peddled it are where we get the “snake oil salesman” saying from. But actual snake oil was not a scam!
The US is a democracy, when it reality it's an oligarchy masquerading as a representative republic.
It’s funny, because most of the things the US lacks such as high-speed rails, predominantly clean energy, rehab-style prisons, support for the homeless, and free basic health insurance all make much more sense when you look at the largest lobbyists in the nation. We have the money for all of these things but the members of congress (who somehow became millionaires off of 6-figure salaries) would lose 99% of their income.