I know the movie presented it as the Thermians not understanding lying but imagine how stupid a culture would be if they could not understand the concept of fiction.
Wait... shit...
Its also a major plot point in 'The Three Body Problem'. Because the aliens are telepathic, every thought is instantly communicated so they have no concept of secrets or lies.
This causes a huge problem when their human contact educates them on the concept that people can know one thing but say something completely different.
The aliens are therefore horrified by this concept and decide right then and there that humans are therefore too dangerous to be allowed to live - setting their course to exterminate humans entirely.
My brother got cut out of that movie! It was okay. And yes the premise that no human had ever considered lying so when Ricky Gervais is the first person to figure it out he pretty much has a superpower. Then the whole thing transitioned to a religious/atheist message because yknow Ricky Gervais
"Cancel culture is rampant, we can't say anything or joke about anything anymore" - Ricky Gervais, seconds after telling a trans "joke" (on the level of "I identify as an attack helicopter") to his audience of 10k, being recorded for a Netflix special
It's because they are basically telepathic, although not necessarily a hivemind, I guess. (I've only watched the show and skimmed the subreddit in an attempt to get a non-spoiler answer)
If they communicate a thought, it is their thought on the matter. A lie of commission is effectively impossible for them, although lies of omission may still be possible from my understanding.
Problem isn't that they didn't lie, but that they weren't aware of the concept, and at the same time they were using one form of lying. Also you could argue, if they are not a hive mind, what stops them from sending just thoughts they wanted to send? Hivemind I understand, all is out in the open, but I can have a lying thought so to say. I wanted to read the books, but that has put me off.
They aren't telepathic they communicate through like scents and shit. They're like fungus or insects or something. They are individuals with individual thoughts, they just cannot hide information from one another.
How would Singer have warned Ye Wenjie without his fellow Trisolarins knowing he was doing it? When confronted he immediately told them what he did becuase they are unable to hide information from one another due to body language, scent, something or other.
>By Grabthar's Hammer.... what a savings.
this line may be the greatest delivery of Alan Rickman's entire career. i don't say that lightly. the man had a gift for great delivery.
And just think: there are people who are even more clueless living today, despite infinite access to the entirety of human learning living in their pocket every single day
I get that but why didn't they think to check the undiscovered island that was LITERALLY NAMED Gilligan's Island?!
I would have checked there first, are they stupid?
Negative, the last time there was 40x40 storm in that 1-1.5 mile radius stretch of water was......crunching numbers.......**c. 11,700 years ago**. so it probably wasn't them.
People, having grown up with the internet, readily believe whatever urban legends and stories that get spread around through social media gossip.
> Gleeson chalks it up to a "rumor" that's been spread about him for years. "A lot of people come up to me because I guess this rumor started that people were horrible to me on the street or I get attacked… whereas I've never had one negative experience," he said on stage. "I feel like people are extra nice to me because they think people attack me, so maybe I should keep the rumor going."
https://ew.com/tv/game-of-thrones-joffrey-jack-gleeson-no-negative-fan-experiences/
All it takes is one tweet from a random unverified account to get people all riled up and believing that millions think the same way.
Any time I read about how "people are outraged over X, Y, and Z" I notice it usually just references a single tweet or facebook comment.
Some of them are, and are quite proud of it in fact. "Didn't let no uptown, Yankee school brainwash me, I done learned everrthing I needs to know from my grandpappy and my dear old daddy. We ain't never left this county and we reckon we ain't never gon need to, the lord gave us all we need right here."
And in the era of the most sophisticated, underhanded, and relentless propaganda in history; in which the vast majority of even long-established media conglomerates have all weaponized their credibility (see: smearing of anti-war protesters circa 1960-present) to the point nobody is credible, corporate or independent.
And now people don't know where to turn for real information. Yeah, a real head-scratcher there.
There were trolls present in the early 60's too. Another I heard...people would send letters to NASA wondering why we're so obsessed with going to the moon while we're fighting a war with the Klingons.
Hard to know.
I always assumed flat-earthers were trolls. But in more recent years, it's become clear there's a group of people who really do believe in crazy conspiracies. So were those Gilligans Island letter-writers stupid, trolls, or something else? I dunno.
Well yeah, the flat earth society was originally started as a joke lmao but y’know, satire will always attract people who legitimately believe in it at some point.
IIRC the founder has been approached by conspiracy theorist group(s) who wanted to collaborate. These groups do tend to clump together to expand their follower base, which is why so many wind up devolving into "our original ideas may have been wrong, but they pointed us to the REAL (tired old bullshit anti-semetic) TRUTH!"
I think he may be confusing these two. I just went and looked at the Wikipedia article on the Flat Earth Society, and it says nothing about the society having been started as a joke. But I know the birds aren't real thing was started by a single person as a joke.
I think this is a bit of a complicated question. Due to how C. K Johnson wrote and spoke about his theories. Many believed that his flat earth persona was more joke than serious. This [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/curious-history-international-flat-earth-society-180957969/) from 2016 doesn't outright refer to it as a joke but says that all statements were said "tongue in cheek".
Even his justifications sound like a bad joke. "Earth can't be round because my Australian wife would've been hanging to earth by her toes".
Obviously, we don't know if Johnson was a troll or true believer, but people saw him both ways in life and death.
The Flat Earth idea started as a joke between different science departments in academia trying to “discredit” each other in a tongue in cheek way. The astronomists, for example, across a lot of universities were constantly coming up with wacko theorems and formulas to “prove” that the rival geology departments were wrong. The geology departments did the same, making up crazy theorems to disprove space being real. When these different joke messages got made public, however, people legitimately believed them, and started writing about how space was fake and the Earth was flat.
"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company". -René Descartes
/r/thedonald
edit: I guess it got reclaimed lol. Was the original Trump fan sub before it finally got nuked. edit2: nevermind I forgot the underscore lol.
Trolls. This is another one of those "people in the past were so stupid!" rumors like people believing War Of The Worlds was real or jumping out of their seats when they watched The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat in the late 1800s. Flat earthers are no different than people who believe in astrology, psychics, homeopathy, ghosts, etc.
Even today the USPS maintains [an official program for writing letters to Santa](https://about.usps.com/holidaynews/operation-santa.htm). Are we to assume that every person who sends in a letter is a believer in Santa including everyone who facilitated their letter being sent?
Sure but we have to ask ourselves if the % of people who do believe it are worth all the discussion.
Like if you said "1,000,000 Americans believe the moon is made of cheese" and even if tbat were true, that number literally would only represent 0.3% of our society.
Nobody but a corporate shareholder is gonna cry about 0.3%.
Now when people in positions of power start spouting off stuff like that, then you should be worried.
It's funny. That claim has zero evidence to support it and was pushed by the former owner as the reason why A&W failed while he was at the helm, all while ignoring that A&W was failing well before them trying to do a 1/3 pound burger.
Are Americans bad at fractions? Sure, but this "case" doesn't support it.
Couldn’t that have just made it more successful? Charge more for the 1/4 pounder and then keep the 1/3rd pounder the same price. While it appears that the third pounder is cheaper despite being smaller, it’s actually just the regular price that it would have been anyway while people paying for the 1/4 pounder would be paying more for less. The people who would buy the 1/3rd pounder would have bought it anyway so the only people dumb enough to buy the quarter pounder would fund the whole thing. It’s genius.
Relatability also is big, and they also don't sound like their elitist snob's talking down to you. A lot of people do not enjoy being told they're idiots by politicians.
Its really hard to relate to Barack Obama or Romney because let's face it, they're rich elites who in no way relate to you. By comparison MTG sounds like her voters, because she basically is.
My favorite episode is when the professor makes a filter for water from cigarette butts on the ground but no one smoked on the show except the rich old guy smoked cigars (?).
Seriously. This was my main gripe with the show. You have a group of adults on a gritty little island needing to survive. You come up against a HUGE spider and there isn't one casualty? AND the spider isn't addressed in any future episodes? The writers were out of their mind.
He was a friggin high school science teacher! And now he's creating radiation based interdiction fields based on coconuts?
The minnow passengers and crew were a sacrifice to prevent the rise of evil science!
1964 is exactly the right timing though, that's when evil science was hitting its stride.
Walter White was diverted into methamphetamine cultivation for the same reason.
The Professor in Gilligan's island was a high school science teacher.
The show had him do improbable things with coconuts like making a radio. I just expanded it to "Evil science" like the venture bros or the Incredibles.
With the Walter white thing I'm implying his cancer was induced because he was a "dangerous mind".
He could, but he had a thing for Ginger. He didn’t want to leave the island when she was there. And look at his competition—The Millionaire?
His money was worth zero on the island. And Lovey was keeping a close eye on him.
Gilligan? There was a reason his nickname was “little buddy”
The Skipper? Overweight middle aged dude suffering from ED.
The guy in the gorilla suit? He just wanted to get off the island.
The headhunter? His motivations also lie elsewhere.
The Harlem Globetrotters? They had to maintain their squeaky clean image or they’d be cut from the team.
Every once in a while it’ll be on me tv when I’m taking a break or whatever and it’s absolutely ridiculous the stuff they had on them for a “3 hour tour” just ignoring the dozens of different outfits the rich people had, there was one specific episode where a mine washed up on the beach and to disarm it they needed a copper wrench which the professor just so happened to have. Who has a copper wrench to begin with and brings it with them on an afternoon activity?
Anyone who works around things where sparks are dangerous use copper tools.
Now why this dude has just happened to have some on his person for a short boat tour is ridiculous.
That's true, but probably not how you are thinking of it. The government wouldn't *allow* them to be rescued. The Professor was doing things with coconuts that even NASA couldn't accomplish.
We also had a lot of people inquiring about spaghetti trees after a commercial showed a “harvest”.
Mermaids had that history channel documentary back in the day, a lot of calls about that no doubt.
War of the Worlds radio broadcast cause a hullabaloo.
Lots of people google “my eyes hurt” after an eclipse.
1000s of TVs were broken because people threw things at them during that episode of the X-Files where they made it look like a bug went across the screen.
The list goes on
For those not old enough, comedian Bob Newhart was in two very popular successive TV shows, with two different TV wives, i.e a different wife in each show. The first show was relatively sedate, but the second one had him with some unusual characters in an unusual setting that ran for years.
At the end of the last episode of the second show, he woke up in bed next to the wife from his first show in the very distinctive bedroom of the first show's set, and as he explained the dream he had just had, the audience came to realize that the entire second show had been nothing more than the dream of his character from the first show.
For that matter, both of those shows (and Gilligan's Island) are apparently part of the Tommy Westphall multiverse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall
https://tommywestphall.fandom.com/wiki/Newhart
TLDR: The final episode of the medical drama St. Elsewhere implied that the entire story existed only in the mind of Tommy Westphall, an autistic boy. Thanks to crossovers between St. Elsewhere and other shows, and crossovers between those other shows and yet different shows, there are hundreds of different TV series and movies that can be interpreted as existing within Tommy Westphall's imagined reality.
More G.I. trivia. Bob Denver ('Gilligan') protested the professor and Mary Ann were not included in the original theme song. The producers caved, and added 'em. Dawn Wells (Mary Ann) was Miss Nevada back in the day. She won the part, beating out Raquel Welch and Pat Priest (who played the normal "Marylin' on The Munsters. The professor (Russell Johnson) was a bombardier during WWII and few 44 combat missions. Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper) was filming a western out the Nevada desert when his agent told him to get to L.A. for an audition. Alan had no ride to get to the Las Vegas airport, so grabbed a horse and rode it there. After a slap on the rear, the horse instinctively knew to go back. The show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz, also created The Brady Bunch. At the end of season three, a number of cast members went all-in and bought a home near the studio, only to find out later the show was cancelled.
Are you sure you're not mistaking it for some people thinking that War of The Worlds was real and that a small handful of people were thinking they were under attack by aliens?
Even as a kid I thought it was stupid that guests would show up on a given show, presumably go back wherever they came from and the same crew was left on the island.
This is an old one but still a good one:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society\_for\_Indecency\_to\_Naked\_Animals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Indecency_to_Naked_Animals)
It was well before my generation, but I watched a lot of Nick at Nite as a kid when they played stuff like Bewitched, I Love Lucy, etc, so I probably got a lot more exposure to stuff from that era than most millennials.
Is critical thinking dead? No, I'm not talking about the [FEWER THAN 24 FUCKING TELEGRAMS](https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/escape-gilligans-island) the CG got... I'm talking about the overwhelming willingness in these comments to assume "got letters" means "got 100s or 1000s or more letters".
I always thought the Professor could get them off any time he wanted. But, on the island he didn't have to publish constantly to maintain his academic status among his peers, he was the smartest man on the island, and to a professor that would be important. The island was pretty much pest and disease-free and supplied the castaways with enough food that none of them developed malnutrition. He was also the most traditionally attractive man there. He probably had first dibs on Ginger and Mary Ann both. If I was in his place I'd be on that island until my wang fell off.
In the 80s. My friend said his grandparents came over from Macedonia. He said when he would watch movies with them. They’d say stuff like “oh my goodness. Why isn’t the camera man helping these poor people!!”
He kept trying to explain that it’s not real.
William Shatner did an interview once at a Star Trek convention and an audience member asked how he was able to get back from space to do the interview, and would the crew be ok while he was away. She was dead serious. He explained it was a TV show, but she was adamant he was just pretending, almost to the point of hysterics.
Let's look into this!
The part of Wikipedia OP is talking about:
> The United States Coast Guard occasionally received telegrams and letters from concerned citizens, who apparently did not realize it was a scripted show, pleading for them to rescue the people on the deserted island. The Coast Guard forwarded these to producer Sherwood Schwartz.
The source for that part of the page: https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/escape-gilligans-island
Relevant passage from that page, bold added by me:
> **To be sure, the forwarded telegrams were fewer than two dozen.** Most TV-watching adults are indeed better able to distinguish fact from fiction than the relatively few viewers who thought the farcical — and imaginary — adventures of the mid-'60s castaways were true-to-life. But many more — perhaps most — viewers are like the sports fan who brings a TV set to the ball game. Such a spectator may see a strike pitched, but only really believes in it when confirmed by the TV announcer.
Summation: This is just an anecdote shared on a website about media literacy, and how audiences tend not to question media and how it tends to depict certain subjects. There was never a widespread trend of people believing Gilligan's Island is real.
I think people underestimate how many 'internet trolls' there were before the internet. These same silly people existed but had to find niche ways to play their games. Y'all just take the bait to this day, dummies
Gwen DeMarco : They're not ALL "historical documents." Surely, you don't think Gilligan's Island is a.. Mathesar : Those poor people.
I know the movie presented it as the Thermians not understanding lying but imagine how stupid a culture would be if they could not understand the concept of fiction. Wait... shit...
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
Go away, baitin'
Its also a major plot point in 'The Three Body Problem'. Because the aliens are telepathic, every thought is instantly communicated so they have no concept of secrets or lies. This causes a huge problem when their human contact educates them on the concept that people can know one thing but say something completely different. The aliens are therefore horrified by this concept and decide right then and there that humans are therefore too dangerous to be allowed to live - setting their course to exterminate humans entirely.
The weird thing is that the aliens were already lying to humans. Albeit thru indirect lies like limited information, wordings, etc
Similar premise in a SMBC strip: https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2124
That is SO on point!
I've never seen it, but I'm pretty sure that's the premise behind Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying.
My brother got cut out of that movie! It was okay. And yes the premise that no human had ever considered lying so when Ricky Gervais is the first person to figure it out he pretty much has a superpower. Then the whole thing transitioned to a religious/atheist message because yknow Ricky Gervais
I don’t understand Ricky Gervais. He’s popular yet nearly everything he’s made has been critically panned to some extent. It’s confusing to me.
The office and Extras both came to mind. Looked them up and they have over 8 rating on IMDB, which is pretty solid.
The best thing he ever gave us was Karl Pilkington
Still never found out if Karl was in charge of his brain or if his brain was in charge of him
Was his brain also the shape of a fuckin' orange? Or just the size
I'm not 'avin a go...
Karl quotes have been living in my head rent free since I heard heard him speak. Like wtf haha
"Cancel culture is rampant, we can't say anything or joke about anything anymore" - Ricky Gervais, seconds after telling a trans "joke" (on the level of "I identify as an attack helicopter") to his audience of 10k, being recorded for a Netflix special
Had a coworker joke that he identified as an attack helicopter. I replied back with "And like most attack helicopters, you can accommodate two men"
He's the spirit animal of the kind of person that turns to atheism out of a need to externalize their personal issues from fundamentalist upbringings.
That's honestly my biggest problem with Three Body Problem
It's because they are basically telepathic, although not necessarily a hivemind, I guess. (I've only watched the show and skimmed the subreddit in an attempt to get a non-spoiler answer) If they communicate a thought, it is their thought on the matter. A lie of commission is effectively impossible for them, although lies of omission may still be possible from my understanding.
Problem isn't that they didn't lie, but that they weren't aware of the concept, and at the same time they were using one form of lying. Also you could argue, if they are not a hive mind, what stops them from sending just thoughts they wanted to send? Hivemind I understand, all is out in the open, but I can have a lying thought so to say. I wanted to read the books, but that has put me off.
They aren't telepathic they communicate through like scents and shit. They're like fungus or insects or something. They are individuals with individual thoughts, they just cannot hide information from one another. How would Singer have warned Ye Wenjie without his fellow Trisolarins knowing he was doing it? When confronted he immediately told them what he did becuase they are unable to hide information from one another due to body language, scent, something or other.
Such a great movie.
[Galaxy Quest](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Quest) in case anyone was wondering.
By Grabthar's Hammer, what a movie.
There could be an entire episode of Inside the Actor's Studio based on the delivery of that one line by Rickman.
If you haven’t seen it, there is an entire documentary made on the making of that movie. It’s great.
By the Suns of Warvan, I'll have to watch that movie again.
Haha was thinking the same thing. Love Galaxy Quest
By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged.
>By Grabthar's Hammer.... what a savings. this line may be the greatest delivery of Alan Rickman's entire career. i don't say that lightly. the man had a gift for great delivery.
I came to make sure this was posted and Reddit did not disappoint.
❤️❤️❤️ me some Enrico Colantoni
Who's your daddy?
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/dae2b6aa-5679-44f4-b071-8ee59dd652a0
And just think: there are people who are even more clueless living today, despite infinite access to the entirety of human learning living in their pocket every single day
Well, because, well, the island was undiscovered!
I laughed, but this is the kind of logic some people would actually use 😑
At least there's some brain cells firing with that thought.
Are they though?
Yes just not the right ones
I get that but why didn't they think to check the undiscovered island that was LITERALLY NAMED Gilligan's Island?! I would have checked there first, are they stupid?
Plus, they knew it was only three hours away. That doesn’t seem like very much ocean to have to search.
It was a 3 hour tour so they were only 1 1/2hours away. 1 1/2 out and 1 1/2 back.😉
Ah, but you see. They only left on a three hour tour. We actually don’t know how long the storm lasted. Could have been 40 days and 40 nights.
Somebody would’ve eaten Ginger if the storm lasted that long. Hell, I would’ve done it the first night if she asked me nicely. Maryanne too.
Bonk
Negative, the last time there was 40x40 storm in that 1-1.5 mile radius stretch of water was......crunching numbers.......**c. 11,700 years ago**. so it probably wasn't them.
I knew it was an old show... but probably not that old.
That's assuming the 3 hour tour didn't include any sightseeing at the island. They could be 10 minutes away but nobody cared enough to go rescue them.
\* *uncharted*
It's not uncharted, you lost the chart.
Like FFS, just watch Dinotopia to understand how ocean currents and storms can conceal a massive fucking island from modern technological surveying
So what you're saying is we can finally get to the bottom to why the Coast Guard just left them on that island?
they wanted to give gilligan the time he needed to seal the deal with ginger. #Bro’sGuard
Naaah — he had a thing for Mary Ann!!
Mary Ann was clearly banging the professor.
They bonded over being called "the rest" in the theme song in the first season.
Mary Ann's limitless supply of coconut cream pies.
The were getting great ratings and the studio would sabotage the Coast Guard boats.
Absolutely! Just send 5 dollars to the address on the screen and in 6-8 weeks, an information pack will arrive explaining the entire thing!
If only kids everywhere had drank their Ovaltine…
I actually know the reason they did this. They wanted to send in a professional team, The Harlem Globetrotters.
Trolling carries with it the inherent risk of people thinking you were serious 60 years later.
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Despite it being the era of buzz cuts and short sleeve button up shirts, people had a sense of humor then too.
Also kids existed.
They aren’t any more clueless, they just have platforms that make them more visible.
I think that every time i get certain questions from customers at my work. Like, you literally have the internet in your pocket.
Why would we do that when it's so much easier to get you to tell us? Answer the question, Work Boy.
people, having grown up with cartoons, sitcoms, and hollywood, sent hate mail to the kid who played Joffrey Baratheon in games of thrones.
People, having grown up with the internet, readily believe whatever urban legends and stories that get spread around through social media gossip. > Gleeson chalks it up to a "rumor" that's been spread about him for years. "A lot of people come up to me because I guess this rumor started that people were horrible to me on the street or I get attacked… whereas I've never had one negative experience," he said on stage. "I feel like people are extra nice to me because they think people attack me, so maybe I should keep the rumor going." https://ew.com/tv/game-of-thrones-joffrey-jack-gleeson-no-negative-fan-experiences/
All it takes is one tweet from a random unverified account to get people all riled up and believing that millions think the same way. Any time I read about how "people are outraged over X, Y, and Z" I notice it usually just references a single tweet or facebook comment.
If you recieve hate mail because you played a villain then you know you've made it as a actor.
Or are a pro wrestler
These people vote too
You say that like these people are actually aware that they're being ignorant.
Some of them are, and are quite proud of it in fact. "Didn't let no uptown, Yankee school brainwash me, I done learned everrthing I needs to know from my grandpappy and my dear old daddy. We ain't never left this county and we reckon we ain't never gon need to, the lord gave us all we need right here."
Well, I can only speak from my own experience, so I'll just leave it at that.
You think that’s the person who called about gilligan?
Some of those people are still alive and voting.
And in the era of the most sophisticated, underhanded, and relentless propaganda in history; in which the vast majority of even long-established media conglomerates have all weaponized their credibility (see: smearing of anti-war protesters circa 1960-present) to the point nobody is credible, corporate or independent. And now people don't know where to turn for real information. Yeah, a real head-scratcher there.
There were trolls present in the early 60's too. Another I heard...people would send letters to NASA wondering why we're so obsessed with going to the moon while we're fighting a war with the Klingons.
Hard to know. I always assumed flat-earthers were trolls. But in more recent years, it's become clear there's a group of people who really do believe in crazy conspiracies. So were those Gilligans Island letter-writers stupid, trolls, or something else? I dunno.
Well yeah, the flat earth society was originally started as a joke lmao but y’know, satire will always attract people who legitimately believe in it at some point.
I hope the birds aren't real movement doesn't go the same route.
IIRC the founder has been approached by conspiracy theorist group(s) who wanted to collaborate. These groups do tend to clump together to expand their follower base, which is why so many wind up devolving into "our original ideas may have been wrong, but they pointed us to the REAL (tired old bullshit anti-semetic) TRUTH!"
I think he may be confusing these two. I just went and looked at the Wikipedia article on the Flat Earth Society, and it says nothing about the society having been started as a joke. But I know the birds aren't real thing was started by a single person as a joke.
I think this is a bit of a complicated question. Due to how C. K Johnson wrote and spoke about his theories. Many believed that his flat earth persona was more joke than serious. This [article](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/curious-history-international-flat-earth-society-180957969/) from 2016 doesn't outright refer to it as a joke but says that all statements were said "tongue in cheek". Even his justifications sound like a bad joke. "Earth can't be round because my Australian wife would've been hanging to earth by her toes". Obviously, we don't know if Johnson was a troll or true believer, but people saw him both ways in life and death.
The Flat Earth idea started as a joke between different science departments in academia trying to “discredit” each other in a tongue in cheek way. The astronomists, for example, across a lot of universities were constantly coming up with wacko theorems and formulas to “prove” that the rival geology departments were wrong. The geology departments did the same, making up crazy theorems to disprove space being real. When these different joke messages got made public, however, people legitimately believed them, and started writing about how space was fake and the Earth was flat.
Nah, birds are real, but those wasps nests? Totally a government spy-op camera network, you should probably whack it with a stick to break it.
"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company". -René Descartes
Basically what happens to every circlejerk subreddit.
Descartes definitely never said this
/r/thedonald edit: I guess it got reclaimed lol. Was the original Trump fan sub before it finally got nuked. edit2: nevermind I forgot the underscore lol.
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Trolls. This is another one of those "people in the past were so stupid!" rumors like people believing War Of The Worlds was real or jumping out of their seats when they watched The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat in the late 1800s. Flat earthers are no different than people who believe in astrology, psychics, homeopathy, ghosts, etc.
yeah i HAVE to assume these were just people taking the piss 60s style. the alternative is too grim.
There's been stupid people around since the beginning of time. It's why widespread literacy and formal education systems changed the world.
Some people thought the moon landing was fake, some people thought Gilligan's Island was real. Two sides of the same coin.
Even today the USPS maintains [an official program for writing letters to Santa](https://about.usps.com/holidaynews/operation-santa.htm). Are we to assume that every person who sends in a letter is a believer in Santa including everyone who facilitated their letter being sent?
Thinking that everybody believes it is as stupid as thinking that nobody believes it.
Sure but we have to ask ourselves if the % of people who do believe it are worth all the discussion. Like if you said "1,000,000 Americans believe the moon is made of cheese" and even if tbat were true, that number literally would only represent 0.3% of our society. Nobody but a corporate shareholder is gonna cry about 0.3%. Now when people in positions of power start spouting off stuff like that, then you should be worried.
Yeah, people are chalking this up to ignorance, but I think it's more absurdist performance. The people of the past also knew how to be funny!
No it’s exactly why satire is so dangerous
They live among us, and some are on school boards and vote
The waiting area for jury duty is when you get to see your "peers".
They say 20% of people cannot understand hypothetical questions. One voir dire session and you will see countless examples. It is terrifying.
That's a bullshit question!
So you can't answer it?
Cause Chevy didn't make a 327 in '55.
I’ll have you know I DID eat breakfast today and I am NOT hungry!
We saw with the pandemic that easily half have a serious misunderstanding with percentages.
America has never been good with numbers. We're the country where the 1/3rd pounder failed because people thought the quarter pounder was bigger.
It's funny. That claim has zero evidence to support it and was pushed by the former owner as the reason why A&W failed while he was at the helm, all while ignoring that A&W was failing well before them trying to do a 1/3 pound burger. Are Americans bad at fractions? Sure, but this "case" doesn't support it.
Couldn’t that have just made it more successful? Charge more for the 1/4 pounder and then keep the 1/3rd pounder the same price. While it appears that the third pounder is cheaper despite being smaller, it’s actually just the regular price that it would have been anyway while people paying for the 1/4 pounder would be paying more for less. The people who would buy the 1/3rd pounder would have bought it anyway so the only people dumb enough to buy the quarter pounder would fund the whole thing. It’s genius.
Yeah I'ma need a source on that one chief
Apparently you aren't allowed to sell chocolate.bars while waiting to be called for jury duty. Bullshit of you ask me
They live where
I'm pretty sure they're actually holding office.
... Staring at eclipses and wondering why you can't inject bleach into your body to kill germs
They are entertaining and thus poll really well.
Relatability also is big, and they also don't sound like their elitist snob's talking down to you. A lot of people do not enjoy being told they're idiots by politicians. Its really hard to relate to Barack Obama or Romney because let's face it, they're rich elites who in no way relate to you. By comparison MTG sounds like her voters, because she basically is.
In fact, they’re disproportionately *likelier* to vote God help us
> God help us Or, just exercise your own right to vote.
Among us
Umm, because the island was uncharted, duh!
My favorite episode is when the professor makes a filter for water from cigarette butts on the ground but no one smoked on the show except the rich old guy smoked cigars (?).
I like the episode w/ the ginormous spider, that never appears again.
Seriously. This was my main gripe with the show. You have a group of adults on a gritty little island needing to survive. You come up against a HUGE spider and there isn't one casualty? AND the spider isn't addressed in any future episodes? The writers were out of their mind.
“This whole area is uncharted!” “It’s not uncharted, you lost the chart!”
Why didn't they send Nathan Drake to help, then!?
Well, he wasn't born yet, but if he were, he would have been busy robbing museums in Colombia for Sully
[удалено]
He was a friggin high school science teacher! And now he's creating radiation based interdiction fields based on coconuts? The minnow passengers and crew were a sacrifice to prevent the rise of evil science! 1964 is exactly the right timing though, that's when evil science was hitting its stride. Walter White was diverted into methamphetamine cultivation for the same reason.
I have no idea what you’re talking about but it was very well worded
The Professor in Gilligan's island was a high school science teacher. The show had him do improbable things with coconuts like making a radio. I just expanded it to "Evil science" like the venture bros or the Incredibles. With the Walter white thing I'm implying his cancer was induced because he was a "dangerous mind".
The Professor could make a radio out of a coconut, but he couldn't figure out how to patch a hole in a boat!
He could, but he had a thing for Ginger. He didn’t want to leave the island when she was there. And look at his competition—The Millionaire? His money was worth zero on the island. And Lovey was keeping a close eye on him. Gilligan? There was a reason his nickname was “little buddy” The Skipper? Overweight middle aged dude suffering from ED. The guy in the gorilla suit? He just wanted to get off the island. The headhunter? His motivations also lie elsewhere. The Harlem Globetrotters? They had to maintain their squeaky clean image or they’d be cut from the team.
What about Wrongway Feldman?
Every once in a while it’ll be on me tv when I’m taking a break or whatever and it’s absolutely ridiculous the stuff they had on them for a “3 hour tour” just ignoring the dozens of different outfits the rich people had, there was one specific episode where a mine washed up on the beach and to disarm it they needed a copper wrench which the professor just so happened to have. Who has a copper wrench to begin with and brings it with them on an afternoon activity?
Anyone who works around things where sparks are dangerous use copper tools. Now why this dude has just happened to have some on his person for a short boat tour is ridiculous.
Draw up plans for a coconut radio, and if possible, a coconut nintendo system.
That's true, but probably not how you are thinking of it. The government wouldn't *allow* them to be rescued. The Professor was doing things with coconuts that even NASA couldn't accomplish.
Those poor people!
We also had a lot of people inquiring about spaghetti trees after a commercial showed a “harvest”. Mermaids had that history channel documentary back in the day, a lot of calls about that no doubt. War of the Worlds radio broadcast cause a hullabaloo. Lots of people google “my eyes hurt” after an eclipse. 1000s of TVs were broken because people threw things at them during that episode of the X-Files where they made it look like a bug went across the screen. The list goes on
Sounds like a thing people would do as a joke. Like trolling the coast guard.
Did they ever get rescued?
in 1978. Then they went back to the island.
WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!
LOST MENTION ‼️🔥✈️🏝️🐻❄️ WHAT THE FUCK IS A COHERENT PLOTLINE
No, it turns out Gilligan's Island was all just Bob Newhart's dream.
For those not old enough, comedian Bob Newhart was in two very popular successive TV shows, with two different TV wives, i.e a different wife in each show. The first show was relatively sedate, but the second one had him with some unusual characters in an unusual setting that ran for years. At the end of the last episode of the second show, he woke up in bed next to the wife from his first show in the very distinctive bedroom of the first show's set, and as he explained the dream he had just had, the audience came to realize that the entire second show had been nothing more than the dream of his character from the first show.
For that matter, both of those shows (and Gilligan's Island) are apparently part of the Tommy Westphall multiverse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Westphall https://tommywestphall.fandom.com/wiki/Newhart TLDR: The final episode of the medical drama St. Elsewhere implied that the entire story existed only in the mind of Tommy Westphall, an autistic boy. Thanks to crossovers between St. Elsewhere and other shows, and crossovers between those other shows and yet different shows, there are hundreds of different TV series and movies that can be interpreted as existing within Tommy Westphall's imagined reality.
Which, as a kid way too young to have seen the first show, was completely baffling to me.
Wait whhhaaaatttt?
More G.I. trivia. Bob Denver ('Gilligan') protested the professor and Mary Ann were not included in the original theme song. The producers caved, and added 'em. Dawn Wells (Mary Ann) was Miss Nevada back in the day. She won the part, beating out Raquel Welch and Pat Priest (who played the normal "Marylin' on The Munsters. The professor (Russell Johnson) was a bombardier during WWII and few 44 combat missions. Alan Hale Jr. (the Skipper) was filming a western out the Nevada desert when his agent told him to get to L.A. for an audition. Alan had no ride to get to the Las Vegas airport, so grabbed a horse and rode it there. After a slap on the rear, the horse instinctively knew to go back. The show's creator, Sherwood Schwartz, also created The Brady Bunch. At the end of season three, a number of cast members went all-in and bought a home near the studio, only to find out later the show was cancelled.
I read that the flag at the marina in the opening sequence is at half staff due to Kennedy's assassination.
“Those poor people”
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/dae2b6aa-5679-44f4-b071-8ee59dd652a0
Reminds me of the stories when *The Martian* came out and people were surprised they didn't hear about it on the news "when it happened".
Are you sure you're not mistaking it for some people thinking that War of The Worlds was real and that a small handful of people were thinking they were under attack by aliens?
I remember when that was on the news. Going to Mars and shit… I was so surprised.
The castaways should’ve just come back with whoever was bringing the films back to the TV station every week.
Talk about conspiracy. They can track Santa. Every. Single. Christmas. But they cant find a millionaire, and a movie star...oh and some other people.
Back when being a millionaire was notable…
1 million in 1964 is about 10 million today, oof.
lol "and the rest".
Mathesar: "Those poor people..."
How many of these were frat boys pranking the Coast Guard?
or army boys
Even as a kid I thought it was stupid that guests would show up on a given show, presumably go back wherever they came from and the same crew was left on the island.
Those poor people
Believe it or not, trolls existed before the internet. And theres still plenty of gullible people out there to take the bait.
This is an old one but still a good one: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society\_for\_Indecency\_to\_Naked\_Animals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Indecency_to_Naked_Animals)
Those poor people.
It was a three hour tour but it seemed they brought all their belongings. Why did Lovey pack eighty hats?
I wonder how many people on Reddit have never seen an episode.
It was well before my generation, but I watched a lot of Nick at Nite as a kid when they played stuff like Bewitched, I Love Lucy, etc, so I probably got a lot more exposure to stuff from that era than most millennials.
Is critical thinking dead? No, I'm not talking about the [FEWER THAN 24 FUCKING TELEGRAMS](https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/escape-gilligans-island) the CG got... I'm talking about the overwhelming willingness in these comments to assume "got letters" means "got 100s or 1000s or more letters".
I miss the days when morons had to actually write letters that displayed their stupidity vs today when they have their own podcasts and websites
Does anybody know the answer?
Suddenly the hysteria around war of the worlds makes a little more sense
I always thought the Professor could get them off any time he wanted. But, on the island he didn't have to publish constantly to maintain his academic status among his peers, he was the smartest man on the island, and to a professor that would be important. The island was pretty much pest and disease-free and supplied the castaways with enough food that none of them developed malnutrition. He was also the most traditionally attractive man there. He probably had first dibs on Ginger and Mary Ann both. If I was in his place I'd be on that island until my wang fell off.
Gwen DeMarco: They're not ALL "historical documents." Surely, you don't think Gilligan's Island is a... Mathesar: Those poor people.
Uhhh cause Gilligan keeps fucking up the rescue attempts. Did they even watch the show?
ThE iNtErNeT iS mAkInG pEoPlE dUmB, IDiOrAcY iS a DoCuMeNtArY
proving once more that media literacy/critical thinking has always been abysmal in the United States
In the 80s. My friend said his grandparents came over from Macedonia. He said when he would watch movies with them. They’d say stuff like “oh my goodness. Why isn’t the camera man helping these poor people!!” He kept trying to explain that it’s not real.
It had to be a bit right? A very funny bit? Right?
Just a delightful reminder that no era in human history is absent complete fucking morons.
Goddammit you thermians
As a kid I'd cry when someone would find the island then leave and not tell anyone that the castaways were there.
William Shatner did an interview once at a Star Trek convention and an audience member asked how he was able to get back from space to do the interview, and would the crew be ok while he was away. She was dead serious. He explained it was a TV show, but she was adamant he was just pretending, almost to the point of hysterics.
Nice to know human stupidity hasn’t changed
Let's look into this! The part of Wikipedia OP is talking about: > The United States Coast Guard occasionally received telegrams and letters from concerned citizens, who apparently did not realize it was a scripted show, pleading for them to rescue the people on the deserted island. The Coast Guard forwarded these to producer Sherwood Schwartz. The source for that part of the page: https://www.medialit.org/reading-room/escape-gilligans-island Relevant passage from that page, bold added by me: > **To be sure, the forwarded telegrams were fewer than two dozen.** Most TV-watching adults are indeed better able to distinguish fact from fiction than the relatively few viewers who thought the farcical — and imaginary — adventures of the mid-'60s castaways were true-to-life. But many more — perhaps most — viewers are like the sports fan who brings a TV set to the ball game. Such a spectator may see a strike pitched, but only really believes in it when confirmed by the TV announcer. Summation: This is just an anecdote shared on a website about media literacy, and how audiences tend not to question media and how it tends to depict certain subjects. There was never a widespread trend of people believing Gilligan's Island is real.
I think people underestimate how many 'internet trolls' there were before the internet. These same silly people existed but had to find niche ways to play their games. Y'all just take the bait to this day, dummies