We learn about the world through our experiences and people that surround us, which is a normal process. Nobody’s experiences are completely the same, which leads us to having different perspectives on certain things.
That means that we might think something is quite common as we hear about it or see it often, but in general, it’s the opposite. Plane crashes happen less often than perceived, as well as many other things netizens pointed out in this Reddit thread.
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Quicksand.
I was led to believe it would be a much bigger problem in my adult life.
Being transgender.
I saw a news reel once where the anchor was interviewing people off the street, all political affiliations. Conservatives thought 30% to 40% of kids were identifying as Trans. Liberals a bit closer, guessed 10%-20%.
The real number revealed at the end of the segment?
1.4% 💀
They are an oppressed minority in need of protection and support. My grandchild is trans, I love them very much.
People surviving CPR and waking up immediately acting normal and asking what happened.
That men are pretending to be trans so they can sneak into the ladies room to watch us pee.
My little sister is trans, I really hope people don't think of her like this
Stranger abductions of children represent less than one percent of all missing child cases (in the US, at least). They're mostly runaways or family abductions.
You need to be more worried about a crazy relative abducting you than a crazy stranger. That said, as a child walking home from elementary school one day, I was followed by a strange car. I did what my mom taught me: ran away screaming and it peeled off, never to be seen again. I was either very lucky or just paranoid.
Casting director here.
Having a career in acting, I don't mean being famous. I mean paying your bills with acting alone.
I would hazard being an exclusively working actor is about 1% of actors.
But the amount of people still going into acting tells me people think otherwise.
Same for musicians. Friends of mine are only famous in their area, but live honestly, enough to raise a Family. The only one I know earning quite a lot ( 4000€ a month) is another friend who is in the shadow as a studio musician, playing music for jingles, ads, TV shows or for singers who sing under their name only with anonymous band. It's the most lucrative job
Pearls. Of all the fine stones(I know it classifies differently, but for jewelry, it’s basically a stone), it’s the one that has to happen in an oyster, which only exist on Earth. Other planets are literally raining diamonds, they’re so common. But, pearls are probably one of the rarest substances to exist
Diamonds are also common on Earth. It's just DeBeers' monopoly and blood trade that make them expensive.
My dog coming when I call him
Nice. I'm actually under the impression that about 5% of dogs actually obey this command
Successfully suing a company for millions. Some Redditors will have you believe that any minor inconvenience should earn you some kind of massive payout. And the comments will assure you that the company will do anything to avoid bad PR.
Absolutely a myth about easy money. Big business and the insurance industry have spent untold millions demonizing plaintiffs and their lawyers. The truth is quite the opposite. For every so-called frivolous suit that gets a windfall, there are dozens that either were lost lost or settled for less value because they couldn't afford to fight against the superior resources of the defense. The table is stacked against the injured or aggrieved "little guy " in favor of the haves.
Walking into an alley in Manhattan. Happens all the time in shows/movies, in reality there are like 1 or 2 in the whole borough.
Drag Queens at the local library.
I go to my library at least twice a week, and I've yet to see one.
Let's remember who they caught on "To Catch A Predator." Public figures, church member, etc.
Becoming a self-made millionaire. That's hard without a bunch of leg-ups.
Green eyes
My grandmother, my mother, myself, and my daughter all have (had, in two cases, alas) an odd sort of yellow/green eyes, like a cat. Not unusual in Ireland or Scotland (we have Irish DNA) but only about 2% of the worlds population overall apparently. My granddaughter has hazel eyes, but no doubt the gene will resurface in a generation or so. The double takes I get sometimes are rather amusing!
Your kid becoming a pro (or even college) athlete
No problem chasing a dream, but have a back-up. I always tell kids "do the math..tell me your odds of success".
Amnesia. It's common in fiction because it's convenient in ways that makes things easy for the writers, for example explaining why someone's dark past is a secret which can be revealed later at the climax of the story. In real life it's very rare and doesn't work like people think it does.
I got amnesia when I was 17 from a head blow, the past is only linked by stories and some vignettes, very few memories. It has continued to today, I remember things for a few days. The longer term, where I remember things with stories and touchstones(that happened in such and such year, the year I started that job)and only a few visual memories, like pictures. It helps when something really bad happens, I don't really remember the emotions, the story remains, the memory doesn't. I keep a journal and pictures for important memories, and only remember the good. I magically remember facts, don't know where it comes from, so I can study information. This means I am a very happy person.
People who are truly compatible with you(and I mean both friendships and relationships)
Razor blades or poison in Halloween candy. It's zero. Never happened. And now every single kid out trick or treating has to have every candy inspected by mom and dad, and Halloween itself has been hollowed out to a safe boring joke where kids collect candy from one block of stores or from the trunks of a circle of parent's cars.
Making a living off just your art alone. Musicians, Artists, Film makers, Dancers -- that whole lot, what we see on TV and Movies are the cream of the crop (not that they are necessarily the best, mind you, they've just risen up somehow) and are a very small percentage. Most Artists of whatever medium will stay in relative obscurity -- i.e. you're a regional act, you gained some glint of fame, and yes admiration, even inspiring others -- but when you're not on tour, when you're not in the studio, you're working a job that pays the bills.
I think the key to success here is that you find a job you like, are good at, and allows you to do your art without interference. That way, when you're 45 and your band still hasn't "broke through" or your art isn't commanding tens of thousands, you're not just stuck stocking shelves at the grocery (not that there's anything wrong with that, it just pays p**s-poor).
While in prison, I sold a painting for a bag of jalapeno poppers. Monet never once sold a painting for a bag of jalapeno poppers. I win!
Plane crashes. I know your lizard brain doesn't like it, but flying is THE safest mode of transportation
Edit: because a lot of people mentioned it, I am specifically referring to commercial jets and the like. Small planes and helicopters are *way* less safe.
You are far, far, far more likely to meet an untimely demise on the drive to the airport than aboard an aircraft. People often assume that if anything goes wrong on a plane , it is boom, game over. People forget that airplanes can glide and even helicopters can autorotate.
Savant abilities in autism. We have Rain Main to thank for that, largely, but there are big questions as to whether the guy this was based on actually should have been diagnosed with something other than ASD.
I saw him once and had the great privilege of asking him one question (he visited my school). What I remember most was wondering whether he could consent to being a performer. It seemed sad, not because of his incredible mind but because of little things like his handler (a family member I think) explaining away every small non relevant comment like his conversation was an embarrassing problem if his mind wandered off topic. It made me depressed in a way I couldn't express at 12 or 13. Such a wildly unique perspective being used to amuse a bunch of kids who mostly said rude things about him later.
Being awake during a surgery under general anesthesia. Patients worry about it all the time, but I’ve been doing this 19 years and never seen a real case of this.
Soft teeth. I've been in dentistry for 20yrs & I can't tell you how many times I've heard patients say "I just have soft/bad/weak teeth." Actual weak teeth caused by gene abnormalities resulting in malformed enamel occurs in approx 1/15,000 people in the US. I've literally never seen it in person. I've seen cases where a few teeth are involved, but never an entire mouth full of teeth, it's that uncommon. Bad diet, bad hygiene, smoking, drugs, meds, dry mouth, inhalers, acid reflux, etc are all wayyyyyy more likely to be the cause of decayed teeth. People just don't want to hear that.
My mom says this, and what's way more likely is small town fraud. There's been a few examples of dentists lying and giving a lot of root canals to maximize the amount of money they make. Once my mom moved when she was in her 20s from her home town all of her teeth issues stopped.
A business becoming profitable within 2 years. Be patient, it takes time (years). Businesses only fail if they have to be shut down. Keep them alive, ride out the time factor, and enjoy success down the road.
Businesses can creep along for a very long time, getting indebted but not quite drowning for years upon years of incompetent management. If a business is well managed they shut down quickly when management realises it's not working out due to outside factors. Competent people will then cut their losses before it gets to bad. But incompetent people don't see the writing on the wall and often drag the dying horse along until it's truly dead and the stinking cadaver poisons everything.
Going missing in the Bermuda triangle
Methane gas building up in the area from the Everglades run off has reduced greatly. Used to get huge explosions of methane that could be ignited.
A happy healthy person who makes it through life without experiencing pain and suffering.
Happiness isn't a feeling made to last. It's a short outburst of feeling. If you have a happy day, that's precious. But not being happy doesn't automatically mean being unhappy. But you shouldn't make happiness your main goal. Aim for contentment and peace of mind because both are feelings that are sustainable and stable if you can find them. Then you'll find moments of happiness and joy every day. But if you're chasing happiness, you'll rarely be satisfied. And experiencing life without any pain and suffering would mean you're a sociopath who cares for nobody but yourself. As soon as you love anyone it's impossible.
Good parenting skills
If with good parenting skills you mean perfection, you are right. A perfect parent doesn't exist. Every parent makes mistakes. You learn the job as you go. But there are more parents striving to do their best than parents that are doing their worst. And when you are doing your best, you just hope that it's enough and that your mistakes aren't so big to ruin your children or your relationship with them.
Toxic shock syndrome from wearing tampons. When tampons were first made women were told that one tampon can last her whole period which was causing toxic shock syndrome and even then it wasn't super common now we are more educated and don't wear tampons for that long so it's very rare for toxic shock to happen unless you forget to take a tampon out for weeks.
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Lots of these were informative, others, not so much. But, WHY must we have a troll in every thread!?
It's mostly the same idiots and they switch from account to account. The problem is that a lot of people are responding to them and they enjoy the attention. Sadly, these people have nothing positive to share with anyone, and so negative attention is better than no attention at all because they don't have the skills to earn positive attention. Ignore them, downvote them, and report them. And someone probably needs to alert the FBI to the person who is calling himself a muslim terrorist and using the other "clever" spelling of muslim terrorist. If this keeps up, I may feel the need myself. And believe me, if one of us does alert the FBI, they'll rip out every account he has after they haul him in for questioning. :-) Happy days!
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The one about trans kids kills me. I live in a state hell bent on making the life of trans people impossible. It's infuriating that they are spending so much time policing 1% of the population. It makes me so mad.
Lots of these were informative, others, not so much. But, WHY must we have a troll in every thread!?
It's mostly the same idiots and they switch from account to account. The problem is that a lot of people are responding to them and they enjoy the attention. Sadly, these people have nothing positive to share with anyone, and so negative attention is better than no attention at all because they don't have the skills to earn positive attention. Ignore them, downvote them, and report them. And someone probably needs to alert the FBI to the person who is calling himself a muslim terrorist and using the other "clever" spelling of muslim terrorist. If this keeps up, I may feel the need myself. And believe me, if one of us does alert the FBI, they'll rip out every account he has after they haul him in for questioning. :-) Happy days!
Load More Replies... The one about trans kids kills me. I live in a state hell bent on making the life of trans people impossible. It's infuriating that they are spending so much time policing 1% of the population. It makes me so mad.
