30 Times People Tried To Share Their Knowledge Of History Online But Embarrassed Themselves Instead
We humans spend lots of time studying and analyzing the most essential moments of our history. After all, many of us strive to better understand our past and the world we live in. But knowledge also includes failure. While some people keep their factual mishaps low-key, others loudly declare their silly (and usually false!) opinions, making people smack their foreheads in disbelief.
Whether it's thinking that the Berlin Wall worked or that learning about WWII is bad for your mental health, some people clearly had a hard time with history, and it shows. Enter the subreddit r/FacePalm, self-described as "a gallery of inexplicable stupidity". The moderators ask the members to share screenshots of human idiocy, all for your amusement.
Bored Panda has selected the best examples of people making a complete fool of themselves and rightfully getting shamed for it online. Continue scrolling and upvote the ones you enjoyed most! And if you’re in the mood for some more stupidity of individuals both online and in real life, check out our previous posts here and here.
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Burnnnnnnnnnnnn
Dear Athiests:
Won't Somebody Please Think Of The
As my better half pointed out, the KKK had family picnics. It's easy for bigots to be kind to those they consider their own kind. How they treat other humans outside their own group is the real test of humanity.
German here - people were forced to shut up, but nobody was forced to actively support the nazis (except kids whose parents made them go to hitler-youth.) People who supported did so because they chose to. I know as one set of my grandparents were nazis and members of the nazi party whereas the other set steered clear, hated Hitler but shut up to stay safe. All of my grandparents were being nice to ME - but one side severly messed up, supported a terror regime, supported mass murder, supported human catastrophe.
Not to mention that there was kind of brainwashing involved. My granddad really liked the Hitlerjugend because he enjoyed going camping and stuff. He was too young to realise what the HJ really meant back then
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An extremely important thing that people seem to miss... someone can be "kind" and polite and at the same time support evil. Do not judge a person's morality based on how friendly they are to YOU. Judge them on how they ACT, what they DO, and what the people they support do.
Idk about "what the people they support do"... Too many people have been cancelled for supporting a brand/person that in turn supported something bad. If I supported Ellen DeGeneres at one point I am not necessarily a bad person because she is mean. I agree with the rest of your statement though.
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"You've already judged them based on a group generalization" - Isn't that exactly what nazis do to other races? lol
Here is the official KKK group generalization, which includes this: “To maintain forever white supremacy. To maintain forever the God- given supremacy of the white race. Every Klansman has unqualifiedly affirmed that he will faithfully strive for the eternal maintenance of white supremacy." Klansman’s Manual (1925): https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/227kkkmanual.html
Load More Replies... There are some parallels to the situation in Russia -- many Russians refuse to believe that Putin is bad and comitting atrocities, they still believe he's trying to help Ukraine. A few years back, I met the Russian parents of a formerly Russian coworker, they were super nice, soft spoken, his dad and I shared a hobby and we spoke at great length about it (he spoke very good English). But despite them being well educated with a son that's now an American citizen, they refuse to believe what is happening and what Putin is doing to Ukraine and their own country, and they can't understand why the world has turned against them. It's shocking to see the power of media control and brainwashing, but we've certainly seen it in the USA as well.
US propaganda is even more successful in a way that its not that obvious, but still majority will probably say they are the greatest country (which might be true on a country level but definitely not for the average citizen) every war effort US does seem to have lot of support and then after the fact US people will laugh at us europeans for our problems not realizing that bunch of our issues are because of US meddling overseas. Cant remember how many times american have commented to me that "dont come crying for US to help you if you are so good" (when pointing any statistic that US is not #1), they dont seem to understand that we as a 5 million people country with 1300 kilometers of border with Russia obviously have to cry for help if they attack us.. its like one of US smaller side states being attacked by a country of 144 million people and then asking other states to help (with the difference that we wont be walked over but will obviously crumble under massive missile threat)
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No person is 100% bad. They are still capable of enjoying things and being nice to people they love. Key words being 'they love'. People they deem acceptable and worthy. The fact that your family might love you doesn't get rid of the fact that they want hundreds of thousands of people they have never met to die (:
That is absolutely true. My grandma is the most loving woman ever to her kids and grandkids. Hovewer she is an extreme racist and homophobic. Is she good? Well not completely. But she isnt completely evil either
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Hitler seemed to have liked his dog. That doesn’t make him a nice person.
That's a reason (among several) why I don't trust the claim that "Dogs are good judges of character".
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Kind and wonderful to you (their family member/friend) maybe, but not to others they deemed unworthy, and wrongfully so.
John Rabe created a safety zone during Nanjing massacre when Japanese army took over the city of Nanjing during WWII. He did so by flying a Nazis flag, and it was estimated to have saved 250k people from being slaughtered. Rabe was a card carrying party member... Perhaps there was one exception then. Wikipedia has a detailed page
It's very weird that some Germans in the Pacific Theater helped others against the Japanese, AND some Japanese in Germany helped (IIRC) people get out of Nazi-controlled territory. Ah, here it is: https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/chiune-sugihara
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I'm sure they're the nicest and kindest people, to you, their family member and person of the same race and religion.
Apearantly Hitler himself was loving and caring of the children in his inner circle. That just goes to show how twofaced a person can be, and that what you experience can strongly depend on what side of the dividing line you are on. Hence how you are treated is not nessesarily the best yardstick to evaluate a persons character, you have to see how he treats every person, especially those who is "below" him like the homeless person on the street, the janitor etc, to evaluate him. Nazism was an ideology that grew out of some social problems and was sold as the solution that would make everything great (something similar happened in America lately). Did the Nazism mean that every partymember was a psykopath? Most likely not -they are simply not that common. The hate of the jews could very well not have formed the main motivation for many of the members, who just saw the nazi party fighting to improve the life conditions in germany, until it went complete out of hands due to propaganda.
The three monkeys: "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil." were rearranged in the German underground to be :"See evil, hear evil, say nothing.:
I wonder how many wonderful, kind, friendly Nazi people an average Jew knows?
There might have been people who were forced to join in order to protect their families or similar, I don't know, but they would be the exception not the rule. What she's doing is essentially a more extreme version of the not all men problem.
Bigots are frequently nice to people that they consider part of their in-group.
He is partially right. Most people aside from the guards and leaders didn't know about the c camps
So people being deported wasn’t a good enough reason for deep mistrust? The camps were common knowledge.
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If they were members of the Nazi party then they either believed in its principles or just as bad they knew the thing was a lie but went along with it for power.
the nazi’s were absolutely horrible, no doubt. but many people in the nazi’s army didn’t have much a choice, and didn’t realize what they were doing. many teenagers were forced or pressured into the nazi’s with no actual idea what they were fighting for. we don’t know the full story, maybe their grandparent’s did not know they were fighting for such a disgusting cause. but def dont go about saying nazis are fine cuz ur grandparents were
While I agree that some German citizens may have been "compelled" to join the Nazi party that doesn't mean that they had to turn a blind eye . Yes, I understand that they risked their lives if they spoke up, but by not speaking up they were complacent with the disgusting atrocities being committed oftentimes right before their eyes: Jews getting beaten and getting shipped off to concentration camps. The people in the Nazi party new damn well what was happening, then knew damn well that Jews, people with disabilities, Romani, and people who were LGBTQIA+ were being sent to camps and tortured and gassed. There's a wonderful poem called "And then they came for me" that was written during the Holocaust and is about someone who keeps on turning a blind eye to all the horrible atrocities being committed until these atrocities happen to them and their is no one left to speak up.
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uniformity can make people do awful things. just like being anonymous on the internet does
wow. that answer is one of the most insensetive thing i've ever seen.
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.” - Naomi Shulman
To play devils advocate, if someones holding your family hostage you may become a Nazi too. Its like Russia right now, not everyone WANTED to be there, some WERE forced into service.
The problem with the Nazi party is a lot like the problem in Russia right now. Just because someone is involved in the party (or military) doesn't mean that they WANT to be there. There is a reason why the phrase "Better to be the right hand of the devil then in his path" exists. In the case of Nazi Germany if you didn't fall in line with the Nazi party you could just as easily end up in a gas chamber or mass grave. And today there are a lot of soldiers in Russia who do not want to be invading Ukraine, but they face possible death for disobeying orders. Nothing is black and white....
Yes... I am sure they were the loveliest people... to other white, racist, murderous a-holes.
Remember the picture of the guy was PART of the Nazi party, but wasn't saluting. Not everyone in the party was on board with the murder and sometimes you gotta do unsavory things to survive.
Tbf it is *possible* that some of the “nazis” were rational people forced into submission. I have heard stories that there were rebels working from inside the ranks, which seems at least somewhat likely. Also, people can change. Doesn’t make their actions right though. But everyone has their own reason for doing what they did, and jerks are jerks no matter what party they’re in.
There is a difference between being evil and being a jerk. If someone was a rebel working in the ranks, they were not a Nazi, they were _pretending_ to be a Nazi. People who were forced to be a Nazi wouldn't identify as one afterwards. They would not tell their grandchild "oh yeah, I was a Nazi". They would say "I was forced to be a Nazi and I am ashamed that I was too scared to fight back". Anybody who openly identifies or identified as a Nazi _after_ the was is and was without doubt a bad person.
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To demonize this person's grandparents by only knowing one fact about them is atrocious. No one here knows what implications they had during the nazi led era. Many people did not know what was going on in Germany while many did but didn't fully understand due to the propaganda the nazi political party would cram everywhere. "Race defilers, rapists, sexual degenerates and habitual criminals", were what Nazi propaganda spewed about the Jews and would convince people that their neighbors were bad people. In 1939 when the war started many towns started mandating Jews curfew at 8pm because they would "molest Aryan women" and again the masses believed it. As I said before no one here knows to what extend the grandparents were involved. It would be so similar to citizens of North Korea or China or Russia right now. Would you rather speak out against the party in power and be executed or have your family executed in front of you and then yourself?
Politeness and kindness were highly valued by the Nazis. They treated Germans with much respect. Many fell for their lies. How could such a polite person be bad?
You might want to check on that. The nazis tried to raise children without compassion or mercy.
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How many of you judges would refuse nazis or any other totalitarian regime and accept being send to their deaths with their whole family? Almost nobody was even able to refuse covid mafias and not wear dust masks for two years. What are you even trying to prove here, people?
Then the US government did operation paparclip and brought them over here to start nazi
Since its creation in 2009, the Facepalm subreddit has been steadily growing and becoming a true powerhouse of more than 6.1 million members ready to document people’s stupidity from forums, social media sites, or just real life. It comes as a great source of entertainment, and a dedicated moderator team stands right at the center of it.
One person who looks after this online group told Bored Panda in a previous interview that they moderate it "according to Reddit's content policy and that means that most of the comment moderation we do is to remove bigotry and racism," they said. "The subreddit's community is fine, for the most part. A lot of people come here to have a laugh at whatever silly thing is being posted and that's ok."
Uhh Moment.
The Deadly Argument For Going Natural
“If Masks Were Necessary We Would Have Evolved One By Now” Lmao
When it comes to the topics that are well-liked by the community, the moderator said they can change quite fast. "[What's popular] really depends on what is on people's minds at the time. Currently, a popular topic is the insane lengths people go through to deny the facts about Covid."
You see, there’s truly no end to human stupidity. Some people will always be ignorant and believe they can become experts in politics, science, and whatnot overnight and blare their ideas online. Well, thanks to the members of this community who hunt down ridiculous posts, they do everyone a public service by shaming them online.
Yeah I Think Native Americans Know More About The Land If They Lived Longer In It(Forgot To Add A Flair)
Antivax Logic
Ironic Idiots
And the country that defeated it started by european colonization
There’s a myriad of scientific evidence that proves humans are poor judges of their quality of performance and abilities. Well, people believe they are smarter and more capable than they really are and often claim to know a lot when, in fact, they have very little knowledge about the subject.
A 1999 study in which David Dunning and Justin Kruger, psychology professors from Cornell University, showed how people tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities. The researchers asked participants to do four tests to assess their humor, grammar, logic, and then evaluate how well or poorly they thought they did.
The results revealed that most participants overestimated their performance, but the ones that scored in the bottom quarter were much more likely to overvalue themselves. "Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it," the researchers wrote.
Wait Hold Up A Sec
Ouch. It must sting when someone who you think is on your side tells you that you're an idiot.
Failed The History Class
Know Your Place Trash
"The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club," David Dunning told Vox. "People miss that." Our brains tend to hide our blind spots from us. That’s why we often feel more confident about our skills, knowledge, and abilities than we should. And often, we’re completely unaware of our overconfidence.
Facebook Making Memes Unintentionally
Maybe Rethink That Again...peter
“A Bioweapon Against God”
"The work is about [how] when people don’t get it, they don’t realize they don’t get it," the professor explained that this is a phenomenon that visits all of us sooner or later. "Some of us are a little more flamboyant about it. Some of us aren’t. But not knowing the scope of your own ignorance is part of the human condition. The problem with it is we see it in other people, and we don’t see it in ourselves," he said.
Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions.
On Dinosaurs
Redefining History
To become a bit more skeptical, modest, and aware of our cognitive blind spots, David Dunning recommends you to ask yourself where you could be wrong if the decision is an important one. "Think that through — it matters. Think about what you don’t know. That is, check your assumptions."
"On a more general level, a lot of the issues or problems we get into, we get into because we’re doing it all by ourselves. We’re relying on ourselves. We’re making decisions as our own island, if you will. And if we consult, chat, schmooze with other people, often we learn things or get different perspectives that can be quite helpful," he explained.
Hmmmm
Happy Birthday
You're Standing Right In Front Of The Best Example In The Whole World That Proves That Walls Don't Work.
Not only did it eventually come down and has been considered a cruel historical mistake since they built it, it was only part of what they called the "Todesstreifen", path of death. People were shot at and killed long before they could've climbed the wall. At least 140 have been killed in Berlin alone. It's a symbol of shame not an accomplishment.
Numbrs... I Don't Know What I Say...
She Forgot A Very Important Bit Of Information
Big Brain Time
Picasso Was Alive When Snoop Dogg Was Born.
Back when I was in high-school this was the ultimate 'omg that blew my mind' moment for a lot of people. The only reason I knew about it before then was my mom's ex was into art and she adored Picasso and Dali. Dali died in '89 I think.
Someone Skipped 5th Grade History
1917
Absolute Genius
It is normal for students in Slovakia to visit Auschwitz around the age of 16 to see the brutal history of WWII with their own eyes. It's haunting. 17 years passed and I still remember the rings, shoes, hair, luggage, but most of all the eyes in the photos.
The Image They Don’t Want You To See
This Is Why The World Has Been Doomed…
Yeah the white blond-haired Mary of Israel. Very accurate portrait, though. *Facepalm*
Note: this post originally had 39 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I love how currently under your post is one of those spam post. It's just proving your point.
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This stuff reminds me of a person who recently claimed that dinosaur fossils exist because Earth was created by God around 6000 years ago from *pieces of other earths that did have dinosaurs milions of years ago*. How they can function remains a medical mystery. That's too much "WTF" to be survived.
Look TBH jellyfish don't have brains and they survive.
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This is what happens when education becomes politicized, turned into some propaganda tool and used as a commodity for profit.
You know, while fun, the fake ones are just annoying, especially if people think some of these are real
Learning is really mentally straining. I know. Teachers are so abusive for making you think serious thoughts.
Ugh, more stirring up dumb people into fighting online and possibly carrying the behavior into real life with real life consequences. Can we not ?
The ignorance of people about history - not just of their own country, but of history *in general* - is pretty much the sole reason I can't watch TV quiz shows any more. I just wind up shouting abuse at my TV and throwing things at it.
I love how currently under your post is one of those spam post. It's just proving your point.
Load More Replies... This stuff reminds me of a person who recently claimed that dinosaur fossils exist because Earth was created by God around 6000 years ago from *pieces of other earths that did have dinosaurs milions of years ago*. How they can function remains a medical mystery. That's too much "WTF" to be survived.
Look TBH jellyfish don't have brains and they survive.
Load More Replies... This is what happens when education becomes politicized, turned into some propaganda tool and used as a commodity for profit.
You know, while fun, the fake ones are just annoying, especially if people think some of these are real
Learning is really mentally straining. I know. Teachers are so abusive for making you think serious thoughts.
Ugh, more stirring up dumb people into fighting online and possibly carrying the behavior into real life with real life consequences. Can we not ?
The ignorance of people about history - not just of their own country, but of history *in general* - is pretty much the sole reason I can't watch TV quiz shows any more. I just wind up shouting abuse at my TV and throwing things at it.
