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
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
Same s**t is taught in Spanish schools about the discovery of America. They natives were so happy to receive the light of the true religion they let them take there gold. The fact a few died because they weren't imune to European diseases.
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This is despicable. This is like holocaust denying. It doesn't need to be taught in lower school classes but it should never be said that this was what happened. The snowflakes that can't handle the truth shouldn't write the books.
You doN't have to let the kids know all the details, but telling them "the Natives were chased off the land and they had to leave to go somewhere worse" is very easily understood. Every child understands the injustice of it
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No, this is a big Nope. I live in an area the trail of tears went through - and its history that needs to be taught not swept under the rug. There's so much the schools don't always teach that they should, and what was taught on the trail of tears when I was growing up wasn't even enough - that was dependent on which school I was in what I learned. I had a very diverse upbringing due to moving around a lot so I got to learn a bunch of stuff I wouldn't have had I stayed in one spot.
Ikr! Not all textbooks are like this though. I live in America and in school I was taught that they were forced out
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Hell no. US imperialism is well studied pretty much everywhere but the US and UK
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This book is an amazing bit of nonsense, but at least the publisher recalled it. Another gem from the book says that the First Nations people moved to reserves (that's what Canadians call them) to "live undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the settlers."
In apartheid South Africa those were called Bantustans and in Palestine it's called Gaza.
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I don't ever remember the word Agree being used in forcing the Native American People to be pushed and shoved to where it was convenient for the Whites to take over the country. And YES, I am White and disgusted with my heritage for its murderous ways.
This must be a Red State text book, written by bigots and fascists. If so there will likely be a section where they talk about how the Holocaust was a good idea and the Jewish people benefited from being murdered.
"Oh, yes, we'll just budge over, White Folk." said no one ever of the colonizing invaders.
This must be the republican version of history found in Texas textbooks.
Wtf?! I’m speechless. I want to stay as far away from whatever district is promoting this POS ‘history’ book.
As a Native American this is despicable. Our people died by the thousands and still suffer. No amount of gaslighting will erase this.
Holy Crap! What piece of s**t textbook trying to push this f*****g lie! Hell, there's a Trail of Tears State Park in Missouri. And yes, I know BP will edit a few words I typed but they needed to be used.
I get more and more convinced: the USA is a third world country. Rewriting history says it all.
Yeah this is offensive. We're really in love with erasing history lately. There's a saying for that.
I learned more about American and international histories when I left school than while I WAS in school.
If moving after being told "move or die" is "agreeing to move" does a bank teller handing over money after being told "empty the drawer or die" count as a gift instead of robbery?
Native Americans: Sure we'll move to all the uninhabitable places so you can destroy the rest of the country with your Capitalism
The day a textbook like this comes home I am pulling my child out of school. Gave her a good talk when school tried making colombus sound like a cool guy and another good talk when she learned about Thanksgiving, but that is just next level
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that this "textbook" is from the deep south. This is beyond sick.
African foreign workers agreed to harvest cotton on American plantations. The citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki agreed to assist in a nuclear device test.
There was a small group who agreed to learn English and learn like them. They did everything they did, and a couple years later Andrew Jackson made them move out for white settlers to live their because of the gold rush in Georgia! Stupid! They followed the rules!
I remember a textbook my sister had for a religious studies textbook in college...yes, college. The very first sentence was "The Jews are a wandering people."
Omg I can't believe this is really in a textbook somewhere. Please tell me that textbook is 50 or 60 years old, from back when we didn't know any better.
This is typical socialist behaviour. This happenes ALL the time in Sweden. Facts just change over time to sound better, and studies, books and articles just go away
In the US, if you want an education you have to do it on your own. Do not expect an education if you went through the public system because it's primarily white male-centric propaganda. Even white women aren't given their due.
well that's woke folks for ya - want to change or sweep history under the rug.
Oh my goodness! I can't believe they would do this..... but I also kind of can. This is horrible.
This is just SO SAD and terrible. You'd think they would be sorry, not continue to make it worse.
Ah! That paragraph is nice and makes me feel good. BTW don't watch any westerns.
When on holiday in Italy, I met a couple of young Americans from Michigan who wouldn't believe that the First Nation people were basically slaughtered and put in reservations against their will. They shouted "OMG what do they teach you? They died of disease and live happily in the reservations!"
in the TV show Reign, the very Catholic, self-righteous, pious queen of Spain brags about making Protestants and Jews convert to catholicism: "it's not a forced baptism unless you forcibly hold their heads underwater. If after the persuasion of torture they agree to convert then... they agree! (laughs)" It's the same thing as stealing something and claiming the owner agreed to give it to you under the threat of a knife to their throat or gun to their head, or that the First Nations peoples "agreed to move" but not mentioning they would have been slaughtered otherwise (and were slaughtered anyway)
when you have well over 10X the body count of the Nazis you don't really want people talking about it makes it kinda hard to point fingers
This book was published in Canada a few years back, and the outcry caused it to be recalled right away. This is certainly NOT what kids are being taught these days, even in the more "conservative" provinces.
And 200 years later, the white man is still screwing over the Native Americans...
This is the sort of explanation you might give a 2-year old. If you can read, you're old enough for a more accurate answer. (Incidentally, this really highlights why having learned about something does not make you knowledgeable about it. First-pass explanations are often massively simplified, and only serve to make you *think* you know about the topic.)
My children and myself learned all about this in grade school. In public schools. Very recently. This is fake news.
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.
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.
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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.
