While some of the things we learn don't necessarily make us smarter, they can definitely arouse our desire to learn more. Or at least help us continue our stalling conversations. And Twitter account WTF Facts is dedicated to collecting and sharing these random tidbits of information. From celebrity lifestyle to international relations, the project covers a wide range of topics, which is probably the reason why its feed remains so fresh and interesting. Continue scrolling and check out some of the most popular tweets WTF Facts have ever released!
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Knowing obscure facts isn't just fun. It's also good for our mental health. For example, experts say that playing trivia games can provide a dopamine rush much like gambling, but without the negative effects.
Even if our trivia games differ, the benefits are there. Whether we're playing Trivial Pursuit at home or attending a pub trivia night, the basic premise remains the same: we experience the thrill of providing correct answers to questions about lesser-known facts.
"You get a rush or a neuroreward signal or a dopamine burst from winning,” John Kounios, Ph.D., professor of psychology and director of the doctoral program in applied cognitive and brain sciences at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, told Healthline. “I think whenever you’re challenged with a trivia question and you happen to know it, you get a rush. It’s sort of like gambling.”
Kounios said the benefits can also be similar to those of playing a video game.
However, unlike gambling and even video games, Kounios said trivia is generally not a problematic habit.
“I don’t think there are any pitfalls,” he said. “Like anything else that’s fun, it takes up time.”
A librarian from California, Sarah Kishler, loves trivia games and enjoys attending a monthly pub trivia night in which a team of librarians participates.
"Learning facts so that I can get better at trivia is definitely a passion of mine," she told Healthline. "Getting a question right is definitely very satisfying to me."
Same in Italy... You're allowed to disobey an order that you think is illegal...
Over the past decade or so, pub trivia nights that are popular in the United Kingdom appear to have grown in other parts of Europe and the United States.
Enthusiasts like Kishler enjoy getting to interact with people at these events, especially compared to electronic trivia games.
She has learned that doing well at these social trivia games gives her "a feeling of validation" and increases her self-esteem.
European prisons are very different from US ones. Much more humane. Focused on rehabilitation, not punishment.
USA has a private prison industry and it's not uncommon to use prisoners for slave labor
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Correction: We have a lot of criminals, we just don't put them in prisons anymore because they are all closed.
Meanwhile, if the U.S. has an empty prison they find unfair ways to fill them, mostly targeting lower-income POC. Simply to make some money. It's abhorrent.
In the us since prisons have been privatized if the prison doesn't have enough prisoners the government has to pay the private company fees. I wish we were actively closing prisons.
And here in America we have 2 MILLION people in jail being abused and exploited for profit >:I
Hi! Dutchie here! This seems like a fairytale and all, and is partly true.. but the true reason is that the judge usually gives the criminals community service or closed treatment instead of jail time. Some Dutch people think this is too low a punishment, some promote this treatment. Also, life sentence is usually about 25 years, or shorter for good behavior. Just thought you should know!
Bullshit. A life sentence in the Netherlands means you stay locked up untill you die unless you get a pardon by the king (through the minister of justice but the king has every right to refuse this even if the minister of justice is in favour of the pardon). Not many life sentences have ended in a pardon. The next longest sentence is 30 years imprisonment and that one rarely makes the full term as early parole at 2/3 of served time is standard procedure unless a prisoner realy f***s up. Such long sentences are rare though but so are crimes that warrant them.
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As opposed to America, where all of out prisons stay open because we find great ways to get people in them.
a lot of prisons in areas of the world are trying to make the amount of prisoners they have expand to meet quotas so that they don't close down. Like, a prison closing down is a good thing??? great news tho!
Bs, there are a lot of criminals on the loose who should be locked up..
Whereas the for profit prisons in the US threaten the states they’re located in that they will have to close if they don’t get MORE prisoners. Unfortunately, some states have been starved for funding—-and some have had local powers that be who have mismanaged or stolen what finding they have received—-that they rely on the revenue these prisons generate, so give in and find ways to increase arrests and convictions. Solution? The federal government needs to take back the expenditures it has been passing down to the states for decades now.
Other countries could learn from this. But the private companies involved make money off of the prisons.
And yet here we are in 'Murka talkin' about how we're the greatest...
The Netherlands is such a kind place to spend your July in. The crime rate is low, and it is a beautiful scene.
Nope. This is a myth, sorry. All drugs are illegal we just allow Marijuana to be sold from designated coffee shops. But we've got biiiig drug problems, especially from XTC labs. Wish it were different..
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Not true, it’s because of the crisis and reforming they started shutting down prisons
I live in The Netherlands. It’s because the laws aren’t enforced and the police can’t be bothered.
Well, I don’t know if that’s true, I live in the Netherlands and I guess the prisons are full, so why Bored Panda, check your sources, like Dutch people, like me
What are or have they been doing that the rest of the world should be doing.
Kudos to the Netherlands. They seem to have found a system to rehabilitate criminals other than jailing them. In comparison, the US have the highest proportion of convicted population per capita. Maybe not all numbers are available, but do you think they beat China and Russia? I'd tend to think so.
So did the bad guys all go overseas to do their crimes? It is a good place with lousy weather.
sure, but there is no crime in Drugs as you can do what ever you want. no law broken.
I wonder if that's because an official policy of tolerance emerged and in 1976 the Dutch parliament decriminalized possession of less than 5 grams of cannabis.
In the documentary SEX, DRUGS & DEMOCRACY, a Dutch politician talks about the legalization of certain drugs and sex work. "They are going to happen whether or not we legislate against them, so why not create safe boundaries and collect taxes? You can do either activity in certain areas, but not everywhere." Doing drugs in a public park is illegal. Take them home and do them in private, or go to cafes. Same with prostitution, do it in the zone or at home.
A lot of the people we put in our prisons aren't criminals in any significant way. But it's very profitable for the private prisons and they have friends in Congress and the courts. The right wingers in the U.S. can brag about their family values, but what they really value is short-term profits at any cost.
America, what can we learn from this- pay attention to successful societies.
...and I'm NOT surprised!!!! The Dutch CARE about their Population...less poverty, less stress than here in the UK!
Unlike the UK who use all their powers to ban up innocent people. Tough on crime - tough on the causes of crime. Bollocks!! The motto of the Crown Prosecution Service is: - We will prosecute if we are more likely than not to get a conviction. Innocent or Guilty Who Cares?. The UK Probation service works on the principal that EVERYONE who passes through their portals, IS WITHOUT DOUBT, GUILTY. They will legally be able to ignore ANYTHING which MIGHT contradict this. BTW: YES == I DO have an axe to grind.
There is speculation that crimes rates are actually much higher than recorded in the Netherlands, as many citizens don’t report common offenses such as burglaries or bike theft. According to leaked government documents, people often feel that the police don’t have the resources to solve these types of crime and therefore don’t take the time to report them, which might mean that earlier national statistics don’t adequately represent criminal activity in the Netherlands.
In Britain we're two or three to a one-man cell and building more . . .
and prisons south of the american border make american prisons look like prisons in the Netherlands tenor-6059...29569f.gif 
I think they also take in prisoners from other countries who don't have enough prison capacity?
That has indeed been the case. The prisons here in Belgium have way too many prisoners. So some of them where send to Holland.
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I can't find evidence to support this. I see huge list to save money. I find some evidence of some being replaced. Yes there are less people in prison as well but an expected reason for this is that a lot of crime remains unreported. Latest news around this seems to be about a shortage of space actually.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Is this good or bad? Does it mean there is a lower crime rate, or are there shorter prison sentences? Perhaps the law/court is more lenient.
The court system is not more lenient. The Netherlands has among the longest sentences in the EU.
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More like the police aren't doing their job; just smoking weed and riding canal boats.
Bull s**t I know for a fact, the closed them becouse no one wanted to pay for them there still on this day 290000 criminals waiting to do there time becouse we don’t have enough jails
https://www.judex.nl/rechtsgebied/strafrecht/de-strafrechter-en-de-strafzitting/praktijkvoorbeelden/zeer-lange-gevangenisstraf-voor-medeplegen-van-moord/ This translated in short 4 years jail is considert long fore a guy who was part of a group who tortured a man fore a few days before they killed him. Because they were unable to proof he did actual torturing .
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Maybe those nations should develop the skills of their workforce more if they are relying on citizens to be criminals just so others can have a job.
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yeah Disney often adapts its stories to be appropriate for children, eventually leading everybody to only remember the Disney version and not the original
"I love general knowledge, geography, literature, music, science trivia," Kishler explained. "I just love to accumulate knowledge. I like the exercise that it gives my brain and memory."
She doesn't think of herself as a competitive person but nevertheless enjoys getting a bit amped up at trivia games.
“People really like to have some expertise on something and the brain is very good at focusing on things that you’re interested in,” Deborah Stokes, Ph.D., L.P.C., B.C.N., a psychologist in Virginia, who focuses on neurotherapy, told Healthline.
According to Stokes, learning large bodies of knowledge can often start with trivia. And people who are interested in trivia can be brainy, have a high IQ, and be smart on a lot of levels.
However, Kounios said that people aren’t necessarily better at trivia games just because they’re more educated.
I can barely draw a stick figure and if instructions have more than one step it is safer to write them down.
"Some people soak up facts,” Kounios added. "Plenty of people with a lot more education may not remember what they had for breakfast yesterday morning."
"In typical people, my observation, not backed up by any research, is that their interest in trivia is confined to topics that they are generally interested in. So if a person is very interested in history, then they may either seek out history trivia, or they might just naturally pick it up in the course of learning about nontrivial aspects of history."
I love Dave Grohl, but he isn't the only artist to have done this....
Stokes pointed out that trying to retain information about things we're interested in can be like a good exercise for the frontal cortex as the brain ages.
"That’s the first thing to go with injury or with age if we don’t use it," she said.
Of course, it's completely understandable if the pandemic has drained your brain of the desire to learn and flooded it with boredom and tiredness instead. In an earlier Bored Panda interview, Lenore Skenazy, the president of Let Grow and the founder of the Free-Range-Kids movement, said that before we can become curious again, we have to do the hard part: get off the couch. Force yourself out the door. Why? Because beyond your four walls, things are never exactly the same. Weather, animals, people, sounds, smells, clouds—they’re all swirling about."
Lenore continued: "Ask yourself to start noticing new things. I did that this morning with a friend. We took a walk around our neighborhood and started looking for interesting details in the homes and buildings we passed. It went from a walk down streets we’d seen a million times to a sort of treasure hunt. And the big thing we were really hunting for? Curiosity! When you’re curious you’re alive again—noticing, thinking, making connections. You can’t do that if there’s no new information coming in. So your first step is to force yourself out of a rut by leaving the house (harder during the pandemic, but not impossible)."
I always like to image what stories such old structure might have to tell
Here's another fact. Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth were born in the same year.
As an Italian (but this is my personal belief, everyone is entitled to it's own) this is exactly something Mafia would do. It's something I know occurs in Italy on a daily basis. You see a quite common modus operandi is mobster would do something nice for the community or for specific people, so that the community in the area feels dependable. One well known method of recruiting in the mafia is: you have a problem, we send to you someone you know (and you don't know he works for us). Maybe a friend of a friend. He'll fix your problem for you. After time is passed this person asks for a little innocent thing like let's say "I'm sick can you bring this box to this adress? I can't move". After that he asks for more pressuring you on the favor he did awhile back and tells you that box you delivered was full of drugs/handguns so you're an accomplice. And that's it you're in a system you can't escape without hurting family and friends.
I assume that this photo is all of the lazy culprits and, of course, the one who actually did the deed
Note: this post originally had 122 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Many of these are incorrect or unproven. The article should be named "fantastic things a random twitter account claims without evidence but that would be slightly interesting if they were true"
Anyone else think WTF Facts needs to be turned into a Twilight Zone-style TV show telling some of these more incredible stories?
No? Like you’re gonna tune in and have Rod Serling be all “submitted for your approval, koalas sleep 22 hours a day, also here’s a closeup of a pyramid” and then wonder what’s the sociopolitical point it’s trying to make like the classic Twilight Zone.
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Woooooow! I did not know almost any of these facts! Thanks for sharing!
This person is standing at the roots of a redwood tree that fell in a windstorm. The proven source is me (although I'm not the one in the picture). root-605ff...e7eeaf.jpg 
The author was either from the Netherlands or just read a book about them but I'm not believing everything that's coming out in this post. Some of the facts were mostly just opinion (the clearest water, most breathtaking sight)
Click the three dots and delete it. It will then be hidden.
Load More Replies... Many of these are incorrect or unproven. The article should be named "fantastic things a random twitter account claims without evidence but that would be slightly interesting if they were true"
Anyone else think WTF Facts needs to be turned into a Twilight Zone-style TV show telling some of these more incredible stories?
No? Like you’re gonna tune in and have Rod Serling be all “submitted for your approval, koalas sleep 22 hours a day, also here’s a closeup of a pyramid” and then wonder what’s the sociopolitical point it’s trying to make like the classic Twilight Zone.
Load More Replies... Woooooow! I did not know almost any of these facts! Thanks for sharing!
This person is standing at the roots of a redwood tree that fell in a windstorm. The proven source is me (although I'm not the one in the picture). root-605ff...e7eeaf.jpg
The author was either from the Netherlands or just read a book about them but I'm not believing everything that's coming out in this post. Some of the facts were mostly just opinion (the clearest water, most breathtaking sight)
Click the three dots and delete it. It will then be hidden.
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