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A Remarkable Number of People Think 'The Martian' Is Based On a True Story (buzzfeed.com)
MarkWhittington writes: The Martian is a smash hit movie that made $100 million worldwide during its first weekend. The science and engineering depicted was, with certain notable exceptions, near perfect. The cinematography and special effects were so well done that one could almost imagine that Ridley Scott sent Matt Damon and a film crew to Mars to shoot the movie. In fact, perhaps the film was a little too good. Buzzfeed took a stroll through social media and discovered that many people think that The Martian is based on a true story.
Nothing new about it.
What next, funniest moments of astronauts brought to you by scoopwhoop?
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If you think stories like this aren't important, just remember the fact that each of those people has the same number of votes in our glorious democracy as you do. There is no such thing as 'too much' when it comes to shaming stupidity in public.
A post on Slashdot related to the fact that many people lack basic education and/or skills to basic reasoning skills? /. now?
And over the top linking/citing a buzzfeed post? Are they now directly feeding their facebook wall on
I wonder what's worse: A few people believing a film is based on a true story when it obviously can't or the fact that this is posted here. I will ponder on that.
Corporations are inherently evil.
The government actually cares about them.
Communism/socialism are viable systems of government.
There is a diversity problem in tech.
Everyone needs a stem education.
Open source projects need to be nicer and have codes of conduct.
I am sure they will all have a good laugh at the stupid people who believe "The Martian" is real
who think the moon landings were a hoax.
True in general, but there definitely IS such a thing as too much if shaming a specific individual. While that's not the case here, it can't be stressed enough. This public shaming crap has gone WAY WAY to far, to the point that you just have to hope your name never comes up among any significant number of Internet users because they'll either make you a king (e.g. clock boy) or essentially destroy your life and future for some relatively petty and insignificant perceived "wrong," the likes of which we've almost all said or done at some point in our lives.
(see also the book "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" Scary stuff.)
A remarkable number of people believe homeopathy works. A remarkable number of people believe in gods, devils, prophets and an afterlife. A remarkable number of people believe scrying, remote sensing, dousing or fortune telling is real. A remarkable number of people firmly believe various economic, political or social "truths" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
A remarkable number of people are intelligent, well-adjusted and successful in their lives, and still manage to hold one or several of the beliefs above without ever experiencing any sense of disconnect. Those remarkable people almost certainly includes myself, and most likely you as well.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Some even think this kind of mental masturbation is actually the real slashdot.
This is why I'm seriously advocating that the weight of one's vote should be proportional to his knowledge + intelligent. People should be asked to take a test and the weight of their individual votes should depend on how well they do on the test.
The problem with proposals like this is that whoever is in power will design the "test" to disenfranchise other people. In case you're unaware, poll "tests" were common in the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s: they were widely used to prevent black people from voting in many areas. The "tests" claimed to be about literacy or whatever, but they were made arbitrarily difficult so that blacks couldn't pass. In fact, whites couldn't pass either, but they were literally "grandfathered" in (i.e., if their grandfather who was eligible to vote, they didn't have to take the test... blacks mostly had slaves for grandfathers, so they wouldn't have been eligible to vote -- this is where the phrase comes from).
Anyhow, if we were to reinstate some sort of poll test, it may not be used to disenfranchise according to racial lines, but you can be sure that whoever is in power will find a way to stop others from voting or to make their vote count less. It's probably impossible to design a system that couldn't be manipulated once you start disenfranchising people. Who gets to define the relevant "knowledge"? How do we measure " intelligence"?
I wonder how many people believe both that "The Martian" is based on a true story and that the Apollo moon landings were fake. I bet there are a few, some people seem to be serial conspiracy theory/hoax believers.
If you're more intelligent than I am, then I wouldn't mind if your vote counts more than mine.
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
IQ is certainly not a perfect metric but if we use it only in a simple way it could be used. Less than 100 IQ, can't vote.
Maybe add a simple quiz that tests for knowledge of the Constitution. If you support public officials voting based on religious beliefs you are out. If you don't believe civilians should be able to own any weapon our military is allowed to use, your out. If you believe congress can fund war without declaring it, you are out. If you believe congress or the president can disregard the constitution to fight terrorism, drugs, or "the general welfare" you are out. If you believe courts can't overturn congress your out. If you believe courts can grant themselves the authority to overturn a jury or limit juries to determination of fact without the ability to judge the merit of application of the law on a case by case basis, you are out. And last but not least if you don't understand that individuals is the only group that includes every citizen and therefore any systematic disregard of individual rights by definition cannot be in the interest of "the community", you are out. E.X. The automatic reduction in rights when accused of a wrongdoing by the state in traffic court vs other charges. Don't know that corporations are not people and that everyone with an interest in them is already a person and therefore already has the ability to represent their own rights and interests, you are out.
Note, that is not how things currently work in our process but it is how it's supposed to work and would work if swaying popular opinion couldn't break things.
Less than 100 IQ, can't vote.
50% of the population can't vote based on a test that you can easily improve at simply by practising.
If you support public officials voting based on religious beliefs you are out
Some people claim atheism is a religion. Also, not all religions are the same, e.g. Buddhists are not nearly as deluded as Christians, who are not nearly as deluded as Muslims, in general terms.
If you don't believe civilians should be able to own any weapon our military is allowed to use, your out.
If you believe any citizen should be able to own a nuclear ICBM or place land mines in the front yard, you're out.
And last but not least if you don't understand that individuals is the only group that includes every citizen and therefore any systematic disregard of individual rights by definition cannot be in the interest of "the community", you are out.
If you think rights are not a balance between opposing forces, and that include both freedom from interference and freedom to prosper and be happy, you are out.
I don't think this is going to work.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is like the reverse of what we had with Apollo 13. I watched it with a friend who was *astonished* to learn it was based on a true story. And yet, even I -- somewhat of a space nut myself -- had barely heard of the Apollo 13 mission when I was growing up. Nobody talked about it. There were no documentaries about it. I was vaguely aware that there was one Apollo mission that had some kind of malfunction and was aborted, but that was all. I had no idea there was any sort of *drama* associated with that.
When the Apollo 13 mission happened, I presume it was all over the news. I don't remember because I was four years old. Maybe all these people who think The Martian was real are just assuming it was before their time???
Didn't you know that the Moon landing was actually faked by filming on Mars. But when they finished they left one crew member behind .....
The sick part is that the people who don't believe we went to the moon will believe that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So, if I were by far the most intelligent man on the planet, you wouldn't mind me stealing the election and running the country just to benefit my friends and myself?
Don't mistake intelligence alone for an automatically benign and positive thing for everyone else involved - there are seriously smart people you might want in charge, but there are also seriously smart psychopaths you might not want to run the country or even have a bigger say in the decision on who does.