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I used to believe that common sense existed. You know, the usual stuff, like water is hot and fire is wet...
But then it occurred to me a few years ago, that what people believe to be 'common sense' are actually the things that nobody bothers to teach the next generation.
Meaning that common sense is only as common as one's elders teach you. So when the elders assume that you automatically know certain things, they won't bother teaching you.
Hence, common sense does not exist.
One of the most difficult things to learn about past societies is how the average person lived, because nobody would actually write that down.
Would you say that common sense changes with the generations? What was once common is no longer, and what was uncommon becomes common?
common sense changes with the generations
Not 4 generations from a massive pandemic that caused a financial collapse that caused widespread poverty and fomented the blame and hate that started the second big war and the generational stress that built, and we forgot why we fucking take vaccines.
Once upon a time, it was considered common sense to tie your shoes. Then Velcro came along...
Wait, you weren't born knowing how to tie your shoes?
Besides all of what you said being wrong...
You think "a few years ago" is recent?
"Common sense" literally just means stuff most people are likely to know.
It used to be common sense to not sneak up behind a horse in the dark. But most people today have no idea why that could literally cost you your life, unless if they watched GoT or something and remember what happened to Hodor.
If horses were still everywhere, it would still be common sense. Because common sense stuff didn't need to be taught. An average person would have learned that by a certain age regardless of if anyone ever tried to teach them.
Either they'd have been kicked by a horse, or they'd have seen/heard of a person being kicked.
Most of the time when I see people make the complaint you just did, it's because they're older and don't understand information that was important for them, is no longer important for the next generation.
“Common sense” literally just means stuff most people are likely to know.
Here's the problem, who are "most people"? Have you surveyed whatever group you pick?
"Common sense" is more often than not just whatever your personal bias of "obvious" information is.
For people in my general circles it's "common sense" to use a password manager, git, etc. For plenty of people they'll just give a glazed over quizzical look/not even know what I'm talking about.
So as to say, common sense exists in some sense, but it doesn't "exist" in the meaningful way many people would like it to.
I have another example from work. Most if not all of the people I work with have personal boats, ATVs, etc, and so in their free time tow trailers pretty regularly. We also use trailers at work. Some college interns start working with us, and no one bothers to check their trailer knowledge because (you guessed it) it’s common sense. Which resulted in the college interns trying to drive a vehicle into the trailer when it wasn’t hitched up.
What the interns didn’t know is you want the trailer to be hitched to a vehicle so the front of the trailer stays in place when you’re putting weight on the back. Otherwise the trailer becomes a seesaw and the front end jumps up into the air.
My general rule is if you’re about to say something like, “That’s just common sense,” you should stop yourself. Common sense to whom? In my experience people call something “common sense” when it’s something they’re used to doing and they forget not everyone is used to doing it.
Cute argument. Love it!
I was actually kicked twice by horses when I was a child. Maybe you should pass that information along to the newer generations..
You know, actually teach what you believe should be common sense...
You know, actually teach what you believe should be common sense
...
You completely and utterly missed every point I was making if you still think that's common sense.
Here's an example of common sense in 2024, that's actually relevant to "newer generations" tho:
When someone is that incapable of understanding something, blocking them is better than wasting time repeating yourself.
Again, that's not common sense. There is no such thing as common sense.
You had to be educated to learn to use digital technology in the first place.
But maybe, just maybe you can listen to your own supposed 'common sense', and just drop your argument and go touch some grass or something.
Mosquito hawks don't eat mosquitos or larvae or do anything against mosquitos.
It always seemed odd since they fly like they're drunk but I figured mosquitos aren't much stronger fliers so maybe they're just 'good enough' to catch mosquitos. Nope- it's just a dumb name for a crane fly. I always gave them room even when they bothered me because I figured they're doing good work eating the enemy, but now I know they're not allies I swat them like any other pest.
I always thought peanuts were nuts and grew on trees. Oh how utterly, devastatingly naive I've been...
It's devastating that a PBJ and is a bean sandwich.
You are a bean sandwich!
Yeah, I mean can you imagine what squirrels would do to peanut trees? They’d mess them up. Squirrels are basically tiny chimpanzees.
I used to believe narwhals were a fake internet cryptid, but no, real ass aquatic mammal.
Oh there's a lot.
- When I was a kid, parents and teachers used to teach, if you have sore muscles a day after an extensive workout, you need to work out even more in order to reduce the soreness. In fact, however, you need to rest those muscles.
- I thought, pepperoni was pepper. (Like bell pepper, just smaller; similar to chilli). Then my girlfriend enlightened me after a confusing conversation, that pepperoni was a kind of salami. And then recently, at a company event before ordering pizza and after a very confusing discussion of what toppings we order, it turned out pepperoni was actually a kind of a salami, but not everyone agreed. So by now I've learned that pepperoni is neither of them. It doesn't exist. It's listed on pizza menus, and when you order it, you'll get something for sure, but you won't know in advance what it would be.
- This isn't new, the realization was several years ago, but fits this list nicely: I thought, perfume was something for women. It turned out, there was perfume for men too.
- Parents used to teach, if you read in the dark (on paper, not on a screen, I must add), you're ruining your eyes. But if you think about it: wtf does low light do to your eyes? By that logic, you're constantly ruining your eyes while sleeping.
- For some reason I used to think, you could simply delete related entities bound by foreign key constraints in postgres, if you ran the query in a transaction. Once when I finally needed to do this, I learned the hard way I was wrong.
There's a lot more than this, probably I'll update this comment in the future. Or not.
I love how this comment covers super common misconceptions, but then throws a super specific database issue in at the end. Gotta have that cascade on delete, unless you want orphans.
Parents used to teach, if you read in the dark (on paper, not on a screen, I must add), you’re ruining your eyes. But if you think about it: wtf does low light do to your eyes? By that logic, you’re constantly ruining your eyes while sleeping.
The theory is that frequently straining your eyes is an issue, so reading in conditions that are difficult to see in will weaken them, not that dark itself hurts your eyes.
When I was a kid, parents and teachers used to teach, if you have sore muscles a day after an extensive workout, you need to work out even more in order to reduce the soreness. In fact, however, you need to rest those muscles.
Strained muscles need rest but when starting a new workout routine it's common to experience Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) the next day which you can relieve with light exercise.
Pepperoni (double p) is a type of salami in my view, but TIL that peperoni (single p) are a type of sweet pepper. I knew that peperoncini are a type of hot pepper.
how about actual italians don't know what the fuck pepperoni is. they have pizza salami, but that weird red sausage is not something you'll find in Italy
I was always told that the reason you used to see an Olive Garden next to every Red Lobster is because a husband/wife couple owned both chains and wanted the restaurants placed next to each other. Then a decade ago when they kinda stopped doing that it was because they divorced.
I can’t find a single piece of evidence that supports this claim online. The two restaurants were just owned by the same parent company and Red Lobster got sold off in 2014.
They're franchised so that could have been true for the town or region you were in 🤷♂️
Huh, I always assumed it was just because they target the exact same people. The only differentiator is pasta or seafood, in my mind.
That vapes cause popcorn lung. Only specific vape juice that isn't sold anymore or hard cbd oil in a vape caused popcorn lung.
That isn't to say vaping is good for you. It just doesn't cause popcorn lung
Small correction: Vape juice ingredient, Diacetyl. It was in many different flavor components, and a juice can have five, six, eight components. It’s mostly in cream, custard, and butter flavors.
Source: Ecig juice maker for a decade
I used to believe business could claim tax breaks for the money we contribute when they ask "Do you want to donate to XYZ cause?"
I learned today about how businesses can't actually claim point-of-sale charitable donations that show on a receipt for a tax write-off. Also, I learned about how no one can claim tax write-off for cash donations into a charity jar.
NaN == NaN
Not every Corner Bakery is, in fact, located at a corner
It’s pronounced offen with a silent T. You may think you sound smarter with a hard T, but you’re ignoring the root etymology of the word.
you’re ignoring the root etymology of the word
Thousands of times a day for me, you don't know the haff of it.
The word has always had a t sound since Old English, and it's part of the reconstructed language Proto-Germanic in the form *ufta. Every other Germanic language displays a t in the corresponding word:
Scots oftin (“often”), North Frisian oftem (“often”), Saterland Frisian oafte (“often”), German oft (“often”), Pennsylvania German oft (“often”), Danish ofte (“often”), Norwegian Bokmål ofte (“often”), Norwegian Nynorsk ofte (“often”), Swedish ofta (“often”), and Icelandic oft (“often”).
So, the dictionary is not a gold-standard.
It is, in fact, the opposite and in very simplified terms, just a book of how people currently pronounce words and their meaning today. Think of it more as a record book for the time it was printed, rather than a rule book; living languages are funny like that.
If you would like to know more, I highly recommend Word by Word written by Kory Stamper, one of the editors for the Merriam-Websters Dictionary.
That I was the only idiot around. My, how wrong I was!