Things you used to believe

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It is amazing how many folks make it into adulthood without grasping that the phrase "sixty miles per hour" means...sixty miles....per....hour. Lol!

Was riding with a buddy when the radio DJ invited listeners to call in to answer the trivia question "what common object moves one mile in a year".

My buddy started to blurt out "a comet!...an asteroid!...a meteor!...". It didnt occur to him that if the thing took an entire year to move ONE mile that it would have to be moving slower than something like a car that routinely moves all of sixty miles in only an hour, and that it could not be something goes faster than a car.

The answer turned out to be "an office desk chair".

Apparently, 80 MPH is even tougher! There's a whole genre of entertainment based on that question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhm7-LEBznk

I used to believe that people were basically rational, with a few bugs in the system. Discovering that they are controlled by emotions, with just a veneer of rationalization is particularly hard for an engineer.

"Shut the door, you're letting a draught in."

No-one ever explained what a "draught" was. I worked it out all by myself: a very large, paper-thin, translucent grey bat that is utterly horrifying to behold.

Up until 2003, I believed that while the governments of the major Western democracies aren't perfect, they are basically rational, sensible and just. I didn't protest against the Iraq war because I assumed the USA and Britain wouldn't actually do anything so obviously stupid on grounds so evidently false. In all seriousness. I was kind of in shock about that afterwards. Went rooting around in the History and Politics sections of the University library for some kind of context, and found a little book about the Suez crisis. Yeah.

I had expectations of a watershed event to restore balance and justice on earth. First in '73, then '84, '01 and finally the end of the Mayan calendar in '12. Now I think that's about the date that methane started boiling out of the arctic, thus ending the world as I knew it, and marking the beginning of the Anthropocene. I always thought I was living in a most extraordinary period of history, and still do.

I used to think that real villains, like those in movies, knew they had evil intentions, and could not get by with bad data and rationalizations to keep a clear conscience.

Until about a month ago, I believed that my life would finally be headed in a direction which would lead to some degree of normalcy. That came to an end. Whatever I do from here on out will be forever lessened.

I used to think the same, since I watched Ghostbusters as I child I had weird fears off toilets!

I believed things I was told which included that if I played with my belly button it would unravel and that if I was hit on the head I would die, if I was struck by lightening I would disappear in a puff of smoke.

I used to think that it was cheating to even wait for a good time to ask for something, let alone use any of the usual methods of persuasion. I expected people to be able judge things on merit alone anytime. I also had a strong tendency to assume they had the same background information as I if they were older.

I was very confused when I was sent from second grade straight to fourth - it felt like trying to skip a floor in building construction, but I kept passing just on common sense and exposure.

Q: Things you used to believe
A: The people who run Facebook tell the truth.

That reminds me that as I grew to understand that villains are not villains in their own eyes, I was very surprised. I had never even given any thought to them seeing themselves differently.

One example of that was when I heard a speech in my early teens by someone saying that Russia resented that there was no more Warsaw pact but NATO was still around. I was flabbergasted; of course the Warsaw pact had to go, and of course NATO was around, they are the good guys. It never occurred to me that Russia could have another POV or even a view really.

I still have no idea how people like ISIS and their kind can think themselves good guys.

Well, they say that America is evil for bombing their lands, draining their resources, killing their people, and basically ruining their lives. I'd think that is a strong motivation for their actions, though I agree violence isn't the best answer. America is an economic giant, so naturally a bunch of other countries are going to be involved with an issue involving America.

And if you don't follow their rules or give any hint that you like America, then .

"Jihad" actually means "struggle, " referring primarily to an individual's striving to become a better person in the eyes of God. It only becomes visible to other cultures when a Jihadi has been pushed right to the wall and is fighting back, because their very existence and therefore options to improve are in peril. Overall, Islam is a very peaceful, tolerant religion, which has not taken revenge for the very lopsided casualty numbers in wars with Christians. The current generation has known only war, imposed on the area by our oil companies. Even the national borders, drawn up by England after WWI, are designed to make governing difficult. Then the moderate progressives who tried to keep a reasonable share of the revenues at home were regularly assassinated, while the Wahibis were armed, and Palestine destroyed. After Madeline Albright assured Saddam Hussein that the US would not interfere if he attacked the drill rigs poking under his southern border his army entered Kuwait, and then were slaughtered by the USAF on the road to retreat. Then a million kids died from sanctions. Things like that make a beheading seem trivial. Physical jihad does not feel "good" - just necessary. Of course, even though there are thousands of young men driven half mad by growing up under constant threat, they only become dangerous when financed by people who stand to profit from more conflict.

^ I like where your mind is. SO many people in western countries (as in, so many it's outrageous) do not understand this. They behave as if militants are indeed the comic book villains mentioned above, deliberately killing "good" people because they like it. The ignorance around the conditions that must by necessity produce this kind of situation is rife in "civilized" western countries, where they can comfortably demonize everyone else.
I used to believe adults were never scared, or screwed things up, or didn't know what do to or basically had any flaws whatsoever. I used to think when I was a child that you grew out of this sort of thing into some kind of perfect state in maturity. I have developmental issues due autism so the amount of time I believed this despite a lot of damning evidence is actually kind of embarrassing. It was very confusing as to why when I started to grow up, all these human frailties weren't just disappearing.

I thought they don't have a pot to pee in really meant peeing in a pot when I was ten eventually I figured out the real definition

I also thought the easter bunny was real until 7 when I caught my dad sneaking in Easter Baskets. Needless to say I never believed in the easter bunny ever again

I used to believe carbs made you fat, and that it was almost impossible to store fat eating pure fat, because there is almost no insulin response.

I used to believe everyone else(nt's) analyzed social behaviour as much as I do, and the reason I couldn't keep up was because I hadn't put in enough effort. (This applies to all my aspie traits honestly)

I used to believe religion was a good thing.

Remember misconceptions that other kids had.

Two brothers I played with in the neighborhood would call the weapons "machining guns" instead just calling them "machine guns". And the two brothers both thought I was nuts when I doubted "the fact" that "the Martians have more, and better, weapons than we on Earth do! Everybody KNOWS that!"

I guess I hadnt watched enough B-movies from the Fifties to be as well informed as they were! Lol!