this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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What's a common "fact" that's spread around that's actually not true and pisses you off that too many people believe it?

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[–] MusicSoulEdu@lemmy.ca 130 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That the granny who sued McDonald's was just upset that her coffee was too hot.

She suffered from either third or fourth degree burns, on her lap.

Parts of her were fused together.

She just wanted McDonald's to cover the medical bill, but they dragged her name through the mud.

[–] elfharm@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yep, also they had previously been warned about serving coffee that hot, but studies had shown that serving it that hot meant that people drank less of it. And that "crazy" judgement (2.5 million?) wasn't a random number. That's how much they make off coffee in one day.

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[–] Tiral@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

I saw that, yeah McDonald's really tried to blast her as a sue happy bitch. All she asked for was medical bill costs initially which is reasonable.

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[–] lonefighter@sh.itjust.works 101 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The average person only lived to be 35 back in the day.

No, the average lifespan was like 35 back in the day. 40 year olds weren't some rare wrinkled old person, the average was affected by the extremely high childhood mortality. If you could survive the first few years of your life your chances of surviving the next 60 were pretty good.

[–] PhenomenalPancake@lemmy.world 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That being said, even among people who survived childhood, living to the ages we see nowadays was more rare than it is today due to a lot of environmental and societal factors like plagues and war. It wasn't unheard of, but that is also something that brought the average down to an extent.

[–] Watermark710@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

We essentially had a plague in 2020, and there are multiple wars going on as we speak. Those factors didn't disappear.

[–] PhenomenalPancake@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The deaths from both the wars going on in the modern day and infectious diseases like COVID are nowhere near on the scale that they were before, especially in terms of the percent of the world population killed by them. We haven't had deaths on the scale of WWI or the Spanish Flu since those events.

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[–] cymbal_king@lemmy.world 85 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Propaganda from the fossil fuel industry.

Solar panels are the cheapest source of electricity now. Batteries have dropped in price by more than 90% in the past decade, and are now viable for grid-scale storage, addressing the main issue with renewable energy. EVs are competitive with combustion cars, and in some ways superior. Heat pumps are now superior to furnaces in many locations. The solar punk future is now! But you wouldn't know any of this by listening to the public discourse, mainstream media, and many politicians.

Relevant video from Technology Connections

[–] cattywampas@lemmy.world 59 points 1 week ago (8 children)

History time!

Myth: People in the past drank beer because it was safer than drinking water.

Fact: People in the past drank beer because it was full of calories and tasty. Before modern times people generally had access to or knew how to find clean water, and water has always been the most popular drink throughout history.

Myth: People needed spices to cover the taste of rotten meat.

Fact: People ate fresh meat when it was available and preserved it when they could by smoking, drying, salting, fermenting, or otherwise preserving it. When they didn't have access to meat they just wouldn't eat it. They wanted spices for the same reason we do - because they taste good.

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[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 51 points 1 week ago (7 children)

That all the Y2K preparation stuff was a waste of time / a scam, instead of an example of massive success (people coming together and pulling off something to avoid a disaster)

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 25 points 1 week ago

Also see Acid Rain and the hole in the ozone.

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 12 points 1 week ago (5 children)

A friend of mine got a high-paying temp job reprogramming servers in some obscure programming language. I think the client was a major bank.

Yeah, a lot of dirtbags took advantage of Y2K, but that doesn’t mean that Y2K wasn’t a serious problem. It easily could have been.

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[–] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zip 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That food stamps or any handouts at all are a serious problem. Our (the US) government launches a single bomb that's worth years of food support. Idgaf if the food stamp recipients never do a damn thing but watch TV. I'd much rather millions of people doing that than bombing brown people half a world away.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Additionally, it's been proven in scientific study time and time again that giving people enough money to meet their needs significantly reduces crime and costs significantly less money than the "traditional" approach like inflating police budgets. Literally giving people cash money reduces crime better than any other way you could use the money.

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[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The idea of monetary scale is one I think is a big misconception anytime we’re talking about budget. “This committee wasted MILLIONS of dollars on this stupid niche scenario!” Well, yeah; the USA has millions of people in it. If a program affects the entire country, how much are you willing to spend per person? 8 cents?

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[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 44 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (21 children)

"Half of Americans voted for this"

No, half the people who actually showed up to vote voted for the guy, but not necessarily all he is and has been doing. It's actually only about 20-22% or less of the population that actually voted this guy into office and fewer than that are on board with current events. Far from "half of Americans", so just stop it.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 week ago (3 children)

People who didn't care enough to vote are just as bad as the ones who voted for Trump. They were warned what was coming and they allowed it

[–] Pelicanen@fedia.io 13 points 1 week ago

While voter apathy is widespread in the US, note that voter disenfranchisement has been honed over decades so many people either didn't get to vote or could not vote because the impact to them short-term was too great to afford making decisions for the long term (e.g. people losing their jobs while living paycheck-to-paycheck).

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[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 43 points 1 week ago (7 children)

The best first aid for someone having a seizure is to shove a wallet (or something) in their mouth, so that they don’t “swallow their tongue”.

NO!

Never do this. Absolutely never. It’s far more likely that you’ll injure the victim (or yourself) in the attempt.

Furthermore, don’t restrain a seizure victim in any way unless it’s absolutely necessary for their physical safety (like if they’re in danger of falling down a stairway. Even then, it’s usually better to just stand at the top step and act as a barrier). Whenever possible, move things they may hit out of their way; don’t try to move the victim. If there’s something you can’t move, try to put something soft between the victim and the object.

Most of the time, the best thing you can do for a seizure victim is to not touch them at all, and simply give them room.

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[–] wieson@feddit.org 32 points 1 week ago (11 children)

That WW1 was the same moral black and white as WW2.
In my opinion, every country in WW1 was the villain just that one side was impatient enough to be the aggressor first.

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[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 31 points 1 week ago (14 children)

"LLMs are not AI"

Artificial intelligence is a term used in computer science to describe a system capable of performing any cognitive tasks that would normally require human intelligence - like generating natural-sounding language. The issue isn't that the term is being used incorrectly, but rather that most people think it means more than it actually does. It's a broad term that covers everything from old Atari chess engines to artificial superintelligence.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 25 points 1 week ago (19 children)

The problem is people think llm AI means it's thinking, when it's obviously not. Thus: "llms are not ai" is said so people will hopefully stop thinking the llms are thinking.

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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

"Just doing my job" being a valid excuse for causing even minor harm.

Maybe it would be very hard to choose not to take thay paycheck. Maybe it would have negative consequences for you to not sell fake insurance to people who don't know better. You don't get to pretend you didn't choose to do harm to others.

[–] gigastasio@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Venice is often touted as being the “birthplace of Opera.” When in fact the true birthplace of Opera is Florence. We can credit its development to a group of artists and intellectuals called the Florentine Camerata.

This is extremely important everyone! Please take note of this and the next time you and your fellow construction workers are debating the intricacies of music history, set them straight!

Also, editing to add the little fun fact that one of the Florentine Camerata’s members was Galileo’s dad, Vincenzo Galilei.

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[–] trem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 1 week ago (28 children)

The old "tomatoes are not a vegetable" is pretty frustrating. They are a vegetable.

In botanical terms, the concept of a vegetable does not exist, which is where tomatoes are classified as fruits. But in culinary terms, vegetables do exist and tomatoes are classified as such.

I just find it frustrating, because I believed that garbage myself at some point, and I thought, I was smart for knowing that.
Just one of those examples that you can easily spread misinformation, so long as you make it sound plausible.

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[–] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 25 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Agreeing to disagree is only applicable to matters of taste.

Example would be a preference of maple or agave syrup with your choice of cooked dough.

One cannot agree to disagree when one of the parties is factually wrong.

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[–] Malyca@lemmy.zip 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That you only need headlights to see in the dark. Headlights are just as much so other cars can see you, than they are so you can see. In the rain and in the fog, they're crucial to have on.

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[–] NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net 20 points 1 week ago (13 children)

That the general population are directly responsible for the amount of pollution occurring a la "carbon footprint" when there are 10 companies producing 70% of the world's pollution

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[–] chunes@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (7 children)

The birth rate going down = the population is collapsing.

No.

The birth rate is going down and the population is increasing. Both of these are happening at the same time.

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[–] CascadianGiraffe@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

Things being "illegal".

No it's not against the law. Just because someone can sue you doesn't mean what you did was a crime. Just because a business can't sell a particular product doesn't mean it's illegal to have. You can't 'get arrested' for half the shit people think is 'illegal'.

[–] chuso@fedia.io 15 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"Water drains in opposite directions in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres".

No, it doesn't.

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 18 points 1 week ago (4 children)

The coriolis effect is a real thing, but it is spectacularly weak.

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Marginal Tax brackets drive me insane especially my parents constantly misunderstand and think a payrise will make them lose money.

They don't understand that the tax is only paid on the money earned in that bracket. So going up 5% isn't your total income being taxed an extra 5% its only the money earned on that bracket that is taxed at the higher rate.

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[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

your brain doesn't do maths to figure out how to move yourself or how to throw things, it just learned/knows which neurons to fire to move different parts of your body and has an impression of how much force must be applied to do different types of physical work. (e.g move through fluid)

[–] kender242@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (6 children)

True. But our bones do some of the calculations as well. We're born with kinematics. Contrast with a video game that needs to do a lot of IK math to simulate bones.

And our neurons are doing a lot of calculations ... just a different way.

But yeah, nobody is doing that Sherlock Holmes fight club stuff in their heads.

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[–] Tedesche@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago
[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (15 children)

I'm sick of people saying there are no original movies. Original movies come out literally every week, and I'm using the actual meaning of the word literally. Look at the website MovieInsider for a list of all the movies being released. Some recent original movies are quite popular too, like Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and Project Hail Mary. It pisses me off because if you care enough to complain, you should care enough to look up what movies are out instead of just knowing about the ones heavily advertised. I don't know what video games are out but I would make an effort to know if I played video games. If you care what movies are out, you should look it up.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.cafe 13 points 1 week ago (12 children)

That Social Security is going to collapse. I've been hearing it for literally 50 years. I honestly grew up thinking SS would not be there at retirement, and now I'm collecting it (although I'm not retired). It was a psy-op the whole time, trying to keep workers anxious, and at the grindstone.

Social Security is literally the easiest problem in DC to fix. All they have to do is raise the income cap. Right now, the cap is $184,500. You pay into Social Security on the first $184,500 of income, and anything over that doesn't get touched. If you make less than that, then 100% of your income gets tapped for SS. But if you make more, you pay a much tinier percentage of your total income.

So if SS is looking like a problem, all they have to do is raise the cap. It goes up a bit every year anyway, but there is no reason it can't be $500,000, or even $1 million. Of course the rich will scream, but they're always screaming. We have to learn to ignore that as background radiation, nothing to be concerned about.

Raise the cap enough, and you not only protect Social Security forever, you can give Grandma a nice raise. Doesn't she deserve it for all those delicious cookies? Or brownies actually, in my Grandma's case. She made the best homemade brownies, and she cut them BIG!

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[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

New cars are reliable.

First of all, no. Their more complex and failure prone, and you are the guinea pig they test new crap on.

Second of all, you literally cannot call a one year old vehicle reliable. You do not have enough data to make that claim. My jeep is about 40 years old, and with the 40 year old head start will still out live a brand new jeep. It has no "limp mode" because u slipped out of 4 lo in the woods (actual customer example), and it doesn't require Internet connection + a security gateway authentication to reset things like limp mode and doing a clutch position relearn. If you want a reliable vehicle get something made between 85 and 05, as long as it doesn't rust out from underneath you it will give u less headaches than anything made in the last 20 years.

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[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Trump was good for the economy.

During the election this kept being repeated even though the economy collapsed because of his covid response

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