This article from the Washington Post on the persistence of myths reports some of the most disturbing research about human psychology that I’ve ever heard of. The repetition of a statement makes it more likely that the hearer will believe it. That much is not surprising, but the result obtains even in the context of being told that the statement is false. The mind remembers the statement, but slowly forgets the context.
Insert your joke about the Axiom of Choice here.
Someone told me that, but I think he was lying.
The commenters on that WaPo article are mostly idiots.
Never forget: millions of people have been murdered because of monsters exploiting this anomaly in human congition.
“… in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds they more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery and infamous misrepresentation in others; yes, even when enlightened on the subject, they will long doubt and waver, and continue to accept at least one of these causes as true. Therefore, something of even the most insolent lie will always remain and stick-a fact which all the great lie-virtuosi and lying-clubs in this world know only too well and also make the most treacherous use of.”
[Adolf Hitler, Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf]
There once was an Axe - um - of Choice
Used by surreal killers to voice
Their dogmatic rules
And cumbersome tools
But it ended in chopped up purpoise.
Alarm! Alarm!
An identical message to the one just above, purportedly from “Caroline” has apparently been left in numerous blogs.
What the heck is SocialRank.com? Googling on the registrant of this website (according to the ARIN record) strongly suggests that it is an “ecommerce” website, possibly little more than a spam outfit.
Chris, this is actually their second or third wave. A couple months ago I started seeing incoming links from them, seemingly just linking in with no attempt to link back and no structure to it.
The use of the term “myth” is unfortunate as the term fits best as used by Joseph Campbell to connote deep connections with inner feelings or what I’d call “proto-beliefs.” The ‘urban legend’ and those beliefs referred to in the article reside at a shallower level and play on more mundane urges of dispositions. But it has all been said before by the likes of Adolph Hitler. Just make a proposition outrageous enough that people believe no one would invent such and repeat it often enough and a substantial portion of a populace will eventually find it not only believable but will filter into the ‘common wisdom’ and accept as axiomatic. Of course, it helps if the proposition is pleasing to one’s outlook or preferences. In other words, it helps if people want to believe the proposition or it’s consequences.
As for one alarming emergence of this phenomenon, the conspiracy theorist, I think it is closely akin to religion that support the active intervention of a supernatural being in that such theorist cannot be satisfied that events may be random, but they attempt to find hidden motives and mechanisms at work behind the scenes to explain all. And the persistence of their beliefs become as hard and fast as any religious fundamentalist.
Unfortunately, there are also those who would manipulate vulnerabilities for vested political goals and can cause great harm in so doing. It behooves us all to analyse all proposition put forth as axiomatic or beyond the challenge of facts. We are beset by them aplenty.