3 ms·

"This stuff" has been around for ages. Forty years ago in my teens, I read a book with a very memorable anecdote about locals insisting canabalism was "a local

"This stuff" has been around for ages. Forty years ago in my teens, I read a book with a very memorable anecdote about locals insisting canabalism was "a local custom" and defending their right to practice it. The British official in charge replied "It's our custom to shoot cannibals." When I was homeless, I asked around on the internet for a source for who said that. There is a real incident where a British official said something like "We shoot people who do that" but it wasn't about cannibalism. But the toxic classist forum where I asked initially replied to me with basically "You're just a stupid homeless person misremembering that." No, I read it in my teens when I had a near photographic memory and was one of the top students in my high school class and everyone respected me as one of the smart people, long before the world decided I was some loser making things up. I'm quite clear the anecdote in the book was about cannibalism. There is a real historical incident similar to it, but the book got the details wrong. I have also read some crazy accounts of how Einstein's Theory was proved because the solar eclipse bent light so much, you could see a star that our Sun should have been obscuring. Humans tend to believe things we read. If it's in writing, it has some kind of authority in our minds. This is often not the case and we need to get better about recognizing that a lot of "writing" on the internet is just modern chit chat and not reliable.

rvba 4y ago
How did the people on the board know you were homeless and why do you keep randomly keep mentioning it?
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Do I have some social obligation to hide the fact that I was homeless at one time?
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    It never occurred to me that there was a rule about public displays of residence like for public displays of affection, but I guess there is. (inappropriate and maybe even criminal in the presense of children, unless you're straight & monogamous, in that case it's fine)
  - sapling-ginger 4y ago
    >According to the maxim of relation (or relevance), a cooperative speaker should not convey any information that is not relevant in the context of the utterance https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0129.xml https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-97...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - andreareina 4y ago
      That might be relevant, if having been homeless was irrelevant to the point being made.
- andreareina 4y ago
  It's something that effects a different perspective of the things being discussed. It's no different from someone commenting from their perspective as someone with adhd, or from a country that isn't the USA, etc
wiml 4y ago
> I have also read some crazy accounts of how Einstein's Theory was proved FWIW, this was the observations during the solar eclipse of 1919, by Eddington and a bunch of less famous people. It apparently made headlines at the time.
- rep_lodsb 4y ago
  It wasn't about bending of light though. The orbit of Mercury is slightly different from what Newton's theory would predict, and this was first observed during the eclipse. The British officer story happened in Korea IIRC, the custom at the time wasn't cannibalism, but that women who lost their husbands would be killed to join them in the afterlife.
  - DoreenMichele 4y ago
    I think it was India, actually, but the rest sounds correct.
  - Ankaios 4y ago
    The GP is correct that Eddington's observations during the 1919 eclipse had to do with the deflection of starlight. General relativity predicted that starlight passing by the Sun would be deflected by a certain amount, and Eddington's observations showed that general relativity's prediction was correct. The discrepancy between Mercury's perihelion precession and Newtonian gravity had been observed long before Einstein developed general relativity. Calculations under general relativity correctly determined Mercury's perihelion advance, but general relativity did not predict the perihelion advance, since it was already known.
    - rep_lodsb 4y ago
      You're right, seems like I misremembered this fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_precession_of_Mercu...
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  My understanding is that the eclipse moved the apparent position of the star compared to where it would normally be observed, but not by very much. All I'm saying is some accounts seem to really exaggerate how much this effect was.

rvba 4y ago

How did the people on the board know you were homeless and why do you keep randomly keep mentioning it?

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Do I have some social obligation to hide the fact that I was homeless at one time?
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  It never occurred to me that there was a rule about public displays of residence like for public displays of affection, but I guess there is. (inappropriate and maybe even criminal in the presense of children, unless you're straight & monogamous, in that case it's fine)
- sapling-ginger 4y ago
  >According to the maxim of relation (or relevance), a cooperative speaker should not convey any information that is not relevant in the context of the utterance https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0129.xml https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-97...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - andreareina 4y ago
    That might be relevant, if having been homeless was irrelevant to the point being made.
andreareina 4y ago
It's something that effects a different perspective of the things being discussed. It's no different from someone commenting from their perspective as someone with adhd, or from a country that isn't the USA, etc

wiml 4y ago

> I have also read some crazy accounts of how Einstein's Theory was proved FWIW, this was the observations during the solar eclipse of 1919, by Eddington and a bunch of less famous people. It apparently made headlines at the time.

rep_lodsb 4y ago
It wasn't about bending of light though. The orbit of Mercury is slightly different from what Newton's theory would predict, and this was first observed during the eclipse. The British officer story happened in Korea IIRC, the custom at the time wasn't cannibalism, but that women who lost their husbands would be killed to join them in the afterlife.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I think it was India, actually, but the rest sounds correct.
- Ankaios 4y ago
  The GP is correct that Eddington's observations during the 1919 eclipse had to do with the deflection of starlight. General relativity predicted that starlight passing by the Sun would be deflected by a certain amount, and Eddington's observations showed that general relativity's prediction was correct. The discrepancy between Mercury's perihelion precession and Newtonian gravity had been observed long before Einstein developed general relativity. Calculations under general relativity correctly determined Mercury's perihelion advance, but general relativity did not predict the perihelion advance, since it was already known.
  - rep_lodsb 4y ago
    You're right, seems like I misremembered this fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_precession_of_Mercury https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perihelion_precession_of_Mercu...
DoreenMichele 4y ago
My understanding is that the eclipse moved the apparent position of the star compared to where it would normally be observed, but not by very much. All I'm saying is some accounts seem to really exaggerate how much this effect was.