Knowledge you take for granted

I wasn't sure were to put this, so if it needs to be moved, let it be moved.

So the other day I'm sipping some suds with some friends and the conversation turns to the OWS folks and what they are attempting to accomplish. About midway through the conversation it occurs to me that my friends are all pissed at the government for something they didn't do. Granted, the regulations and those responsible for their enforcement are government issues, but my friends were all mistakenly under the impression that the Fed, IRS and Wall Street are all government institutions. Yeah, I know, I need to find smarter friends. But it left me thinking. How many other people are angry at the wrong people? Sure I have some resentment toward the regulators and the morally deprived jerks that wrote the regulations. But most of it is toward those who acted and took advantage of a naive populous. They're all pissed off because the job market sucks, their mortgages are upside down, wealthy don't pay taxes, banks are fucking them left and right with fees and the stock market is in the toilet. They're blaming it all on the government, when none responsible are government institutions. The Fed, IRS and Wall Street brokerage houses are all privately held companies (some brokerage house may be publicly traded, I just don't know of any). Most banks are publicly held companies. I had to walk away from the conversation.

So what do you know, that you take for granted as common knowledge?

 

Um, unless it was privatized in the last 2 1/2 hours while I was watching The Adjustment Bureau, I believe the IRS is still a government agency assigned to the Department of the Treasury, despite what conspiracy theorist sites and tax evaders might claim.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=106508,00.html

Back to your question.

Evolution
Reality is perception
Age is only a number
Lust is not love
Women with dense breasts are more likely to develop breast cancer
Men with big trucks are compensating
Shouldn't pick the baby up every time it cries
Sex and apples are good for you
Smoking and picking your nose are bad
Big pharma and hedge fund managers are evil
A glass of wine is heart healthy (a bottle cures everything)
Eggs taste better fried in real butter

 

The Fed isn't quite a "privately held company", either. It describes itself as "independent within the government and the system is subject to the oversight of Congress (though it can make its own decisions independently, without government ratification). The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is a federal gov-ernment agency. The Board is composed of seven members, who are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

What have I assumed is common knowledge but have then discovered isn't?

God and Allah are different names for the same God.
When we stop trying to cure, but provide a dignified death with good palliative care, it isn't a medical failure.
Listening properly IS a form of communication (and influence)
There is more involved in the truth than the available facts demonstrate.
We have less control than we think. We are riding the waves of chaos most of the time.
Most people don't know themselves very well.
Fear is good, and helps us survive.
Women are just as competitive as men.
Happiness is a choice we make.
Once your kids reach their teens, their friends have more influence than you do.
A tomato is a fruit and peanuts and pistachios aren't nuts.
Sex without intimacy is unsatisfying.

 

The first comment explains it better than I can. They are more of a private contractor overseen by an appointed commissioner who answers to the treasury department.
http://www.dailypaul.com/30395/where-is-it-stated-that-irs-is-private-company

Why is picking your nose bad for you?

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=106508,00.html
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"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders."​

– The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10489

I know a peanut is a legume, what is a pistachio?
--- merged: Oct 8, 2011 7:03 PM ---
Let's just leave this as it is and agree to disagree, if that is the case here. We've presented our opposing views on these subjects and if it bears further discussion, we can start another string on the topic. I should have used a less controversial topic to begin with, it's just what was fresh in my mind at the time.

So let's all play nice and stay with the real topic of the string 'Knowledge you take for granted'.
Thank you

 

Any knowledge I have that is taken for granted as common, is already taken for granted, so how would I know which knowledge to share with the commoners?

 

It's a drupe ... but I'm on less solid ground than I thought I was on that one.

On the other stuff.. yeah, let's leave it

I have another ... most men don't look good in a pair of budgie-smugglers! (speedos)

 

I usually don't expect people to know anything, and it makes me come off like a fucking asshole sometimes.

 

I'm not implying it's hygienic, I'm just wondering if there's some medical reason booger mining is bad for you.

 

I didn't say it was necessarily bad for the individual (though a case could probably be made )



I simply and generically expressed that I consider it common knowledge that picking one's nose is bad - as in a bad habit.

 

I know everyone around me seems to assume that everyone has a good knowledge about famous people - Personally if I have never met them and they are not important to me I have no idea. It's not that I don't try but I just cant seem to remember names / faces. It makes small talk conversations difficult / boring as I generally have no idea who people are on about.

 

The back burner is not a good place to keep toilet paper.

 

Most of the knowledge I take for granted is work related.

 

A lot of stuff to do with computers:
"Garbage in, garbage out", as in a computer will do EXACTLY what you literally tell it to do and never what you MEANT it to do
That sometimes technology is just plain wrong
Just how amazingly insecure most things are
"Don't click things". I think all of us know enough to get what I mean here.

In general:
Probably using the wrong term but there's a few really big things that I've met almost nobody that understands, starting with the idea of a mathematical limit. As an example at work we have two dish machines, one works like a constant conveyor that can fit smaller items and really large (internally) one that can wash a bunch of stuff in one ~5 minute cycle. If both of those are being loaded/unloaded at their mechanical capacity then no matter what the rest of us do things simply won't move any faster and the only solution to closing sooner is to get everything back to the dishroom sooner. That's just one example though, there's also stuff like honking when I slow down because the light ahead just turned red or getting upset when I don't unload my grocery cart at the speed of light. No matter what we're both going to have to stop and wait, we simply CANT speed anything up, so why does it matter how fast I move getting there?

Then there's the idea of pressure. Trying to explain air or water pressure to people is like trying to explain alchemy in chinese to a deaf person. The idea that if they put something hot in the fridge it's going to be freaking impossible to open later when it cools down just baffles them, let alone trying to explain that they need to leave extra space when they're going to freeze something. Decibels may as well be magic, and don't get me started on electricity.

I think the biggest one of all though is cooking. I just cannot understand how some people are utterly incapable of standing somewhere, following directions while watching their food cook, and getting acceptably similar results repeatedly. It boggles the mind that I know people who can literally screw up something down to a science of "just leave X grams alone for Y time at Z temperature".

 

Pop culture. Not celebrity goings-on, but things like movies, songs, certain television shows. I'll quote something from Buffy or Back to the Future or the Goonies, make a reference to Toto, complete a lyric if someone's said the first part of a line--and get completely blank looks about 90% of the time.

On the other hand, it makes it that much more enjoyable when someone DOES get my references, and tends to establish camaraderie more quickly.

 

What agnosticism is (generally speaking). Maybe it's just a Utah thing to not know what it is. It's quite common for new acquaintances to ask if one is LDS (Mormon). When I am asked that and respond "No", I always get asked, "Well, what are you then?", and then have to explain what agnosticism means when the person says "huh?" or "What's that?".

 

That's meeeeeee, I have absolutely no idea but all my friends do, and the more they try to tell me the less I understand!