So many of us take for granted just how ridiculous some of the names of scientific things are. It's fun to take a moment and appreciate what kinds of wild thought processes went into naming various objects of observation. For some more gold from Tumblr check out this post about how trees are low key monsters. Just a tad bit unnerving.
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Tumblr provides context to the story of a formerly anti-vaxx mom who changed her mind after realizing that she was wrong. It's wild that it has to come to such extreme cases to change someone's mind, but the idea that critical thinking and research as a skill is important, and that people can get better at it is kinda cool. For some eye opening info, Here's a Tumblr thread that provides a lot of missing information about the reality of the McDonald's hot coffee case, or the time Tumblr users got schooled on physics and car safety.
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Anti-Vaxxers have developed quite a reputation in the past few months for being responsible for the spread of preventable diseases like measles. You've probably heard about them.
As for this interaction, yeah it's a childish joke but you've gotta live under a rock to fall for it. And this dude did. Hook, line and sinker.
This informative twitter thread seeks to shed light on how much information, concerning you, is being regularly, aggressively compiled. The results might surprise you, or you're someone who's accepted the state of things as they are, and you couldn't care less about what Google or Facebook has on you. It's a strange time to be alive, as technology continues to evolve faster than we could've ever fever dreamed up. This era requires dogged mindfulness, and research, if you want to ensure you know exactly what using a browser or signing up for a "free" social media service, entails. A whole lot more going on behind the curtain than we realize...
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Via Pew Research
America: Land of the free and home of censorship?
A new study by Pew Research shows that American Millennials are far more likely to support the government banning offensive speech about minority groups than other generations.
Of those aged 18-34, 40 percent support censoring offensive speech.
"We asked whether people believe that citizens should be able to make public statements that are offensive to minority groups, or whether the government should be able to prevent people from saying these things. Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups, while 58% said such speech is OK."
Although this statistic might be shocking to some free speech advocates, it really should be taken with a large grain of salt.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans still say "offensive speech" should be allowed. And out of 38 other nations polled, the median was 35 percent.
There's also a difference in education levels and support for limiting speech. Those with a high school degree or less are 9-percentage-points more likely to support censorship.
You can draw your own conclusions with that last statistic.
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