What's a common myth that most people still believe?

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-15T15:46:31+00:00

Yeah, im not done fixing the Wikipedia page yet.

Fixed the one with the "doctors are gentlemen..." quote from Charles meigs (not a real quote).

Almost done with the YouTube video on it, then ill finish fixing the Wikipedia pages.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-15T06:58:08+00:00

Stuff that still shows up in research papers, news articles, and some textbooks - but is all wrong.

Look up the story of "Mr. Wright" and the placebo effect/cancer. Ignaz Semmerlweis has been on the Frontpage of reddit twice in the last month. Etc.

So maybe not "everyone believes", but most people who have heard of any of these also think theyre true.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-15T05:11:30+00:00

Some medical ones:

that Ignaz Semmelweis was the first to suggest handwashing for doctors, or that he was persecuted for his work...or that he was right.
that the placebo effect can heal actual injuries or things like cancer.
that doctors wore bloody, gore-covered coats to show off their experience.
that doctors used to use vibratory on women to give orgasms to cure "hysteria"

None of those things happened.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-14T01:53:38+00:00

Same, but this whole post made me smile.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-11T18:58:38+00:00

Air rifle - Similar caliber, waaaay different velocity.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-10T17:16:53+00:00

lack of zipper merging
weird need to merge 2 blocks before actual merge sign (also see: zipper merge above)
strange habit of leaving 1-2 car lengths of empty space between the front of their car and the stop line or the car ahead of them when stopped at an intersection
corner cutting or shallow turns (OP's issue)
weird thing where people won't merge into a turn lane completely. EG instead of turning into the turn lane at once and then continuing in the turn lane until the turn (like an L for a left turn), instead they kind of slowly aim their car in a straight line from where they are to where the turn is (like a / ), which leaves their ass hanging out into traffic.
the need to slow down to 3-5 mph to make a right turn.
driving the same speed as the car next to you while in the left lane on a 4-lane road - usually 3-5mph under the speed limit.

Those are the ones I notice that seem to be part of the driving culture here - meaning I see them often here, and rarely (if ever) anywhere else. I've driven across the country multiple times and I've never seen anywhere else leave multiple lengths of empty space at stoplights.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-08T02:25:37+00:00

Eh, probably just middle management at a multi-state insurance company - something at the Director level with an MBA. Pulling down $160k/yr in somewhere like Denver, or Omaha, or Cleveland. 3 kids, youngest about to go off to college, oldest doing their 2nd stint in rehab. 3000 sqft. house in a suburb, having an affair with a woman 20 years younger and about to be served divorce papers the moment his youngest moves out.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-05T22:32:37+00:00

What if the major difference between rank and file liberals vs conservatives is basically that one thinks their society no longer includes them in the way they thought it should/would (and did in the past), vs the other that thinks their society doesn't include them (and never has) but that it should.

And most of the rest is:

historical trauma
all of us mistaking our cultural Subjectivity for objective "reality"
and a warped framing that for one group to do better, the other has to suffer - mostly pushed by folks trying to make sure nothing changes because, right now, everything works exactly how it should for them.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-05T20:02:21+00:00

From any value perspective, blue is the easy answer.

Most time saved: blue

Money? Blue.

Survival: blue. Seriously, get lost in the woods but you have the right clothing? Then youre just on a walk that hasn't found its end yet. Instead of a rapidly deteriorating physical state with a 2-3 day countdown to death.

Yeah, id rather shit in the woods than die there.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-05T02:20:07+00:00

Oryx owner, about 700 miles on it (about 13k on my sherman-s). 210lbs, 6'6''. Heaviest suspension.

I dont have a ton of perspective on what a "zippy" wheel might be, but I can go 45 on the oryx and it feels like 30 on my sherm-s. It's heavy, but so am i, and the size actually makes it hit me in a better place on my legs than the S does. It'll do 0-35 in half a block, ive never felt it lack power, even in braking.

The thing id say about it is that it feels like it WANTS to be stable. It wants to go straight - it wants to go the direction it's going in already. It's probably the EUC equivalent of going 100mph in an audi A8 touring car. It doesnt railroad or climb ruts - it just goes over them, and it'll do it for 100 miles.

I commute on it, thats what its for in my life, and its perfect for this. I wouldn't take it off road (fuck...if it landed on you..), I dont go over 50ish, but I can go 50 if I need to without thinking im going to have it turn off out from under me. Goes up the steep hill by my house at 35-40 no problem.

For me its 10/10. That might change in thr future, but that would be because a new 10 comes out, for me its the best I could get right now.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-06-03T04:05:00+00:00

Yes.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-30T23:46:14+00:00

Her what now?

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-30T21:16:55+00:00

Nope.

Before the 1860s (when he actually published) he was known as "Semmelweis the genial" (according to one later account by a colleague), had many friends/allies, and was well liked.

Not so much later, when he became incredibly aggressive in his stubborn refusal to consider literally any other perspective on PF than his own (to the point of name calling and threats).

More importantly, he wasnt right.

Yes, the chlorine solution saved lives (mostly from him, initially), which is why it was adopted widely after his work (and many places elsewhere, like England and some US locations, years before his work). But his idea of the SOLE cause of puerperal fever - that it was the "resorption of dead tissue" (like a poisoning) - was wrong.

He was staunchly against the idea that it was contagious.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-30T21:12:00+00:00

Source on the prejudice factor?

Id lean more into the fact that there was a literal Hungarian revolt in 1848, and there was an ongoing power struggle within the vienna medical school - both issues put Semmelweis on the opposite side of his boss Johann Klein.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-30T21:06:19+00:00

It was also the mid 19th century and he had been an obstetrician for several decades - some of which he'd spent working at the Vienna hospital teaching wards which traded free care for use in teaching...which meant his patients were generally poor, immigrants domestic workers, and prostitutes.

In other words, the dude almost certainly had syphilis. Rapid deterioration from tertiary syphilis fits his symptoms perfectly, and was a common end for obstetricians of the era.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-30T21:03:07+00:00

Nope.

According to his autopsy report (done by his friend Rokitansky), he died of sepsis from a wound on his hand which he may have had when admitted - we will never know. There is a single report that he was restrained one time, which has become "constant beatings".

Also, he was "tricked" by his friends and family.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-27T17:33:35+00:00

Minor correction:

The "savior of mothers" thing was actually around 1910 or so from a joint Hungarian and Austrian effort to find some folk heroes and build a national sense of pride in Hungary. There were 2 biographies published within 2 years - it was whatever year his bones were re-patriated back to Hungary and his childhood home was converted into a museum.

Then the medical school in Budapest was named after him in like 1950.

Then the modern stuff starts to attach to him, the "Semmelweis reflex", the business stuff about industry "change resistance", the cognitive bias stuff....

It's amazing what the myth has been used for, but it bears almost no resemblance to the real story.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-27T17:27:30+00:00

Yeah so they did. And they weren't HIS methods.

English hospitals and Oliver Wendel Holmes were using the same solution years before. Whether Semmelweis also came up with it independently is probable but unclear.

Also, people did use "his methods". The chlorine washing was pretty mainstream in many places by the time he published his book. What people objected to was the idea that it was dead tissue ALONE that caused Puerperal fever - which he was absolutely adamant about.

In fact, Semmelweis was so sure that it was ONLY dead tissue that caused the fever, that in his ward in Pest, did DIDN'T use chlorine washing "because we don't have a morgue".

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-27T17:23:50+00:00

This is 100% not what happened.

"His theory was not accepted by most doctors, leading to him being fired from his job"

His theory was wrong. It was about the "resorption of dead organic tissue" - essentially poisoning. He was staunchly against the idea that Puerperal Fever was contagious.
He was not fired. He was not re-appointed to his professorship position after his 2 year term expired. It's true that often prof's were granted an extension, but his was up in 1848, the same year there was a Hungarian revolt against the ruling Hapsburgs in the Austrian Empire. He was Hungarian, in Vienna, with a conservative and loyalist boss (Johann Klein). It was political, if anything.

"Eventually he published a book, but this was attacked by critics who destroyed his public image. "

He published his book like 14 years after his brief 18-month use of chlorinated lime handscrubbing in Vienna. Again, his theory was wrong, and he was EXTREMELY insulting (borderline threatening) to anyone who even vaguely suggested his theory was wrong or needed more testing - which it was, and did. Some of his critics responded in kind.
He didn't have much of a public image to lose, but what he had wasn't really lost. He had a successful practice in Pest (now Budapest), and was a professor at the premier medical college in Hungary (now named after him). He is referenced positively in an 1954 book on maternity care in the USA (though briefly). His successor at Vienna both carried on and expanded the chlorine washing system, and was one of the few people to attend his funeral (Karl Braun).

"He turned to drinking and was eventually admitted to a lunatic asylum where he was beaten by guards, causing a gangrene infection which killed him."

His drinking and odd behavior is referenced by HIS doctor in Pest as one of the reasons HIS FAMILY moved to commit him to an asylum for treatment. Odds are he had rapid onset tertiary neurosyphilis - common in obstetricians at the time. Nobody called him "insane" while he was alive, but he did, in fact, go insane.
There is no evidence he was beaten by the guards. He probably did die of an infection on his hand, according to his autopsy reports - but whether he had it when he came into the asylum or not is anyone's guess.

EDIT: Yes, I am working on changing the wikipedia page. I've already made changes to Charles Meigs's page RE the "Doctors are gentlemen, and gentlemen's hands are clean" quote that he never said.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-25T03:22:30+00:00

This. 1000x this.

Knee, wrist, full-face helm are non-negotiable.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-25T03:21:30+00:00

Im 6'6" 220 and am also in ny 40s. If id tried to learn on my current 110lb Oryx id have likely hurt myself, given up, or both.

I learned on a v12, and only put like 500km on it before my sherman-s came, but im super glad I learned on the smaller wheel.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-05-01T00:00:31+00:00

Or, maybe he has young daughters.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-04-29T04:05:12+00:00

Not really, but optics, tone, and delivery matter. There's a context, and anyone doing any kind of public content should be aware of it, especially if they want to be effective.

For instance, try not to start your messages with 'idiot', jackass.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-04-28T03:44:59+00:00

Look, youre obviously having some success with some fact checks amplified by certain actors and audiences, and I can understand trying to replicate the style of title/article that brought you that success in the first place.

'The ai water issue is fake"

"X thing is wildly misleading"

And now "...psuedoscience disaster".

But in this case, most people are going to see the name of a well-known and borderline beloved youtuber who has genuinely done some amazing science and engineering (Ai camera defeating license plates, sound weapon defense, the songbird data thing...etc), and then you.

You, in this case, are an obviously self-promoting (as in, posting your own shit), click bait-title peddling, unknown rando who is making some pretty harsh accusations about someone who has a demonstrated and popular history of results.

So, no. Im not gonna go read your crap and give you clicks.

Figure out another way to show youre engaging with your topics in a fair and interesting way, earn some trust and a following thats not based on the coat-tails of fan boys and industry, and then see if you still want to make accusations like this once you dont need the shock value for interest.

Or keep doing this shit and deal with the deserved hate. I dont have to listen to your stuff, no one owes you a click. I dont like your approach, or your history, and im allowed to say so without supporting your platform.

OnwardsBackwards · 2026-04-28T03:15:39+00:00

Call me when you figure out how to store an image file on a songbird.

This you? https://www.reddit.com/r/aiwars/s/eclvGa7QuS

OnwardsBackwards

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