Fascinating Facts and Trivia - Discussion Thread

It seems that discussion on the accuracy of claims made in the Fascinating Facts and Trivia thread is not welcome there, with GreenMachine stating that attempts to correct false claims should be done by PM only, and Carl_HoneyLover arguing that correcting false claims is just being pedantic. I've accordingly started this thread to allow free and fair discussion on any of the 'facts' aired in that Facts thread, so that if anyone wants to try and set the record straight on something they can do so without others trying to silence them.

I know a fascinating fact about YOU and I am happy to discuss but I doubt you'd want it known here.

Well GreenMachine you did say that you didn't want discussion taking place in your thread, so I'm not sure why you'd have a problem with someone setting up a separate thread for discussion. Surely William's doing you a favour?

No I didn't want conflict or argument on the thread, it's not that sort and if Mr B wants to put this thread out for people to argue on I'm not bothered.

A good thread is like a child. You create it, you nurture it, but eventually you have to allow it to live it's own life

(15-01-2019 13:42 )The Silent Majority Wrote:  A good thread is like a child. You create it, you nurture it, but eventually you have to allow it to live it's own life

Ay, the thread’s only four months old man. Still a baby and still on the tit

Yeah, but it's big for it's age

(15-01-2019 03:11 )William H Bonney Wrote:  I've accordingly started this thread to allow free and fair discussion on any of the 'facts' aired in that Facts thread, so that if anyone wants to try and set the record straight on something they can do so without others trying to silence them.

This thread is a great move and hopefully it's a victory for freedom of speech.

(15-01-2019 03:11 )William H Bonney Wrote:  It seems that discussion on the accuracy of claims made in the Fascinating Facts and Trivia thread is not welcome there, with GreenMachine stating that attempts to correct false claims should be done by PM only, and Carl_HoneyLover arguing that correcting false claims is just being pedantic. I've accordingly started this thread to allow free and fair discussion on any of the 'facts' aired in that Facts thread, so that if anyone wants to try and set the record straight on something they can do so without others trying to silence them.

I'm guessing you didn't vote for it in the recent awards thread then??

But without wishing to offend our man of colour, for me no thread belongs to anyone, not even the original creator. Every thread is the property of every member, or at least those who post to it. Otherwise, that would leave thread 'owners' open to all sorts of issues from admin should posters to them cause problems... Just imho of course; and like you all know, I never keep silent when I have a valid point to make...

Thanks for this thread. It allows me to further comment on the comic book line in the other thread, which Carl_HoneyLover and GreenMachine didn't want any discussion on. Here it is again:

(13-01-2019 03:28 )goatman222 Wrote:  There is no future. There is no past. Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet

As I said before, this isn't a fact, it's a line from a work of fiction, a comic book called Watchmen. It’s a superhero story in which the superhero has the ability to experience all of time simultaneously - past, present and future.

When another character becomes frustrated at being told the future before it actually occurs, the above quote is then given by way of explanation, i.e. the reason the superhero knows the future is because the future as he sees it is simultaneous with the present and indeed the past.

This idea of time isn't new. It was previously explored in the well known novel Slaughterhouse-Five, in which the leading character is abducted by the Tralfamadorians, an alien race who, like the hero of Watchmen, experience all of time simultaneously.

As that novel explains, "All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."

A consequence of this sci-fi concept of simultaneous time is that there can be no free will. You can't make choices about the future because the future already exists and can be seen by those who have the power to do so. Those who can see time as simultaneous and not as linear.

In other words, if you're reading this post it's not because you chose to do so. It's because you already had read it - but because you don't have the power to view time simultaneously and are trapped in a linear existence, you didn't previously know that you'd read it.