In a video someone discussed the average us household income. Someone commented that that number was actually inflated and it would be better to use median. I found the article the OP was referencing and pointed out that it was in fact the median and pointed out a median is a type of average. They argued for far far too long that average exclusively refers to mean, that median "isn't even an expected value" and that they were right and I was wrong because they are an engineer who works with this all day long. I ended up getting ganged up by several different accounts, I eventually screenshotted the Wikipedia page for average and got them to all delete their posts.
I was talking with someone from the UK about this article that they showed me. They were outraged by it, and I said I don't see what the problem is with it. They were weirdly fixated on the "asylum seekers" part, to which I told them the article says it will apply to vulnerable persons regardless of immigration status, and I asked them why they were fixating so much on this applying to one specific demographic.
This caused them to go on a tirade about "migrants are getting more rights than people who were born in this country" and how they aren't a racist because they married an Italian. They said "it's all about divide and conquer" and I asked them why they care so much about what ethnicity or nationality a person is, over if they're vulnerable and receiving healthcare equality or not. This quickly devolved into them going on about how the UK is "being taken over by migrants". So, I asked them if they knew any of these migrants, if the UK is "being taken over" by them. They said no.
This started from them watching a YouTube video made by some influencer who was getting angry over the same article. I'm more than convinced that social media can have its bad sides.
My wife and I bought 10 lottery tickets at a time when the pot got up to 300 million or something like that. we were talking about what we would would do with the money once we won and couldn't agree on how many of our friends mortgages we would pay off. we MAY have had some other things going on in a relationship at that time, but it's still one of the stupidest arguments I've ever gotten in.
My mom was playing Jeopardy on her Alexa and one of the questions was about a state in Mexico. Her boyfriend, who was very drunk, adamantly insists that it's a trick question because "Mexico doesn't have states." It's literally called the United Mexican States. Two of my aunts are from Mexico. It took like two hours to get him off the subject.
Obligatory mention: Full Body Workout Every Other Day?
Let's give more money to billionaires, they will make us rich too.
Toss up : a coworker who I would have counted as quite intelligent said we haven't been to the moon because "it's impossible to launch a rocket to the moon and land on it because rockets go in a straight line. Trying to time the shot of the rocket, and get to the moon at the exact moment when the moon gets to the right spot would be astronomically impossible. The odds of pulling that off at the speed you would be traveling and the distance you travel... Well the odds are effectively zero."
"Also you can't catch up to the moon because the moon is traveling faster then our rockets can go "
Either that or a prochoice individual who voted for Trump....
The moment I knew that I had to break it off with my ex was when a comment about tea-cup saucers turned into an accusation that I "always had to be right".
We were having cake for dessert:
Her: "Can you grab plates?"
Me: Grabs a couple of small plates.
Her: "No, those aren't for cake. It's the really small ones."
Me: "Okay, but FYI the small ones are actually teacup saucers. You can tell the difference because they have the indent in the middle so the teacup doesn't slip around."
Her: "You just always have to be right, don't you?"
What followed was a truly bonkers argument where I found myself accused of "lording my intelligence" and told that I had to be right in everything.
For the record, I told her I literally didn't give a shit what she wants to eat cake off of. I'm the guy that would happily use a Tupperware lid as a plate if it was the closest thing to hand. I was just pointing out an "interesting fact" (in my mind at least).
A really stupid one was when my older sister started tossing out a bunch of random attacks on my character when I was about to drive her to work. I asked when I ever demonstrated any of these traits and she brought up when I jumped into an argument that had nothing to do with me the night before and supposedly said horrible things.
Anyone who knew me would have known I was in my room with headphones watching the Gravity Falls finale the night before. I think that was the first time anyone failed at gaslighting me, because I was that obsessed with Gravity Falls.
I told her to call a cab to work and she started crying. :/ Like, what did you expect...
Whether if something is deceptively [a trait] does it mean it's the inverse of the trait or more of the trait than it appears, ie: if you call something deceptively shallow, does that mean it is shallow, but looks deep, or that it is deep but looks shallow. Hours of arguing with my family and checking numerous sources, we came to the conclusion that the phrasing can be used either way.
it was about nutrition. it started with the fact that proteins, fats and sugars all have different energy densities and so how much weight you gain is dependent on what the food is, which is all fair. but then i made the mistake of saying "your weight won't go up by more than the weight of the food, anyway." and that spiralled out of control completely. apparently that's wrong and you can gain infinite weight from one chocolate bar.
as usual for this person they felt that i refused to take the "holistic" view into account.
a more recent conversation started with them talking about some sort of blood sugar sensor that athletes use and when i said "that's interesting, what's it called?" they started talking about gut microbes.
Well, definitely arguing with my mom over me going outside in winter with hair that wasn't fully dry, when I didn't have time or I'd miss the bus and be late for college. I usually dry my hair enough that if I cover it with a hood or hat during colder days I'm perfectly fine, but she insists that one of these days going out with wet hair in the cold is gonna get me sick, which has never happened. I ain't changing the habit of not fully drying my hair after I get sick from going out with wet hair and that is the sole cause of me getting sick (so, probably never).
ugh. gotta be the one about jesus preaching pacifism. The person said the turn the other cheek was not to be taken literally but a thing he says after he admonishes a disciple for cuting off a soldiers ear and healing the ear but then he says his fight is yet to come and he will need to be armed and armored for it. that he feels is literal and not prose at all. smh.
That the whole transgender thing is a conspiracy by the healthcare sector to earn more money.
So dumb.
Hour argument, that the final cliff fall scene in Predator 1 was two different jumps in the 2 cuts.
Can see in the first one he is rotating. Second cut is a straight plumb drop into the water.
How were the rotational moments counteracted?
They weren't, it's two different jumps/takes.
2 friends came up with some hair-brained arguments that you could stop rotating on the way down. (눈_눈)
The only way would be air resistance, and hands/arms is not going to be enough to create drag to counter the rotation.
I can't remember the specifics (both because it was dumb and because it's so embarrassing I think my brain is trying to protect me), but from what I recall I got into a heated argument on the internet with someone because I felt that fans weren't cheering hard enough for a band I liked at a concert.
...yeah, I know. I'm grateful, though, because it was so colossally stupid and pointless that I had a come-to-Jesus moment and swore off internet arguments entirely. I can only imagine the countless hours of my life it's saved me in the intervening years.
Kinda related, I studied in Spain for a semester. Was taking with my fellow American roommate about the debate of if a tomato is a fruit or vegetable. Our host mom's daughter's boyfriend (Cuban, fwiw) overheard, and we told him about the "controversy" in the US but all 3 of us agreed it was a fruit. Host mom overheard us and asked what we were talking about, and the Cuban told her. "Well yeah, of course it's a vegetable"
I couldn't understand every word but when I could tell they were arguing about some vegetables having seeds or something like that I knew I spread something.
When I started studying computer science, my father asked me what I learned, so I told him about Turing machines, trying to explain the whole thing, that they are a mathematical model for computers etc. But he didn't believe me and insisted that a Turing machine was an actual piece of hardware built by Alan Turing. As much as I tried making it clear that Turing machines are a theoretical model, he was trying to explain to me that they are not. A week later when I met him he spent some time "fathersplaining" the life of Alan Turing to me. He had probably tried to read about Turing machines online (this was before Wikipedia), didn't understand a single word, and so read Turing's biography instead.
