The bullshit didn't even have to be believable: "Marilyn Manson was the kid that played Paul from the Wonder Years. Also, he had a rib removed so he could perform autofellatio." Kids everywhere believed that. Hilarious.
Right, like "Vaccines cause autism" and "Homeopathy is something you should say without laughing". Also hilarious.
There's a dark side to bullshit. There's a side which creates endless pain for no good reason, because things 'sound good' or are 'too good to check' and nobody likes a party-pooper, do they? Especially when the party-pooper is pointing out how this little piece of bullshit could kill someone.
No. Go along to get along. Don't be so serious all the time. Don't imagine you know better. It's rude.
As stolio notes elsewhere in the thread, there is a blunt difference. On the one side there's bullshit that matters, and on the other side is "no seriously, they both have Tyler in their name!" It is absolutely necessary to be able to tell the difference, since it's a basic way to avoid being conversationally tone deaf.
Alternatively, I invoke Poe's Law in case I'm being That Guy. (Tone's hard on the Internet - it's much better to play in person!)
Yet "vaccines cause autism" has spread like a virus over the Internet. I had never heard about it before the recent (ten years) memification. It's not like the recipients google it and go "no it doesn't" because it you really do you might as well go mad about the insane "facts" put forth. Google and the web in general probably spread as much bullshit as it kills. It's complicated.
On those kind of issues, the google results are a bit muddled. You'll get the results saying "No, of course vaccines don't cause autism", alongside a bunch of BS articles saying "It totally does, because I had my kid vaccinated once, and he's autistic!". Unless you actually search through the sources and figure out which is more credible, it's hard to get a straight yes or no answer.
