What Does Google Suggest Suggest About Humanity? 513
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by
samzenpus
from the fire-makes-things-hot dept.
from the fire-makes-things-hot dept.
CNETNate writes "You'll laugh, but mostly you'll cry. Some of the questions Google gets asked to deliver results for is beyond worrying. 'Can you put peroxide in your ear?', 'Why would a pregnancy test be negative?', and 'Why can't I own a Canadian?' being just a selection of the truly baffling — and disturbing — questions Google is regularly forced to answer."
Peroxide (Score:5, Informative)
Can you put peroxide in your ear?
Why is this disturbing? Pouring peroxide in your ear bubbles like crazy (and feels rather nice), and supposedly helps remove built-up ear wax. But some sources say it does more harm (drying and/or irritating the ear) than good.
Either way, it's about as disturbing as asking whether I can put a Q-tip in my ear.
Can you put peroxide in your ear? (Score:3, Informative)
Hydrogen Peroxide in your ears is a way to remove ear wax buildup.
Idk what is so worrying about that.
'Owning A Canadian' refers to a joke (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Try actually searching for those terms. It's the title of an essay satirizing Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Biblical literalism. Not so weird, really, in context.
This is two monumentally stupid articles I've seen from CNET UK in as many days (the other one being the power plugs article from yesterday). If Slashdot continues to post them, I think we should insist on a tag just for that site so we can filter them out.
Many of these questions are legitimate (Score:5, Informative)
Many of the "inane" questions in the article illustrate the stupidity of the journalist who wrote the article. Most of these questions are legitimate, with a legitimate answer.
Some examples :
Can you put peroxide in your ear?
Actually, you can use it to remove earwax and to disinfect your ear if you went swimming in dirty water. It's a perfectly safe, legitimate use.
Am I going in labour?
Actually, other pains can be mistaken for labor, and it takes hours to develop in many women. Perhaps you're a woman, and you want to know if that abdominal pain was your first contraction or just a GI problem.
Am I having a heart attack?
Again, it's possible to mistake heartburn and cracked ribs for a heart attack. Maybe you should see what the symptoms are before you blow $300 at the Emergency Room.
Why can't black people swim? Why can't white people dance? Both must be stereotypical behaviors, and maybe there is a reason why it can seem like both are true.
Can you drink your own urine?
Again, a legitimate question. In a desperate situation, drinking your own urine may extend your survival under some environmental conditions. It's commonly mentioned in media.
Why would a pregnancy test be negative?
Yes, it's possible to get a negative test and be pregnant.
Can two women make a baby?
Yes, it's possible with newly developed technology to create sperm from stem cells. However, it has never been demonstrated in humans and may be quite unsafe.
Re:Wow. just. wow. (Score:5, Informative)
There's an amazing untold story there. I hope it stays that way.
Sorry. [amazon.com]
Re:Many of these questions are legitimate (Score:2, Informative)
(1) Google "What is the chance" and facepalm away.
(2) Slate had an article this week about the differences between how people ask google questions. It's enlightening.
http://www.slate.com/id/2234019/
Re:Why can't I own Canadians? (Score:5, Informative)
The concept of "slavery" that the Israelites practiced was similar to indentured servitude in early US history; not similar to the slavery the Israelites endured in Egypt or africans endured here in America. If you read leviticus all the way through you'll find that the "slaves"[sic] are to be set free and all debts released after a period of time (7 years IIRC), and also, every 50 years (the year of jubilee) all land should be returned to their original owners (so in effect land wasn't sold, but rather, leased).
So yes, you can have indentured servants (termed slaves in leviticus) but NOT slavery in terms of the horrible American slavery.
Having said that, you can't really enslave Canadians. After all, Canadians aren't really people! *kidding, obviously*
Re:let's not forget drunk & silly people (Score:5, Informative)
No, they meant this satirical open letter [humanistsofutah.org].
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
I was in Chennai several years ago and noticed no one was in the water other than wading. My friend told me most Indians don't know how to swim. I figured it was probably because they don't have the same infrastructure in place as the US in teaching swimming. Maybe someone from India can shed some additional light on that and solve that mystery.
Just another worthless piece from what passes for news these days. Maybe someday reporters will get away from their desks and actually go out and report on news.
Re:Peroxide (Score:1, Informative)
My son wears hearing aids, which interfere with the natural drainage of wax from his ear canal...
Squirting a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution into his ears with a syringe is EXACTLY how his ENT told us to remove the wax deposits which occasionally form.
Digging around in there with a swab is actually a bad idea...
Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote (Score:1, Informative)
Jesus came from an egg (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote (Score:1, Informative)
But it's not true...
Half of people are stupider than the median stupidity, but average stupidity can be far off of halfway up the stupid scale. It's entirely possible that the results are right skewed; maybe there are just some really smart people bringing up the average. Then way more than half of the people in the world are stupider than average.
I guess it's possible that there are just some really stupid people out there bringing down the average, but way more than half of the people I meet are really stupid, so I don't think that's the case.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
There are those who suggest that many of the early books in the Old Testament aren't exactly God's commandments to his followers, but rather a historical accounting. For instance, the Old Testament lists the kashrut laws. This does not mean that Christians must keep a kashrut diet.
The Torah has 613 Mitzvot, commandments, or laws. Yet there are 10 commandments directly attributed to God. If you read the Old Testament, you'll see that there is a story arc in which God goes from having simple commandments and dealing directly with his people, to his people intentionally seperating themselves, wanting to establish government, establish a complex priesthood, and then develop these complex laws.
I don't think it is far to say that the Mitzvot constitute Biblical law in any true sense.
That means fundamentalists who want to come down on gays suddenly don't have much in the way of Biblical evidence to support themselves, but it also means those that want to mock Judeo-Christian beliefs can't uphold the silliness contained within the 613 Mitzvot either.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, I didn't know, either.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
peroxide in the ear is a common treatment for ear infections, ingrown hairs, cuts and ear infections. it can also be used to flush out foreign bodies like the small stones that children like to shove in them
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Two thoughts for you. First, actually, you can just buy the New Testament without the Old. Second, the Old is still made reference to by the New, and some parts of it (e.g. poetic parts about relationships to God) are rather beautiful and not nullified by the New -- in fact they provide some connection.
Gideons already do this. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Obligatory George Carlin Quote (Score:3, Informative)
This means that the "average" person only has a maximum of 25% of the population with a lower IQ. I know that's technical but when we (psychologists) talk about average intelligence, average != the mean. Average is a range.
Okay, I'm done being pedantic.
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually I think the reason that homosexuality is a "problematic" sin is that most murders, liars, and theives are willing to concede that all of those things are sinful and can be apologetic about them.
If a man beleives engaging in homosexual acts is just dandy and his church congregation feels that it is sinful, the man is at odds with his church doctrinally, and in their view, he continues to willfully and unrepentantly sin.
There are plenty of fundamentalist churches that welcome homosexuals -- provided that they beleive that they are repressing sinful urges or whatever. They are a by all indications a rare breed, but there are gay men out there who try and live in the tortured margins of beleiving that their religion tells them their desires are wrong.
To be fair, married hetero men by and large still desire, at some level, to nail all kinds of women that aren't their wives, which is naturally "not cool, Jesus-wise". But marraige provides the luxury of a biblically blessed outlet for their compansionship and sexual needs [convenient for them!]
As near as I can figure, in the fundamentalist worldview, assuming there is genetic predisposition towards homosexuality, being homosexual is akin to being born with leprosy or as a kleptomaniac. The dogma seems to be that that these people were born with a hardship that increases their proclivity for sinfulness, but they are required to condemn that temptation and recognize it for what it is.
I go to an evangelical church, btw.
Re:Why can't I own Canadians? (Score:1, Informative)
Survival rates for indentured slavery in USA was 50% on the passage over (same figure as the Middle Passage from Africa) and 50% for the 7 years. Mortality for the indenturement may actually have been higher.
But proposing indentured slavery (no, I will not say "servitude"; it was not a choice, this choosing between hanging or going to America, just for begging for bread) as some sort of fluffy, "not bad" form of slavery ignores the reality of the situation. No one seems to like to hear that white slaves were treated as poorly as black slaves, but its true. And all the Appalachian families that everyone loves to diss are the descendants of white slaves who survived indenturement only to find there was absolutely no place for them to work. So it was off to the hills. The oldest families that weren't nobles, mercantilists, or artisans are still the among USA's poorest, some 400 years later.