day 338 - day one of three

Today is the 2nd day of the 29th week, the 4th day of the 12 month, the 338th day of 2023, and:

• Alpha Phi Alpha Day
• Cabernet Franc Day
• Extraordinary Work Team Recognition Day
• International Cheetah Day
• National Cookie Day
• International Day of Banks - hard to imagine a viable financial systems without banks, and yet most banks let this day pass without noting it 
• National Dice Day
• National Dystychiphobia Day - dystychiphobia is the fear of being involved in an auto accident  (there, I saved you a google search) 
• National Sock Day
• Santa's List Day
• Walt Disney Day
• Wear Brown Shoes Day - blew this one, I was working from home and barefoot all day
• Wildlife Conservation Day

Quote of the day:

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."

~  HL Mencken

And by posting that quote, you can see that I am still reading the news, although I try not to share it much these days because even the most innocuous story seems to end up with some sort of political argument.  I think that is the thing I dislike most about discussions in the past seven years or so, and the conspiracy theories, which seem to have proliferated exponentially

How easily misinformation can get started!  I read an interesting article about how anthropologists are speculating it was fermented foods that caused human's brains to become larger.   Hmm, I thought, I wouldn't have thought that beer was that important....

And right there is the fallacy.  Beer is fermented, but so are pickles, sour cream, and vinegar -  fermented foods is a wide category 

So all I would have to do is share that article with the comment that humans evolved civilization once they discovered how to make beer, and there you have a misconception being spread about.   Depending on how many people [1] follow me, [2] actually read my posts, and [3] don't bother clicking the link and wading through the rather dry article, this misinformation can come to be shared by many people.  Refuting it would be tricky because beer is indeed one of the fermented foods that ancient folks relied on, and probably drank regularly instead of water.   

And it's not the fault of the social media platforms that people don't read critically, whether they are posting or browsing.

It's Monday, but I'm working from home [still struggling with the ralcatrent issues from last week], and vacation starts in two more days.  Meanwhile?  I have to work on not letting things I read get to me!