Redditor Dangerous_Mobile9188 wanted to discuss what aspects of life still leave confusion.
"What do you genuinely not understand?"
Life is full of quandaries that I give up on trying to figure out.
Everywhere?
Emoji Corona GIF by BallcomGiphy"Why people can't use a public restroom without literally pooping all over the freaking toilet."
Natural-School5690
Around the grooves...
"How a single needle can run through the grooves on a record and produce a fully layered and 'separated' sound. I mean, I get how it works in theory. But like... how TF does it work?"
LandofRy
"I know how it works, and I understand how it works, and I was gleefully trying to convey this knowledge to a friend when I realized that I am not able to explain how it works, which essentially means that I don’t actually get how it works."
smelllikesmoke
Meow Team
"The thought process of a cat trying to jump on a shelf that is clearly filled with stuff and doesn't have space for it to land safely."
Mikrosarvinen
"The opposite, actually... how on earth does my cat jump on a shelf filled with stuff and somehow always land elegantly with all four paws between all the stuff without dropping a single thing? It surprises me every time."
WanderingArtichoke
"50% of cats have a 6th sense to avoid everything and 50% of cats are clumsy as hell. 100% of cats think they have the skill though."
KneeHumper
Clueless
"How consciousness works."
DarthDinDjarin
"I'm shocked no one has replied to this. Because yea. I haven't the slightest clue and i honestly don't think scientists know exactly how either. Such a complex system that turns into our thoughts and feelings, this is one of those things that REALLY made me appreciate the intricacies of our bodies."
r-Newbiedonthurtme
10/10
So Excited Reaction GIF by OriginalsGiphy"Every time my grandmother sees me, I seem to grow taller and more attractive."
JoeyMMuelle
I love grandmas. They understand everything.
S.O.S
Role Playing Reaction GIF by Hyper RPGGiphy"How people can raise a functioning family at the age of 18 or 19? I can't even hold my own life together."
Radioactivocalypse
Staying Put
"Squatter rights! They confuse the hell outta me."
roomtempcoff33
"Right! So you’re telling me, I can get evicted/foreclosed for missing some payments… but you can’t get rid of squatters who declare a house theirs ? I should just become a squatter then haha."
violet-ack
"Squatting is basically the same. It's not that they just get to live there, but the landlord has to use the proper legal mechanism (eviction) to get rid of them. And sometimes, that can take quite some time."
banality_of_ervil
"Steps"
"How crypto mining works... like what exactly are these huge setups doing and why do GPUs matter so much? I've read several articles about it and I still don't get it."
Tripper-Harrison
"This is an oversimplification, but they're trying to solve a math problem. If they get the answer, they get rewarded with crypto. But the math problem is very very hard. There's no 'steps' to find the answer, it's just guess and check."
"So you need to make as many guesses as possible to see if one of your guesses is right. And it just so happens that GPUs are very good at making these guesses. So if 1 GPU can make let's say 22,000 guesses every second, then two GPUs can make 44,000 guesses every second. 10 GPUs can make 220,000 guesses every second, and so on."
PierogiMachine
I'm Lost
"The wave-particle duality."
FishySwede
"This is the one man. For me this is the biggest mystery. Look, I don't care how the universe came to be. I mean I do, but this is much crazier to me. HOW DOES REALITY REACT DIFFERENTLY BASED ON OBSERVATION ALONE I sear this haunts me at night. Do i even exist man."
yungbandido
"Long story short, observing something at the quantum level is not as benign as observing, say, a runner on a racetrack. In observing something so small, the mere act of doing so affects the behavior/outcome. Imagine having to knock the aforementioned runner over in order to know where they are on the track. That's more or less how it was explained to me."
BaronMusclethorpe
Magic
Ross Mcelwee Photography GIF by FilmStruckGiphy"Cameras, I’ve been explained and seen explanations 100 times. It’s still magic to me."
Salty-Director538
Maybe there are just somethings we're not meant to understand.
I've lost count of the amount of times I've said to myself... "How is this still a thing in 2022?!"
Like... WHY?!
Season 9 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy"Uploading your resume and then slowly typing in everything on your resume into forms…"
WildResident2816
So OLD!
"Fax machines, invented in 1840-something."
cszintiyl
I used to work IT for a clinical lab, and HIPAA is pretty strict on how I can send patient results. Usually, there is an online portal that they can retrieve it from, but if they were unable to get it there, I was only allowed to fax it to the requesting physician. So I would get patients and angry doctors yelling at me because I wouldn't email or text their results. They couldn't understand I would be breaking the law if I did."
draiman
Mary functions...
"There are lots of organizations and companies using tragically vulnerable computer systems and software to operate important functions. Everything from infrastructure to finance."
toughs**t
"I keep telling my students: The career to go into right now is cybersecurity. You’re gonna see a huge spike in growth over the next ten years as companies realize that trusting Mary the 55 year old middle manager to not open every email attachment is perhaps not a sound strategy for preventing incursions."
grammar_oligarch
Grandma's House
"My brown bathroom set."
sodpower
"My grandmother's house was built in the 80’s. Each bathroom had a matching color porcelain sink and toilet. My uncles shared a bathroom which had a brown set and the guest bathroom was a navy blue set."
"One vacation I was visiting and got an intestinal infection where I was shi**ing out blood for a few days. Only way I could tell something was really wrong was from the toilet paper… Otherwise the stomach pains just felt like really bad gas and you couldn’t see anything that dropped into the toilets."
PrincessPeach1229
Covers
toilet GIFGiphy"Those carpet looking toilet seat covers..."
t_boy7406193
"Other than my grandma's, I have never seen anyone else use any sort of toilet seat cover."
Seat covers should only be easy and made of paper.
just grinds up...
jim carrey screwdriver GIFGiphy"Flathead screws."
ICantRevealMyself
"Philips are worse. The screwdriver just grinds up the screw heads. Torx or Robertson are far superior."
WaterCluster
How to Record
"Cassette tapes. You can still buy them at the store for some reason."
Its_GameOver
"Tape is actually much more reliable and stable than pretty much any other storage medium for digital information. So if you want it to last a long time tape is a good choice. Especially if you don't have access to the internet to stream/download stuff."
"I know you're talking about music cassette tapes, but tape is still big in the IT world for large data storage because it's so stable, and for it's high capacity. You can get a 15TB tape cartridge for £60 ($71.50). https://www.scan.co.uk/products/quantum-mr-l8mqn-01-ultrium-lto-8m-12tb-native-30tb-compressed-data-tape"
The_lurking_glass
between 1987 and 1994...
"The LLV (long life vehicle) in the post office. I mean they were made between 1987 and 1994. They called them the long life vehicle and then only put 5 digits on the odometer. They don't have AC, they sometimes catch fire for no reason, they put out less than 100 horsepower when new, and are rear wheel drive."
bluebird0713
Payments Rendered
"Checks. They are so unbelievably not secure, your whole routing and account number just there for anyone to see. And if someone uses it fraudulently, there's nothing for it but to get a whole new bank account."
Vero518
"Not really, a check is payable on demand but requires your signature. You are not responsible for checks that you didn't write. You do have to let the bank know, when you get your statement that the checks are not yours."
ArtDouce
BEFORE
Teddy Bear Cartoon GIFGiphy"Still filling out physical paperwork at the doctor's office. Please go to digital so I can fill it out BEFORE my visit."
otherm0ther
"What’s great is when you fill it out online but they still insist that you write all the same information in pen on a form that is clearly a xerox of a xerox of a Xerox."
WaterCluster
Why so much paperwork everywhere? Makes no sense.
As if knowledge isn't scary enough, let's her more...
Hello Terry
paint surgery GIF by gifnewsGiphy"Some tumors have teeth, hair and even eyes."
Twat_Waffle_Stomp
"My sister had one minus the eyes! It was cantaloupe sized on one of her ovaries before it was found. She named it Terry the Teratoma."
Karina_is_my_cat
Hungry Bacteria
"Brain-eating amoebas."
dark_n_lovely_qu33n
"My best friend and bunk mate from summer camp died from one of those when I was in 7th grade. Happened so quickly, we were a week into camp and he got really sick. They gave us all heavy meningitis shots because they didn’t know what it was and within a few days he was dead. Turned out to be a brain eating amoeba."
"Edit: strangely enough on the same day he started getting sick one of the lifeguards that was sitting out in a boat waiting for the next group of kids for what we called Trojans Vs. Spartans day had a seizure, fell off the boat and drowned. Only deaths they’d ever had in the 50+ years the camp had been open."
Csharp27
Far Far Away
"The size of our galaxy, how many other galaxies there are and how far away they are. When you can actually see something that incomprehensible.."
Jfonzy
"The nearest star to us would take the Voyager 70,000 years to reach. The nearest galaxy to ours would take the Voyager 749,000,000 years. If we some how managed to take on the monstrous task of speed of light travel it would still take 25,000 years to reach the nearest galaxy. And it's even further apart after you read this. Wild stuff!"
ConqueredCorn
Head Changes
"How the brain is literally rewired and chemically altered by childhood neglect and abuse."
petalumaisreal
"It's genuinely kinda freaky, playing a puzzle game, and noticing how quickly you're getting better at it. The kind of puzzles that were a real blocker in the beginning become baby-easy after like an hour of playing puzzles like it."
LtLabcoat
"My sister faced horrible abuse at the hands of our father, and she has been working through it with multiple therapists over the last 10 years and she is only now starting to get her life back. I feel like she was robbed at a fair chance at life because of our a**hole father."
Pehdazur
Awake
Bill Murray Im Here GIF by Groundhog DayGiphy"Prions, horrific and totally unpredictable."
geordiesteve520
"Fatal familial insomnia is a prions disease where you can't sleep anymore, you just stay awake until your brain deteriorates and you die."
DrinknEspresso
Now I can never UNKNOW about prions. Perfect.
Days gone by...
Aging Matt Damon GIFGiphy"Ageing. I'm content with death but the idea of my body growing old, frail and eventually falling apart before the end game gives me goosebumps."
EvidenceOfInnocence
Bursts
"Gamma ray bursts. No warning, no escape, no defense, no survivors."
Swampwolf42
"If you're talking about supernovas if the star isn't too close the gamma burst would probably only destroy some part of our ozone layer. And gamma radiation is actually the least lethal out of all types of waves."
Broccoli_sauce24
Sizzle
"Entropy. Time shall consume all things. Inevitable heat death of the universe."
Revolutionary_Elk420
"I personally want the 'Big Crunch' to be true. That instead of fizzling out it all gets sucked back into an infinitely small/dense particle and then another Big Bang happens. It’s my explanation for the multiverse. It’s all one timeline. Just infinitely long."
ChoppyWAL99
They're Watching
"More like a theory, the 'orangutan paradox,' when we film a documentary on orangutans, they can’t realize that we are observing them, yet they are the most intelligent species of their category, so aliens might be watching us and we are as oblivious as an orangutan."
Time_Succotash
Fade 2 Silent
Listen Scooby Doo GIF by MashedGiphy"That hearing is the last sense to leave, when dying."
User Deleted
A blink of an eye
"Deep time. The Earth was alive a million years ago. And a million years before that. A thousand million years before that. Even if our civilization is miraculously successful and we live for 20 thousand more years and colonize thousands of planets like in Dune it's still nothing. A blink of an eye. The Earth would barely notice."
Spookd_Moffun
human psychology...
"The scariest thing for me, is that we have scientifically mapped human psychology. We know social habits, and evolutionary survival instincts that we've carried over from our ancient past. We have extensive knowledge on how to elicit the exact response out of a human on command. And the scary thing is that corporations use this information to sell things to us."
"Everything about a product's design from it's shape, to it's color pallet to it's odor is specifically and intricately designed to hack our brains and trigger the exact specific response that they want from us. Once you are aware of how much human psychology goes into advertising, you will never look at an add the same way again."
The_Quicktrigger
Humans
"Lead in gasoline may very-well have decreased the human IQ on a global scale while in use... https://www.utilitysmarts.com/automobile/gasoline/why-is-lead-in-gasoline/"
keldoged
"There's also a theory that the spat of serial killers between ww2 and the 2000s may have been partially due to this."
STRYKER3008
atomic bomb explosion GIFOut There
"That things we thought were stars (or fuzzy stars) a century ago are actually entire galaxies. Who knows who or what the F is out there?"
OnionTruck
"Which is exactly why I think anyone who doesn't believe in aliens is just in denial, cause there SO MUCH UNIVERSE out there that even if life came about on Earth by a total million-in-one accident that it almost certainly has happened somewhere else."
Thatsidechara_ter
Changes
"Finding substances that can change your behavior, memories and general personality."
Puggymon
tentacles
GIF by LidlGiphy"Giant squids. Suddenly the old sailor story's of krakens wrapping tentacles around a ship and pulling it into the ocean doesn't seem like fiction."
OneTyler2Many
Forever
"Lobsters are practically immortal and continue to grow as long as they don't die from disease or killed by predator."
merkitt
Tiny
"That a person can be killed by organisms so tiny that we can't even see them."
cold_toast_n_butter
A Billion Years
"Sun is going to die. It will explode and stop providing energy after 5 billion years. We better find a new star to relocate by then. Nearest star Proxima Centauri is 4.5 light years away from Earth and with current technology we can reach the neighbouring star in 6300 years trip."
srvanika
Well that is the antithesis of comfort. Life is so fun.
Life is infinite and we'll never know everything that is possible. But let's dream of what could be...
Mood Grandma GIFNew pieces...
"I want to see us grow hearts, kidneys, livers, etc... In labs and end the need for donations and waiting lists for transplants."
IMadeThisBullS*itUp
"I waited for a heart/bilateral lung transplant for over a year and I spent 8 months living in the hospital waiting for it. You’re basically waiting for someone to die."
"Which feels all kinds of wrong… but my therapist (all transplant patients sees a transplant therapist) kept reminding me that me needing a heart and lungs doesn’t cause someone to die…"
"And what made even harder was that my mom died of Covid about 5 weeks before my transplant happened. So while I was praying and hoping so hard my mom wouldn’t die… I was also praying for my transplant to happen. I had a lot of mixed and confusing feelings. My transplant happened last November."
Junebug1515
"Idiot Bottom Line"
"To build an environment friendly world."
deadprotocol_
"That depends entirely on how far you want to go with 'environmentally friendly.' Some amateurish pseudo-intellectuals will say that humanity itself is devastating the planet by it's very existence so we'll call that the 'Idiot Bottom Line."'
"So you have to find an acceptable level above that to declare environmentally friendly. For example can we still have hear exchangers? Space debris? Artificial Electromagnetic radiation? There has to be a level before you can declare such and so far no one agrees."
PoorPDOP86
“20 years, tops”
"Viable nuclear fusion."
AlterEdward
"Nuclear Astrophysicist here. I know the joke is that we been saying '20 years, tops' for 50 years now - who do you think came up with that joke? But seriously, we are really close."
"We need a reaction that is self-sustaining and puts out more energy than we put in. We can easily do a reaction that’s one or the other, just getting one that’s both is hard. And with recent updates to the Greenwald limit we found some relatively minor tweaks that doubles previous theoretical max output."
Gleeful-Nihilist
Deep Within
black hole animation GIF by rotomanglerGiphy"Figuring out what Dark Matter is, solving the mysteries of black holes. Proper thorough investigation of our own oceans."
fIumpf
So far, so interesting. We have so much to learn.
let me dream...
news tech GIFGiphy"Prosthetic limbs and organs that can work just as well as real ones. Affordably too. A cure for total nerve damage. Carbon neutral liquid fuel. FTL travel (let me dream)."
idonthaveanaccountA
Contact
"Making contact with another intelligent species in another solar system."
Pigs100
"That's probably not going to happen. I'd be overjoyed though if we discovered even just microbial life in the oceans of Europa or Enceladus. They'd be the first true extra-terrestrials ever encountered."
Cybyss
Going Places
"If we had teleports then we might also have other technologies integrated with it like instant dental work, instant food, instant surgery, things just unthinkable without the technology but before the steam engine travel was by horse so they could not imagine traveling cross country in any other way besides ships. Maybe with teleports we wouldn't need energy, just an infinite loop of the first spark."
Stickerdan
Sickness be gone...
"Cure for all cancer forms."
Kal-El1994
"I approached a nursing assistant with the question. They could describe it as trying to go after the stick of a lollipop. The treatments are mostly concerned with favors, not sticks. If they can discover a way to deal with the stick, then you may be able to treat cancer from there."
MissSara101
"I think it is important to add that there won’t be ONE cure to all cancers. Cancer is such a broad spectrum of diseases that sometimes have next to nothing in common. But hopefully we will keep getting the survival rates up with different medications for different cancer types."
TastyConsideration82
Simplicity
Get Ready Pain GIF by Rodney DangerfieldGiphy"Solve back pain please. We can do crazy sh*t like nuclear bombs, new fancy vaccines and space exploration, yet we don't have a solution to one of the biggest and most common ailments that existed though all of humanity."
inksane
I want to see all of this happen! Fingers crossed.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
I feel like the list will be longer than we expect. We are still behind in certain ways.
lazy...
Bubble Gum Cartoon GIFGiphy"People sticking gum on random surfaces instead of at least throwing it towards the trash can a few feet away."
iesharael
How is this allowed?
"'Convenience' fees to pay bills online."
Rude_Yam_9962
"Yeah or any 'additional fee' that’s required to buy the product or service. Advertise $100 but then at check out they add in service fee $25, convenience fee $10."
"Always at the last second too, usually right before you enter your credit card info. Wtf? How is this allowed? Just advertise $135 if that’s the price the customer is paying. Should not be allowed to bait a low price and switch with a higher one once the customer is already invested."
Can you hear me now?
"Not being able to get cell service is spots in my own home."
Haunting_Spot_8002
"A friend worked in Africa building homes for the people. He said there were bush men with spears and loin cloths with a cell phone clipped on the side. Middle of nowhere yet reception everywhere."
RedLeader7
"Most of Africa skipped land lines altogether and went straight to mobile. In the west, cell phones and mobile internet are a luxury, in less developed regions it's often the only way to communicate."
pixelbart
System Collapse
"Companies that create problems and sell solutions instead of solving existing problems."
draconic_oxalis
"This was the inevitable outcome of an economic system in which only those doing labor are allowed to have food and shelter, yet technology is constantly reducing the amount of labor that is actually necessary."
"We only get money for food if we are seen to be working on problems. Now we're having a shortage of actual problems so we must make artificial ones to keep surviving. If only we had UBI, all of these pointless industries would disappear overnight as no one wants to keep working these jobs they know are pointless."
snapwillow
Hang Up
Call Me Hello GIF by IDKGiphy"Spam calls."
mstrss9
"I literally had spammers somehow dupe the phone number of my local council, it's scary just how close they can get."
Hazbro29
I HATE these SPAM calls. All hours of the day and night. I hate you!
Speed Up
Internet Mouse GIF by kotutohumGiphy"Slow internet."
Necessary_Rule_8485
"We figured it out. Just that the companies are greedy and keep the money for themselves instead of upgrading infrastructure."
Unlucky_Clover
Paper Trail
"Junk mail."
furryShambler
"I know! Whatever happened with the Paperwork Reduction Act?"
Julie-Andrews
"in the U.S. you can reduce your junk mail a lot by going to.DMAChoice.org and OptOutPrescreen.com and filling out the forms for your address. I have reduced my junk mail by about 90% : FTC source"
FSMFan_2pt0
car-centric
"Having to spend 3 hours in traffic everyday."
CampaignAlternative3
"Because North American cities have over restrictive zoning laws that segregate cities based on type of usage and they build to a very low density and with car-centric development that makes it so everyone has to use a car to get anywhere."
houndog129
"It's not so easy to just 'find a job closer to home' for example I'll search on Indeed and the closest job in my line of work is like 2hrs away."
PhatShadow
It's Round
"Flat Earthers."
da_sylent
"So everything but earth Is round right? (according to flat Earthers) So as some members say it's like a frisbee in space. What if, bear with me... the reason the world will end is because a giant dog will catch us and kill everyone on earth by shaking the frisbee too much and cause floods and crap. Because if so, that's how I wanna die, letting a pupper have some fun with a fisbee."
viber223
Gross
understand john boehner GIFGiphy"Child beauty pageants."
Heliouse66
"If I see a mother make her child do one of those, I WILL judge her."
EarwaxWizard
Can we work on eradicating these things? It's all well past expired.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.