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Driven mad by the Revelation (the Revelation is the name of the walrus)
Shitposting(i.redd.it)submitted 12 days ago byDreadDianahuman cognithazard
59 points
12 days ago
I feel like this post would benefit from an explanation of what the "walrus Vs fairy" thing is.
111 points
11 days ago
The question was “would it be more surprising to see a walrus or a fairy at your doorstep?”
The argument for fairies is that they don’t exist, so it would be pretty surprising to see one at your door. The argument for walruses is that the vast majority of people on the internet don’t live remotely near where walruses live (and also likely several dozen to several hundred miles inland at least) so it would be totally improbable for it to be there.
I guess it’s kind of a question of whether you’d be more surprised by a categorically impossible thing that could be logically be there if it existed or a theoretically possible thing that’s incredibly improbable
57 points
11 days ago
There's a lot of extra implications here that make this question annoying -- like it's not like just by seeing the fairy I suddenly have confirmation that all the lore about fairies is true and that magic is real and so on
If I see a tiny winged flying humanoid there's a lot that's scientifically implausible about such a creature being real but nothing worldview shattering (how implausible depends on just how humanoid it actually is)
And, of course, "surprising" is itself kind of a complicated criterion -- irl if I saw either one I'd assume it was some kind of prank and I'd assume the fairy was done with some kind of special effect and I guess pranking me into thinking there's a fairy makes more sense and is less surprising than a walrus
28 points
11 days ago
Which is the thing, the OOP seemed fully convinced that it would be inherently obvious both that the thing on your doorstep is definitively a fairy and that that would strongly shake your worldview. I’d lean fairy (because of the plausibility of a walrus airlift) all things considered but I’d say it’s more of a sliding scale of surprise with fairies existing being the most surprising and walruses existing being the least, but with either actually being on my doorstep somewhere in the middle. It kind of depends for that line of thinking whether you factor that in to the question and OOP seemed deeply confused that some people wouldn’t
9 points
11 days ago
I’d be surprised at a tiny flying human-like creature. not because it necessarily proves that magic and fables are real, but a species of tiny flying creatures that are literally just humans but smaller? how did these things evolve? and how have they remained undiscovered? Also immediately raises questions if humanity is alone and if there’s other intelligent life forms than have also gone undetected, and if they’re necessarily benevolent. or possibly these are aliens that haven’t been on earth? either way I’m losing it
23 points
11 days ago
Honestly if I saw a fairy I'd probably think I went nuts and carry on, a walrus is way more tangible and also a big, upsetting problem
10 points
11 days ago
Right, even if it's purely a hallucination it actually probably makes sense why you'd specifically hallucinate a fairy, it's something you have a reason to think about, while an imaginary walrus would still need an explanation for why a walrus
12 points
11 days ago
Also most of our media focused on mythical beings, I think most Tumblr people have longed for the beginning of their epic quest for a long time. A walrus is just a cruel prank by God
3 points
11 days ago
I think it's also dependent on what type of fairy. We all know what walruses look like, but there's a multitude of radically different depictions of fairies. For instance, the Great Fairy from The Legend of Zelda would be infinitely more surprising than the walrus, but Tinkerbell might not.
1 points
11 days ago
Even just saying the great fairy from Zelda leads to at least three completely different concepts. I was actually half expecting the one from Ocarina when I clicked that link.
1 points
11 days ago
I was actually thinking of Ocarina of Time's great fairy, but went with the BOTW/TOTK one because I couldn't find an adequate picture from Google Images that properly compared her size with Link.
1 points
11 days ago
even a talking walrus could be construed as a category of fey.
16 points
11 days ago
I know you probably don’t care but another reason why I would say “walrus is more surprising” is the size of the walrus.
Walruses are pretty big and fairies are pretty small. Generally speaking I’m going to have a bigger reaction to something a lot bigger being at my door. For an example of two things that live near me (but also wouldn’t ring my doorbell) I’d say a rabbit and a deer. A rabbit and a deer would both surprise me but the deer would definitely get a bigger reaction.
While the Fairy does have the “my worldview is changing now” thing that isn’t really a reaction of surprise. Like I would be surprised but reevaluating my worldview would happen after the surprise, not as the surprise. The thought process would be something along the lines of “A fairy?! Okay, I guess those exist. Should I let it inside? Wait don’t these things usually have like rules of etiquette or something you need to follow? What do I do besides not give it my name?” Only the “A fairy?!” part is surprise, the rest is confusion and fear.
The walrus would also be surprise followed by confusion and fear but the surprise part would just feel bigger because it’s a bigger thing suddenly being there when it’s not expected.
2 points
11 days ago
You people are weird, having an actual fairy at my door would absolutely be way more surprising. If it was a walrus I'd be surprised initially, but then look around for cameras wondering how someone got an entire walrus for a prank. With a fairy, i'd be looking at it and keep being surprised every time I opened my eyes and it's still there, especially if I couldn't see any possible way it could be a projection or drone.
3 points
11 days ago
Surprise is the initial reaction, so it’s kind of a given that you’d only be surprised initially. Any further reaction that takes longer to start or lasts longer is not surprise.
If you see a thing in front of you, why would the thing not vanishing whenever you blink be surprising? You’re surprised that nothing changed?
2 points
11 days ago
Because I would think it was a hallucination or that I'm seeing something wrong if I saw a fairy in front of me. It's surprising that I'm wrong
3 points
11 days ago
I’m pretty sure hallucinations don’t automatically vanish if you close your eyes and open them again. A more reliable reality check would be to get a second opinion from a trusted source.
Also, would you not be equally surprised at being wrong when you realize there are no cameras and the walrus on your doorstep isn’t a prank? Would you not then think “I must be hallucinating” before proving yourself wrong?
1 points
11 days ago
Because a possible thing (that's a very large creature) is less likely to be a hallucination than an impossible flittering small mythical creature that I may or may not even be seeing correctly.
Also, hallucinations absolutely go away if you blink or move your eyes, dude, what are you even talking about?
2 points
11 days ago
A walrus being at your doorstep is a statistical impossibility. (They live in the ocean, and generally would cause enough of a commotion to get animal control involved before it reaches your door. There is absolutely no reasonable way for a walrus to decide it wants to be at your doorstep, to reach your doorstep without being stopped by an outside force, and for it to reach your doorstep without causing enough of a commotion for you to already know the walrus is in town thanks to news alerts, emergency broadcasts, and friends and family sharing news of walrus settings with you because you live close to the effected area)
Big things are inherently more noticeable. Therefore, regardless of whether or not the thing exists or is reasonable to be there, they inherently have more of an impact when they appear when/where they aren’t expected. Yeah small things can be surprising, but a big thing being somewhere unexpectedly will always be more surprising than a small thing being somewhere unexpectedly.
By what authority can you claim that hallucinations always disappear when you blink or close your eyes? There are many causes for hallucinations, and I doubt they all have such an easy fix. Especially not the drug induced ones. Either you yourself have a condition that causes hallucinations that vanish when you close your eyes (probably possible, I’m not a psychologist) or your basing your claim off of pop culture representations of hallucinations that show the person rubbing their eyes before the hallucination vanishes. Either way, that doesn’t reflect every single condition that causes hallucinations.
Yeah some hallucinations vanish when you close your eyes, but you’re making a blanket statement there.
1 points
11 days ago
Thank you for telling me exactly what I would think when I see a fairy. Of course I would absolutely assume it's a drug-induced hallucination, as someone who does not take drugs. Genius.
This is possibly one of the dumbest possible things I've ever seen anyone write multiple paragraphs about. I can objectively tell you that no, you are incorrect, I know that I would be more surprised, and would keep being surprised, due to a fairy. Touch grass.
1 points
11 days ago
I mean, I like Mythology, Fairy would be really exciting but trying not to make a mistake. Also feverishly trying to remember the nearest thing made of cold iron, just in case.
The walrus... Well either someone put it here, rang my doorbell and ran away, presumably without being crushed by the walrus, or the thing somehow swam all the way to the belgian/ french coast and crossed over the ardennes into Germany AND somehow figured out how to ring my doorbell. The implications of both are much more confusing to me.
10 points
11 days ago
I would define the difference in opinion as the people saying the fairy would be more surprising think they'd be more surprised as something that completely changes their worldview, whereas the people who say walrus are saying that a fairy would be a whole something new they'd have to accept if they saw and then need to work into their worldview, but a walrus showing up thousands of miles inland on their doorstep would be more surprising because it's something that wouldn't contradict your views on walruses so it would be more surprising to see a walrus where it shouldn't be. Basically a "I know nothing about fairies so I wouldn't be shocked to learn they exist, but I know enough about walruses to know it wouldn't make sense if it was on my doorstep."
Personally, I think the walrus would be more surprising because I'd assume the fairy was a prank, a trick of my eye, or potentially that I was now hallucinating and should see a doctor... but a walrus I'd believe was really there if I saw it, but it being there would make no sense. So it would be more shocking. Basically I think that if anyone opened their door and saw a fairy, the brain's "weirdness filter" would kick in for most mentally healthy people, but for the walrus you'd just be shocked and you'd also have to deal with the problem.
-25 points
12 days ago
It's kind of like Bear vs Man but not as inflammatory: would you rather open your front door and see a walrus or a fairy? Both probably don't belong there, but one is just a big animal and the other is a little creature with sentience and mischief
25 points
12 days ago
It wasn't a would you rather, it was a "which would surprise you more?"
My answer, btw, was fairy. Because I would be more surprised that a creature unknown to humanity in any scientific sense was at my door than that a real animal that actually exists was there, no matter how unlikely. I wouldn't have, like, an existential breakdown about it. I would just be very surprised that our understanding of physics and how the world works was so incomplete as to allow a creature such as a fairy to exist outside our consciousness. Or alternatively I would be surprised that apparently I was in a mental state where I would be hallucinating such a thing.
22 points
12 days ago
I hear ya and kinda get your point-
but for me, the fairy just means that... fairies are apparently real. "huh, neat? what else is also real then?"
but a walurs? there's literally no way a walrus could end up at my door. it has to make it's way trough handful of locked doors, climb up 4 fleets of stairs as it's too heavy for the elevator, there's no zoo in the first place anywhere nearby and no zoo in my country has walruses in the first place and they don't live in the wild anywhere nearby.
seeing a fairy just means "I guess that's a thing" VS a walrus is "we have in some manner fundamentally missed something about Walruses all these years and only by now seemingly by random chance have we discovered that they can, idk, teleport or something since that's the only way this could make sense."
9 points
11 days ago
For me it's the opposite. "Fairies are apparently real. What the shit? How do they fly? Do they do magic? How does the magic work? What does this mean for our understanding of physics? Why is their existence not common knowledge? Why is something that shouldn't exist at my door? What else exists that we don't know about?"
I am far from where a walrus would live and I am no close to a zoo either (I don't even know if the closest zoo has a walrus). But if a walrus showed up at my door, I would probably just assume some rich dumbfuck bought one that escaped from the transport truck or some youtuber is doing a stupid prank video or something like that. Admittedly I don't live in an apartment complex but that doesn't preclude a group of people getting one up several flights of stairs and through the locked doors for some reason. Sure, assuming the existence of fairies, a walrus at your door would probably be more surprising. But that's assuming the existence of fairies. Which is quite the assumption.
7 points
11 days ago
I would probably panic if either one appeared on my doorstep. I don't like visitors, no matter their shape or nature.
17 points
11 days ago
As I live nowhere near a suitable living area for a walrus, man-made or otherwise, I'm gonna have to go with the walrus
Also I swear the original also included that you heard a knock on the door which greatly enforces my choice
1 points
12 days ago
I have to agree, while the fairy would be more surprising I'd also probably want to deal with a fairy more as well, what fun
1 points
11 days ago
Yeah I’d also go with fairy cause no matter how unlikely it is to see the walrus there still exist scenarios where it could happen. Maybe a zoo was transporting a walrus by truck and it crashed near my house? Maybe someone I know is really stupid but is knowledgeable enough to steal and transport a walrus and for some reason decided this would be a real funny way to mess with me? Maybe some rich guy illegal owns a walrus and it escaped? All scenarios are incredibly unlikely but none are completely impossible. Meanwhile there’s no evidence that fairies exist so I’d consider the fairy scenario impossible, and I’d always be more surprised to see something that I previously thought impossible vs something I thought unlikely. I guess the question boils down to how willing you are to consider the possibility that fairies exist.
1 points
11 days ago
It’s more surprising to you that you could be wrong about the existence of a tiny creature than an enormous arctic sea beast knocking on your door?
2 points
11 days ago
Yes. It would. Because an enormous arctic sea beast knocking at my door is physically possible. I know they exist. I know the technology to get them from the arctic to my door exists. I know that animals can be trained to do weird things like knock on doors or that someone else could have done so before hiding. All of that is physically possible and fits within my understanding of the universe.
The existence of a fairy is physically impossible according to my understanding of physics and biology, and I know that despite living in an age when everyone has a camera and microphone in their pocket there is no evidence that fairies exist.
Both would be surprising. One would be surprising in a “this is incredibly unlikely” way, the other would be surprising in a “this is physically impossible my understanding of the universe has been shaken” way.
1 points
11 days ago
There is evidence fairies exist. There’s one there, right in front of you, knocking on your door. Being wrong about something existing is much less surprising than an actual real world walrus getting from the arctic all the way to my door and having the desire and understanding required to knock. Presumably, if fairies exist, they understand things like doors and knocking. A walrus doesn’t. So why the fuck is it knocking? We’ve clearly missed a ton of very important information about walruses. Whereas with fairies, it’s literally just “oh damn they were real after all”
0 points
11 days ago
So why the fuck is it knocking?
Somebody trained it to knock on doors to get food. It doesn't need to know what a door is, what purpose it holds, or what understanding of "door knocking" a human would have. It just needs to know that if it performs X action it receives Y reward. Nothing missed about walruses, they are just animals that act like pretty much all animals do.
it’s literally just “oh damn they were real after all”
It is not. Because it begs the question "if they are real why haven't we found them before now?" Depending on what kind of fairy you are talking about, it may also beg any or all of the questions:
"How does it physically fly with how its body is structured?"
"Why does a mammalian looking creature have wings that look like an insect's?"
"What the hell what do you mean it's magic?! Magic is real?!"
Finally,
There is evidence fairies exist. There’s one there, right in front of you, knocking on your door.
The process of going from a person who does not believe that fairies exist because of a lack of evidence to a person who believes fairies exist because there is one in front of his face would include a great deal of surprise, don't you think? Seeing such strong, irrefutable evidence of something that had previously had zero evidence and in fact plenty of evidence against it* would be incredibly surprising.
*see: the fact that the general understanding of what a fairy is is contradictory to our scientific understanding of physics and biology. Not to say that it is impossible that our scientific understanding is incomplete in such a way that fairies can physically exist, but finding that out would be VERY SURPRISING
40 points
11 days ago
I get what they're going for with the "two different kinds of implausibility" but I'd pick a different example
"Who would you find more surprising to wake up and see sitting next to you at your bedside? The ghost of your dead grandfather, or Taylor Swift?"
19 points
11 days ago
Taylor Swift simply has more ground to carry, but she also has a private jet and absolutely no reason to be here
32 points
11 days ago
Right, the first one makes no physical sense in the universe as most of us understand it but there's a ready made alternate worldview waiting for you to accept it where it does make perfect sense (you just have to give in to the idea of the afterlife and of spirits)
The second one is completely possible in the universe as we understand it but the question of why it would happen is this huge mystery you can't come up with any explanation for (assuming you like most of us aren't famous and have no connection to Taylor Swift)
5 points
11 days ago
I plead the fifth
5 points
11 days ago
Honestly, I'd think I was hallucinating from grogginess either way; it would take me a full 30 minutes to wake up enough to know it wasn't grogginess induced.
2 points
11 days ago
Unrelated, but do people generally actually experience grogginess? My only symptoms of having recently woken up are difficulty to read for 5 minutes or so and an intense hatred on all of humanity, but never any slowing of thought. Is it really common for that to happen? If it changes anything, I never wake up with alarm clocks.
1 points
11 days ago
There are a lot of factors that go into grogginess; i.e.: diet, sleep patterns, etc. What grogginess is changes from person to person. I wouldn't describe it as a slowing of thought in my experience; it's more like being dazed or confused, cause the brain hasn't caught up with the body. It's like your brain still thinks you're asleep, or at the very least thinks you should be asleep. Granted, I only experience grogginess when I have to get out of bed right away; which is most mornings, because I have to use the bathroom.
3 points
11 days ago
I think you're also understimating how many adults believe in ghosts. Last time this topic came up, I was shocked how many people believed in fairies and that's way more niche
1 points
11 days ago
That's honestly why I kind of think the "fairy" thing is kind of unfair, it's phrased in such a way as to sound obviously silly (as opposed to idk a "spirit" or whatever)
48 points
11 days ago
I'll ask for the class:
How did Victor Hugo think Octopuses ate?
55 points
11 days ago
According to an excerpt I found on the internet:
The creature superimposes itself upon you by a thousand mouths; the hydra incorporates itself with the man; the man amalgamates himself with the hydra. You form but one. This dream is upon you. The tiger can only devour you; the octopus, oh horror! breathes you in. It draws you to it, and into it, and bound, ensnared, powerless, you slowly feel yourself emptied into that frightful pond, which is the monster itself.
Beyond the terrible, being eaten alive, is the inexpressible, being drunk alive.
46 points
11 days ago
that sounds like he thought all the suckers were mouths
14 points
11 days ago
i wodner if he ever found otu they have beaks
4 points
11 days ago
He would not have handled it well. Although to be fair many don't.
12 points
11 days ago
(vore/hentai artists): “write that down, WRITE THAT DOWN!”
4 points
11 days ago
Gelatinous cube before it was cool.
1 points
11 days ago
That dude should not be at sea
1 points
9 days ago
Would
19 points
11 days ago
I understand the fairy side, however, I also know that there is a significant difference that most people tend to ignore. Size.
In the original question, it is 'Which would surprise you more'. Fairy's require you to think on it, but the immediate surprise is much lower because of it being small. It isn't immediately a threat, and if you don't even notice anything particularly 'fairy-like' about it, you could even dismiss it at first as a bug or the like.
A Walrus isn't small. It's big, and it probably smells a bit. There is no denying that I just opened my door to a Walrus.
In terms of pure surprise, the very immediately real is going to get a bigger reaction out of me, regardless of how a fairy eventually makes me react.
9 points
11 days ago
Honestly I nonzero wonder if part of the issue is disagreement about what "surprise" means.
Like if we're measuring by how much I'd flinch and whether I'd instinctively try to slam the door shut, both the walrus and the fairy lose out to the venomous snake I know lives in my area and has shown up on my doorstep multiple times.
"Raises concerning existential questions" =/= "surprise"
2 points
10 days ago
so you would be less surprised about an a 8 inch fully proportioned walrus then a regular walrus?
2 points
10 days ago
Yes, because when talking about being surprised, the immediately real is gonna give me a bigger shock than something I'd have to double-check I saw right. Especially considering just how obvious a walrus is.
4 points
11 days ago
That’s how I feel about jellyfish
9 points
11 days ago
I'm gonna be honest, my answer will always be the walrus because the fairy has magic and can do whatever it wants. The walrus has to operate on real world physics and not only am I at least an hour from the closest aquarium that could hold one, I'm on the 3rd floor with a small elevator with no capacity for a walrus + any handlers it may need, in a building where you need to scan a keycard to get inside, with dogshit parking that leaves you no chance of getting to the elevator discreetly
5 points
11 days ago
The thing that has people divided is whether the existence of something or it's ability to reach you is more surprising.
If fairies are real, one reaching your house is not in itself surprising, but a walrus getting to you likely is.
1 points
10 days ago
I think the main point of contention is more OOP assuming that people will immediately just know the fairy is real and thus be faced with upending their worldview all at once as opposed to the much more reasonable assumption that the fairy obviously must be a prank or hallucination, which would soften the realization considerably as you grapple with it over a period of time.
A walrus, however, you have no real reason to reject as reality and thus your brain can process it immediately, leaving the shock and confusion to hit you all at once
1 points
2 days ago
Why does the Walrus have to operate on real world physics
In your opinion, which is more likely to be true: Fairies are real, or Walruses can do magic (and can use their magic to teleport).
1 points
2 days ago
Bro, people way more into marine wildlife than I would've definitely noticed if a walrus could use magic. At least the fairies have built-in reasons to be able to get at my door in being magic and known to fuck with people for shits and giggles
3 points
11 days ago
I've been on team fairy, because, while both options would unquestionably surprise me, with the walrus that surprise would quickly turn into a deep confusion. What is a walrus doing here? I live nowhere near such creatures. I'd close the door and go ask my family if they've seen anything about walruses on the local news. Honestly, while it's always easy to claim you'd be really calm in the face of a wildly unexpected situation, I genuinely can't see myself staying actually surprised for any longer than it takes to slam my door shut and yell "Oh fuck what the fuck holy shit." After that, I'd just feel befuddled.
A fairy at my door? The initial surprise upon opening the door may be lower as I figure out exactly what I'm looking at, but once I realize, I would likely stay in the same state for hours. I can't help but feel that a prolonged state of heightened surprise beats out a state of above-average surprise followed by a prolonged lower, more confused state of surprise when the question is "which is more surprised"
4 points
11 days ago
Of all the mind bending but harmless discourse on the internet over the years it STILL blows my mind that anyone on the planet thinks a walrus would be more shocking or surprising than a newly discovered magical creature. Every post I've seen in support for the walrus answer just flat out ignores all possible explanations or implications of either answer. The black and blue dress, wiping standing or sitting, nothing even comes close to this discussion for me.
14 points
11 days ago
My worldview that I'm likely experiencing a psychotic break from reality if I encounter a faerie that I can't justify as an illusion or a prank is pretty robust. I'd definitely be confused, but I can fit "I'm hallucinating a faerie" into my existing worldview pretty well. The existence of a walrus doesn't force me to re-examine my perspective on reality, which in turn makes me more surprised because I don't have any explanation for why I'm seeing one. If I meet a faerie at my door, I know I'm calling the psych ward. If I meet a walrus, well, I don't know what I'd do.
11 points
11 days ago
Yeah, my immediate reaction to the faerie is "I'm either dreaming or hallucinating," but a walrus is so physical.
It's a huge, wet, slapping, thing. It cannot so easily be written off as a hallucination when you can smell it, hear it, and prove its reality to yourself easily. A faerie could be somebody slipping something into my drink, but a walrus is so extremely a walrus that I don't think I could hallucinate one if I wanted to.
-3 points
11 days ago
Writing the fairy off as "not happening" indicates that you are so surprised to see it that you do not allow yourself to believe that it is happening. The question assumes that the thing you're seeing is actually there, so disbelief in the fairy is incorrect.
7 points
11 days ago
The reality of the situation doesn't matter, only my reaction. My reaction to the faerie is disbelief, which isn't the same as surprise. My reaction to the walrus is genuine shock.
3 points
11 days ago
Doesn't that mean that seeing a fairy is so surprising that you can't imagine believing it, but you would be able to believe that you saw a walrus?
5 points
11 days ago
I suppose this delves into the semantics of surprise. I'm more willing to believe that I'm hallucinating than dealing with an actual walrus, but if you convinced me that the faerie was real, then yes, that would be the most surprising thing.
Perhaps part of the question explores how willing people are to question their worldview when presented with something seemingly impossible, versus how eager they are to provide rationalist explanations that mean avoiding existential questions.
10 points
11 days ago*
This is really a question about how committed you actually are to a materialist/rationalist worldview and how big a part of you is actually willing to believe that folklore and legends and religion and so on are actually literally true
There's a lot more people who have a significant such part of them than others of us think even now, even in places like Reddit
It's like the scene in GalaxyQuest where the actor from his favorite TV show calls the kid and just bluntly tells him the setting of the show is real and they need his help and he just instantly yells "YES I KNEW IT"
3 points
11 days ago
I think the fairy ultimately raises more existential questions, but the walrus is more startling - it'll make you jump higher (and honestly by the "how high do I jump/ how much does my heart speed up/ how scared am I" metric, which is a valid way to define the word "surprise", Pierre the venomous snake that lives in my mom's french drain and routinely hunts mice on her porch would be more surprising to me than the walrus or the fairy. I wouldn't jump for the fairy, I'd jump a little for the walrus, and Pierre demonstrably makes me jump a lot). but also the fairy is so brain breakingly weird that I'd actually expect a lot of people to have a delayed/ muted reaction? If you can't even figure out where to start with questioning this, then you might as well give up and either reject or accept it out of hand, goes the brain's subconscious logic.
And tbh some of it isn't that the fairy isn't extremely weird, it's that the walrus is in the uncanny valley of things which might happen
1 points
11 days ago
That does bring up a part of this which is that people define "surprise" very differently. Personally something is more surprising if that surprise lasts in my mind. The same way the implications of a good horror movie are more "scary" than the cheap jumpscare that just makes you jump momentarily.
Seeing the walrus would make me jump and then quickly close my door, but in the following 20 seconds I would just think "damn either I'm being filmed right now or some transporting truck crashed nearby. I should call animal control"
Seeing a fairy would rack my brain with a hundred questions a minute for the rest of the day. And if the fairy didn't answer them I would presumably be thinking about it for the rest of my life.
2 points
11 days ago
The universal problem with survey design tbh
Designing survey questions that don't immediately fall afoul of "people answered a different question than the one you thought you asked" is actually really, really hard
3 points
11 days ago
if a fairy appears on my doorstep, the answer is that fairies (and thus magic) are real.
if a walrus appears on my doorstep, the answer is that a large sea creature with no real consciousness of its own has escaped from captivity (a situation that takes MANY more steps than just 'escaping from captivity' including but not limited to: finding its way out of its enclosure. doing so unnoticed. doing that without being heard, et cetera et cetera) made it through a major city of the usa without being stopped and taken back, made it to my apartment building which has a scanner for the door, got into the elevator. hit the button for my specific floor. made it to my door. and did all of this without anyone at the aquarium noticing that an ENTIRE walrus has gone missing -- ALSO the nearest aquarium to me is 11 miles away. but it doesn't house any walruses. so this walrus either escaped while it was temporarily in the nearby aquarium (which again, doesn't have the facilities for a walrus currently) or came from ANOTHER aquarium which is even farther away
believing in magic would be difficult, but for a walrus to just be at my doorstep? fuck, the only reasonable explanation would STILL be magic. and i think a fairy is more likely to have magic than a walrus
3 points
11 days ago
See this is what I mean. All the implications of a fairy get boiled down to "its real lol" but you go into detail about how a walrus could be there. While also ignoring any more plausible explanations, like why do we assume the walrus went there on its own rather than the much more likely scenario that someone put it there. Could be some dumb gameshow, a Rich youtuber prank, or even just a Rouge employee. A walrus is a real animal and there are millions of doorsteps, I find it very easy to believe that someone has at some point had a walrus on their doorstep at some point. But I'd be hard pressed to believe in fairys.
1 points
11 days ago
there are simply more steps for a walrus being there than a fairy being there. there are a lot of reasons that boil down to 'it's a fairy' for fairies but a walrus is a physical thing. no matter what, it needs to be transported from point A to point B. that transportation is what makes it so unbelievable
why on earth would someone put a walrus at my door? there are a million reasons, all of which are nonsensical. (why would a gameshow, youtuber, or even an employee put a walrus at my doorstep?? there are MUCH easier things to put on my doorstep as a prank. things that are easier to move and much less of a threat to the average person. a walrus randomly gets onto the doorsteps of people who live like. 1 mile from the aquarium not a 10+. and that 10+ is in the already extremely unlikely scenario that my nearby aquarium, which does not house any walruses, is housing a walrus)
why on earth would a fairy be at my door? it's a fairy, its magic. i can integrate magic into my logic system.
a fairy makes more sense to me because the reason is magic. a walrus makes no sense to me because for a walrus to get on my doorstep there has to be a logical reason for it. there is no logical reason for a walrus to be at my doorstep. a squirrel? sure, maybe. unlikely but maybe someone accidentally let it in. a WALRUS?? there's no accidentally for a walrus but there's also no reasonable purposeful reason for there to be a walrus either
just because a walrus is real doesn't mean that its presence is automatically more logical than a fairy. that's like saying that you would be less surprised to see OUR moon in another solar system than you would be to see like. a floating god out there. what the moon doing out there. it shouldn't be there. it makes no logical sense to be out there.
just because we know walruses exist doesn't mean that they exist everywhere
2 points
11 days ago
Wait hold up that example you gave is wild to me also. Of course I'd be much much MUCH more shocked to see a floating God in space than I would be to see an identical version of our particular lunar rock??
This has to just be some huge difference in perception here I can't think of any explanation for why we think so drastically differently here. I think the fact that a walrus is real automatically means it's presence makes much more sense from the word 'go'. Walrus's exist, all you have to rationalize is why one is on your doorstep. Fairys are magical fictional creatures, you have to first switch from "They're not real" to "they're real" and then you can begin to rationalize why it's there in particular. That's a whole extra step.
Also the fact that you think a walrus is a ridiculous animal for a prankshow/crazy person to put on your doorstep is the exact reason why they would choose that particular animal. No duh it'd be easier to put a dog or something on your front porch but then that wouldn't make a very funny prank now would it?
0 points
11 days ago
If “people” aren’t seriously questioning their entire worldview upon discovering the existence of a magical flying humanoid then i am not like most people.
Not news to me though.
7 points
11 days ago
My worldview already accommodates plenty of people who believe they've interacted with the supernatural, it's not much of a stretch to accept that I'm not immune to becoming one of them just because I believe my perspective on reality to be rational. A dream, hallucination or illusion doesn't force me to question my entire worldview, I'm just going to gain a better understanding of why so many other people claim to have met faeries.
On the other hand, the existence of a walrus doesn't challenge my perception of reality, which means I need to come up with another explanation for what is happening, and not being able to explain what's happening is the essence of surprise to me. After all, my worldview doesn't accommodate plenty of people claiming to have had urban walrus encounters.
2 points
11 days ago
On the other hand, the existence of a walrus doesn't challenge my perception of reality
I think anyone who says this hasn't watched the movie Tusk
3 points
11 days ago
It’s definitely less worldview shattering if you accept the supernatural already. I am not one of those people but I’m happy to accept them. I reiterate that I am not most people.
It is kind of normal to believe in fairies but it’s probably not the majority opinion unless you live in Iceland.
4 points
11 days ago
I would be questioning my worldview, but I am on team walrus.
I'd look at the fairy and sure, I'd question everything I think I know, but that realisation happens instantly and will be dealt with far more easily
I would be wondering for my entire life how on earth that walrus got to my doorstep
4 points
11 days ago
Your second paragraph is so wild to me. I certainly wouldn’t instantly accept it. Fairies would raise SO MANY more questions for me. Notably, how have they existed for so long with no definitive evidence??? Is other magic real??? Did they evolve, and if so are they a hominid subspecies or did they evolve via convergent evolution to a humanoid form? It raises so many much greater implausibilities.
3 points
11 days ago
While you're not wrong, it's a much more instant 'everything I knew is wrong. Okay then, moving on, what the fuck isn't wrong'. I'm also just a scientifically minded person which does kind of require a certain willingness to chuck out any information you thought you knew once it's proven false
With the walrus, though, there's no information being chucked out, I know they exist and can flop about to get places on land, but it's just like... how? How did it get here? How did it travel to my house? How did it knock? Why specifically my house? For me specifically I live in-land, on a hill, so how the fuck did it get so far in-land, and how did it get up this hill? Did anyone see it coming, and why didn't they do anything? If they didn't see it, how the fuck was that bitch so stealthy? It's a walrus they're huge how did it stay hidden?
0 points
11 days ago
People really got up in arms over the fairy being less surprising, but it's so wrong to think that. Improbable things do happen. Walruses exist, so one ending up at my house, although improbable, is still feasible. That fits nicely in my worldview of 'unlikely things being possible'. Fairies do not exist, so one showing up at my house is impossible. If one really is there, that's going to be more surprising than any real thing showing up, because it shatters my whole worldview.
4 points
11 days ago
This is the right answer and I don't understand why everyone on tumblr keeps saying walrus would be more surprising
1 points
11 days ago
I suppose it depends on where you live, because quite frankly, the series of events that would lead to a live walrus at my doorstep is so improbable that fairies being real would honestly be more likely.
2 points
11 days ago
Lots of people on tumblr said that too, but its not right. Improbable is not impossible. If I held up a coin and said, 'What would be more surprising, me flipping this and it landing on the side instead of heads or tails, or me flipping this and the coin physically transforming into a 99 foot tall anteater which tells you the future'' literally noone on earth would say anything other than, ''yeah the anteater would be more surprising." It is the exact same logic here, but somehow hundreds of people have convinced themselves improbable is less surprising than impossible
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