One of the best parts about the internet is how great a learning tool it can be. Even if you’re just casually browsing some random forum or website, you can stumble across a weird fact you’ve never heard before. The next thing you know, you’re knee-deep in research and it’s been hours since you last had a snack.
The members of the r/AskReddit online community had a lot of fun sharing the most mind-blowing facts that they recently realized. It sometimes takes a tiny thing to change your perspective completely. Whether that’s seeing a duck in a tree, thinking about space travel, or finally comprehending how late the Roman Empire actually fell. Scroll down for some fresh facts that you (probably!) don’t know.
Bored Panda wanted to learn more about source reliability and how to reverse our shortening attention spans, so we reached out to Susan A. Nolan, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Seton Hall University. You’ll find her insights as you read on.
#1
I got really high and started thinking about our modern life.
Clean pottable water on tap.Living in air conditioned houses with multiple rooms.
Able to drive around in a machine capable of carrying thousands of pounds.
Able to go experience food from around the world with little difficulty.
(Edited in)–Able to flush away your waste with water, NOT have it just build up and putrify somewhere, but be treated, cleaned and recycled.
Able to talk to people across the world in real time.
Even if it is expensive, the medical capacity we have in the first world is astounding.
When you realize that we are all living like “mini” kings with our luxury, you start to apprecaite it more.
It blew my mind just how much we take for granted. Hot showers is definitely one people really do not appreciate
Image source: Edgezg, Los Muertos Crew
#2
Moses was the first human to download info from a cloud to a tablet
Image source: UltiGamer34
#3
Being poor is very very very expensive. Once you have a decent amount of money and no debt, it’s very easy to live super cheap.
Once you have the money to buy things, it’s MUCH easier to say no to those things.
Image source: anon, Nathan Dumlao
#4
Difference between a million and a billion. Someone explained it in terms of time, a million seconds is 11 days and a billion seconds is almost 31 years. I knew a billion was a lot more but damn this put it in perspective.
Image source: Disastrous-Rise-1279, Mika Baumeister
#5
When I found out a large percentage of people walk around all day without an inner monologue it really messed with me. How do you think? Do you think? How do you make decisions?
Image source: GrumpyOldMan59, Valentine Angel Fernandez
#6
One day I sat on a tram, passing a river. There was a duck in a tree. I realised I’ve never seen ducks in trees. No one else seemed to notice, but I was puzzled.
Now whenever I come across something that seems intuitive but I have never considered I call it a duck in a tree.
Image source: Ol_Pasta, Quân Mạnh
#7
Earth is the only planet in the observable universe that we know of whose only Moon is simultaneously 1/400th of the size and at 1/400th of the distance of its Sun, making it the only known planet capable of having perfect eclipses.
It’s a very cool coincidence, if you ask me.
Image source: GonzoRouge
#8
“I’ll see you around!”
“Not if I see you first!”
Took me a while to realize this meant if that person sees you first they will avoid you and you will end up not seeing them
Image source: kakapoopoopeepeeshir
#9
That I’m not responsible to make other people happy
Image source: BooksRock
#10
That my girlfriend (now wife) actually, genuinely loves me. I sincerely thought I was unlovable until that point.
Image source: Puddlingon
#11
Poison dart frogs arent poisonous in captivity. I own 5 of them and anytime I tell someone I own some I always get “do you ever lick them” or “can you go k**l someone with them”.. but yeah they get their poison from what they eat, and all I give them is fruit flies.
Image source: JMfury
#12
Owl‘s silent flight. I mean i always knew that but a while ago was the first time i actually witnessed it. Owl came flying towards me and landed only a few feet away and you couldn‘t hear anything. Crazy.
Image source: Zealousideal-You-324, Skitterphoto
#13
You die. No matter what, how good or bad you do, how hard you fight or how fast you give up. Eventually we all just… Die. Everyone does it, and fairly quickly, no one will remember your failures or successes. Your name might live a few millenia but eventually no one cares. It’s freeing. You’re free to be you. F**k that person, say that dumb s**t, eat that coney, just be a person amongst uncountable billions that lived and died. It’s all you, go live, laugh, love, you basic b***h.
Image source: Curious-Accident9189
#14
Sometimes is more important to like your colleagues than the actual job.
I had s****y jobs with the most amazing colleagues and had s****y colleagues and the most amazing job. I’d pick the first every time.
#15
Just how much white-collar crime there is and how little of it gets prosecuted.
Image source: CherryShort2563
#16
It still blows my mind that I can walk without thinking about moving specific muscles. Like, I can just go around thinking dumb thoughts while my body just contracts the necessary muscles to move all these appendages just because I pointed in a direction and thought “go.”
Image source: fancybeadedplacemat
#17
That sharks predated the rings of Saturn.
Image source: BeardedDominant, Daniel Torobekov
#18
Racism is there to distract us from the wealthy hoarding all the money and resources. I read what L B Johnson said about the lowest white man…
Image source: iceTreamTruck
#19
That you could legitimately travel at warp speed through the center of galaxies and never run any real risk of hitting a star. That’s how spread out space really is.
Image source: justanotherguyhere16, Yuting Gao
#20
People are writing all these profound things while I flipped my s**t when I found out Blue on Blue’s Clues is a girl.
Image source: LongjumpingCake1924, Nickelodeon
#21
Money only has value because we believe it has value. The reason a $10 bill can buy you $10 worth of items or service is because we all agree on what the value of the bill is.
Image source: lillybells13
#22
Alcohol is really poison..
Image source: Yankeewithoutacause
#23
We’re all just a bunch of atoms thinking about themselves
Image source: grocija
#24
That people that are blind from birth don’t see “black” or “nothing,” they see with their eyes what you see with your elbow.
Image source: HeavyRightFoot19, Yan Krukau
#25
If you just do something, it becomes so much easier to do. Just get it over with, whatever it is.
Image source: Fuzzysox25
#26
How bizarre acting is, I got really high once and I was watching a movie and it dawned on me how strange the whole thing is , you get random people pretending to be other people for my entertainment…. weird
Image source: adterraincognita
#27
We went from kitty hawk to the moon inside of 66 years.
Image source: alczervikslumberyard, Pixabay
#28
Some day there will be zero evidence our Earth ever existed. The sun will eventually consume the Earth.
Image source: pi20
#29
If you earn 50.000 € a year, starting directly after school and are working for 40 years until you retire, that’s only 2.000.000 €.
This 2 million includes your whole life. Every holiday you ever make. Every gift you ever gave. Every car you ever bought. Your wedding, your house, your kids Christmas presents. Everything.
And yet, there are people out there who buy cars worth 2 million or even more. Ever heard someone making 10 millions? That’s 5 times your life. A billion? That’s the lives of a whole town.
Even if your double the income. There are people out there who could buy your live a thousand times
Image source: rotzverpopelt
#30
That every time you shuffle a deck of cards it’s extremely likely that no deck of cards in history has ever been in the same order you just shuffled your deck to.
Image source: roughly7chickens, Marin Tulard
#31
They were colonizing the Wild West the same time as they were building skyscrapers in Manhattan. I always think of them taking place eighty to a hundred years apart. It’s wild.
Image source: Emilayday, Matias Di Meglio
#32
Percentages can be reversed.
30% of 70 is 70% of 30.
Image source: sfkf8486, Nataliya Vaitkevich
#33
The light from the stars we see were emitted thousands of thousands of years ago and could potentially be from stars that are no longer there
Image source: drbrian83
#34
You can’t get peoples respect just by being nice. I was nice my whole life and no one treated me seriously. I’ve noticed drastic change in how people treat me once I started to care less about other peoples opinion and was more confident sharing my worldview.
Image source: LubieRZca
#35
Matter and energy can be changed, but it is never destroyed. It is just changed. The second law of thermodynamics states that, within any system, nothing ever remains the same. Change is constant.
Image source: dudeab1des
#36
That there are far more psychopaths than most of us think.
Image source: yabadbado
#37
I know it’s odd but A looks like tip of a pencil.
Image source: Angrypenguinwaddle96
#38
When you lose weight, most of it ends up as carbon dioxide which is exhaled from your lungs.
Image source: Wannagetsober, Ketut Subiyanto
#39
Oxford university is older than the Aztecs
Image source: Pineapple_JoJo
#40
The other day I was in a thread with a bunch of men that had their minds blown after they realized our hair is twisted up in the towels on our heads after a shower.
THAT blew my mind.
Image source: Aromatic_Cut8035
#41
The Roman Empire fully fell less than 50 years before the discovery of the new world
Image source: South-by-north, Hisham Zayadneh
#42
How many compound words are just hiding in plain sight in English.
You’ve got plenty of obvious ones like Breakfast. But some sneaky ones like Holiday and Disease.
Image source: Lemesplain
#43
When I learned about the 20/80 rule, my life was turned upside down.
It says that 20 percent effort produces 80 percent results, but 80 percent effort produces only 20 percent results.
I couldn’t believe it at first, but when I set a goal of sticking to the rule for a week (to test it), I realized that my productivity was much higher because my time is now limited. I stopped wasting time and try to get things done as quickly as possible so I don’t have to stretch it out all day.
As a result, I have more free time for myself and my family, as well as hobbies and additional education.
Image source: AnastasiaFrid
#44
Be there or be square…. Because you’re not around.
Image source: tachyfootsteps, Yaroslav Shuraev
#45
Breakfast is simply breaking your morning fast
Image source: Regular_Drunk
#46
That how small we are compared to the universe and how our problems dont matter just like us. We are a multicellular specie living in the universe’s TINY super cluster’s TINY galaxy’s TINY solar system’s TINY star’s TINY PLANET’S TINY nation. And you’re still brainf***ed over your job? Relax! Nothing really matters, eventually everything will die out. So, do whatever you want, live your best life and make sure you had a fun time. Go ahead, have a fun time because we all will have to leave any second now. Good Luck.
Image source: No_Concern_410
#47
It always blows my mind that the match was invented after the lighter
Image source: SicNullens
#48
Well, it may sound stupid af, but when I was 11 I realised that moon REFLECT sun’s light, it doesn’t glow on it’s own, and that night staring at it was a whole new experience xD
Image source: tehabeoqui
#49
The speed of light is consistent in relativity no matter how fast you are traveling because of the effects speed has on time and gravity. If you are traveling at 99% the speed of light, then the light you emit from a flashlight would appear to be traveling away from you at the speed of light because your time is slowed.
Image source: Myzx, Ray Bilcliff
#50
I saw this on a Facebook meme today: the word Ohio looks like a tractor.
Image source: cronin98, Mark Stebnicki
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