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Thursday's Most Active Threads
Yesterday's topics with the most engagement included things that should be common knowledge, a missing husband, Gen Z will save America, and the murder of Pava LaPere.
Several of the most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed. However, that was not the case with the most active thread of the day which easily led engagement for the day. That thread was titled, "Share something that should be general knowledge, but isn't" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. As the title says, the original poster asks for suggestions of things that most people should know but they often don't. Her own example is the fact that "antibiotics only work on bacteria, not on viruses." This type of thread is difficult to summarize because they tend to simply be suggestion after suggestion, often with no real unifying theme. Moroever, this thread managed to grow to 20 pages in just a day. So, I don't have time to read it all. But, among the first suggestions were some good ones such as how tax brackets work and what the First Amendment actually protects. I assumed that in order to reach 20 pages, this thread would have to include some facts that could not realistically be expected to be common knowledge. Skimming the thread, I did come across such examples. For instance, one poster laments that more people are not aware that "acetaminophen" is called "paracetamol" in Europe. I had to Google to discover that "acetaminophen" is what I would normally call "Tylenol". I clearly fall woefully short of that poster's expectations. There were some suggestions in which I sort of feel like the common person is not being given a fair shake. For instance, posters suggested that it is not common knowledge that Europe and Africa consist of more than one country. I would argue that almost everyone is aware of this, but the issue is one of generalizing and lazy speech rather than ignorance. Saying, "I visited Europe last summer" is simply easier than saying "Last summer I visited France, Germany, Poland, and Lithuania." Some of the suggestions were not only not common knowledge, they might not have even have been true. For instance, posters could not agree whether "rounding up" a bill or adding a donation to support charity when checking out at a retail business actually results in more profit for the business. One poster argued that it does and wishes that more people were aware of this while another poster provided a link saying that if these businesses are following the law, this is not true.