Are there any things you used to believe that aren't true?

[Blow by blow, the passion dies]

My list is as follows:

- The surface of earth was not above its crust.
- Joe Biden was a member of the Independent Party of Delaware who caucused with the Democrats.
- The same with Bernie Sanders and the Vermont Progressive Party.
- Napoleon II didn't exist, therefore Pedro IV could follow II.
- Women gave birth to children through their noses.
- Joseph Stalin was a good leader.
- Marxism-Leninism was good.
- Something else I forgot about.

[Schiff for Senate]

I used to believe that Republicans were good people. That was before I began analysing politics and before the debacle of the 2020 race and the rest of it, of course, but earlier I believed the myths that "both sides just disagree" and both sides are equally good/bad. Now, I know better.

[MarkD]

1) When I was pretty young, I remember checking in with my parents for flights and watching as their luggage was put on a conveyor belt and went down a hole. Then later, at our destination, I watched as the luggage came up - seemingly from underground - and we would reclaim them on the baggage carousel at the airport. So I deduced that our luggage did not go on the airplane with us, it zipped along very rapidly through an underground tunnel that went all of the way from our origin point to our destination.

2) As a young man, out of the closet and participating with the "gay community," I jumped on their bandwagon and hoped that the Supreme Court would overturn Bowers v. Hardwick some day, and I believed, for a few years, that the Ninth Amendment would justify overturning it. But that was before I studied what the Ninth was originally intended to mean. Once I learned the original understanding of the Ninth, I realized that my previous belief was wrong. It is altogether far too easy to misinterpret the words: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

I used to believe that Republicans were good people. That was before I began analysing politics and before the debacle of the 2020 race and the rest of it, of course, but earlier I believed the myths that "both sides just disagree" and both sides are equally good/bad. Now, I know better.

3) In a similar vein, I used to believe that Republicans were appointing better Supreme Court Justices than Democrats; that Republicans were always going to appoint "Originalists" to the Court. Then Bush v. Gore completely punctured that belief.

[progressive85]

When I was little, I believed the entire world was in black and white until the mid-60s because all the pictures I saw of that world were in black and white.

[Ferguson97]

Up until I was like 10, I was absolutely positive that the United Nations was on a small rock island in the middle of the ocean.

[jamestroll]

I used to believe that Obama a muslim born in Kenya. I was a huge birther.

[GregTheGreat657]

1. All dogs were boys and all cats were girls
2. The way to tell if you needed glasses was to try on someone else's glasses. If you couldn't see well it meant you didn't need glasses, while if you did it meant you needed glasses.

[dead0man]

1. All dogs were boys and all cats were girls

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Supply side economics.

[Vosem]

Sure. I used to believe theories in psychology and genetics that have since been discredited by the replication crisis.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

When I was young, I thought there were only two races- black and white.  I got confused when a teacher (in a lesson about racial history) noted that most of us in the room were white except for one East Asian kid.  I was confused because, since most East Asian people have fair skin, I didn't realize that they were not considered "white".

*Also, race is an extremely subjective topic, and I think we're way too quick to box people into racial categories.

[It’s so Joever]

When I was young, I thought there were only two races- black and white.  I got confused when a teacher (in a lesson about racial history) noted that most of us in the room were white except for one East Asian kid.  I was confused because, since most East Asian people have fair skin, I didn't realize that they were not considered "white".

*Also, race is an extremely subjective topic, and I think we're way too quick to box people into racial categories.

When I asked my father if we were black or white in second grade after learning about segregation/MLK, he said white. Even literal East Asians see themselves as white.

[Dani Rose]

That the Bible innately condemns homosexuality.

Also that blue raspberries were real.

[bagelman]

I went through a phase as a dumb teenager in '07 where I thought reptilians were real and that George W. Bush and Karl Rove and the neocon gang were planning to take over the world and enslave everyone! By spring of '08 I migrated from that to edgelord atheist.

When I was little, I believed the entire world was in black and white until the mid-60s because all the pictures I saw of that world were in black and white.

When I was in middle school several kids still believed this.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I had a phase around 20, 25 years ago when I was big on conspiracy theories... these beliefs ranged from JFK having been murdered by a conspiracy within the U.S. government to a UFO having crashed in Roswell in 1947.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Up until I was a high schooler I thought I was way smarter than I actually am.  Not only that, I liked to argue with people who pointed out when I was wrong.  I liked to read about the world, and I thought that made me an expert.  Thus, I had the stupidest foreign policy views in middle school.

I was annoyed with my teacher who was a hardcore conservative (really more of a reactionary neoconfederate and one of the few people in America who are actual theocrats), and I strongly opposed his ideology.  Nevertheless I had many differences with the 2008 left.  I was a hardcore foreign policy hawk (though I opposed the war in Iraq).  I saw Islam as the American religious right on steroids, and the most dangerous issue facing the earth.  Ironically, this was fueled by my teacher telling us that the Islamic world was going to unite into a giant caliphate sometime very soon.  He also said something along the lines that Paris was already 80% Muslim and Muslims were the majority or close to the majority of the French Army.  I don't remember if my teacher said this, but I remember hearing that Obama was a Kenyan Muslim (I didn't believe Obama was a Muslim, however, and I thought he was a good guy).

I thought that in the future, possibly soon enough for me to be drafted, there would be World War III.  The Islamic world (including France) would unite under a single leader to try and take over the world (I didn't take the Sunni-Shia divide into account at all).  The US, Britain, Israel, Russia, Greece, and much of Africa would unite to stop them (there might have been a few other countries, idk).  After years of war, the good guys would win.  Then the Middle East would be placed under military occupation, with Greek, American, Israeli, and British zones.  No one would be forced to renounce Islam or anything like that, but they would be given freedom and democracy.  I strongly opposed any sort of attempt to mix Christianity with government (though I thought the Crusades were cool).  My religious views at the time were based on my Evangelical upbringing, though I hated some of the conservatism and the Calvinist soteriology taught by the church I attended and I also thought that women could be preachers and that abortion should be legal.

When I was 13 I actually read about Middle Eastern history. Needless to say, my views on foreign policy changed very quickly.  I began to view the Shah Reza Pahlavi as one of the greatest men of the 20th century.  I began tp stop seeing Islam as a major threat to the world (or as a unified force).  At the same time I became a lot more politically conservative.  Ironically, I had a much more nuanced view of Islamic civilization as I became more conservative.  I moved on to despising atheism, and I argued with new atheists a lot from 2010-2012.

I still had some dumb foreign policy takes.  For instance, I wanted the US to invade Cuba and North Korea (I didn't become a dove until 2012).

Another stupid thing I believed was that a woman could get pregnant from sharing a bed with a man.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

There never was a Mew under that truck and holding "B" didn't improve the catch odds....

[Schiff for Senate]

2. The way to tell if you needed glasses was to try on someone else's glasses. If you couldn't see well it meant you didn't need glasses, while if you did it meant you needed glasses.

Isn't that kind of true though? I mean obviously it's hardly a perfect science, but if you find yourself seeing better wearing somebody else's glasses, you probably DO need glasses.

[President Johnson]

- As kid, I really disliked songs that were in German. I always wrongly assumed that once I learn English at school and am able to understand the songtexts, I would no longer like music in English language either.

- Until sometime in my early teens, I believed the US was a totally nonreligious country because everything was "bigger and more spectacular" than in Europe, so I assumed that and religion - which I associated with modesty - just wouldn't fit together. When my uncle (American living in Germany) thought me, I seriously believed he was joking.

- Until my first job, I thought an eight hour workday means that break is inclusive.

- After the 2012 election, I used to believe that the Republican Party would soon be out of business unless they moderated to Charlie Baker types, mainly because of demographic changes. I thought after 2016, there would be permanent Democratic majorities until Republicans become a centrist party.

- Until the summer of 2021, I used to believe my party (SPD) would never win the chancellorship again, let alone a SPD politician becoming Merkel's immediate successor.

[GregTheGreat657]

2. The way to tell if you needed glasses was to try on someone else's glasses. If you couldn't see well it meant you didn't need glasses, while if you did it meant you needed glasses.

Isn't that kind of true though? I mean obviously it's hardly a perfect science, but if you find yourself seeing better wearing somebody else's glasses, you probably DO need glasses.

It's more so the part where you don't need glasses if your vision declines when you wear someone else's glasses. It could just be the wrong prescription for you.

[Schiff for Senate]

2. The way to tell if you needed glasses was to try on someone else's glasses. If you couldn't see well it meant you didn't need glasses, while if you did it meant you needed glasses.

Isn't that kind of true though? I mean obviously it's hardly a perfect science, but if you find yourself seeing better wearing somebody else's glasses, you probably DO need glasses.

It's more so the part where you don't need glasses if your vision declines when you wear someone else's glasses. It could just be the wrong prescription for you.

That's true, of course, but what I mean is your misconception WAS partially correct.

[GregTheGreat657]

2. The way to tell if you needed glasses was to try on someone else's glasses. If you couldn't see well it meant you didn't need glasses, while if you did it meant you needed glasses.

Isn't that kind of true though? I mean obviously it's hardly a perfect science, but if you find yourself seeing better wearing somebody else's glasses, you probably DO need glasses.

It's more so the part where you don't need glasses if your vision declines when you wear someone else's glasses. It could just be the wrong prescription for you.

That's true, of course, but what I mean is your misconception WAS partially correct.

In that case I stand corrected

[TDAS04]

-That honesty was a prerequisite to the presidency, after hearing about George Washington and the cherry tree
-That people suddenly obtained wrinkles and gray hair up turning 50
-That dogs purr

[Hope For A New Era]

I suppose the biggest one is my brief climate-change-denial phase in 2014-2015.

Up until I was like 10, I was absolutely positive that the United Nations was on a small rock island in the middle of the ocean.

Somehow in my mind it was located at the North Pole, even though I knew it couldn't be because there's no land there.

[TDAS04]

I might have also believed once that giraffes were farm animals.