What were some misconceptions you had about the world when you were a child?

[courts]

- didn't know about lemon trees, wondered if there were lemon fields.
- briefly thought russia had been fascist or something because of all the neo-nazis in the news. this was before i learned about the cold war, so around age 7
- vampires could and did routinely break through windows and eat people
- the environment was significantly more polluted than it really was because of all those mutant frogs being born and rainforest destruction mostly. it was the 90s
- area 51 was really full of aliens
- the y2k bug would be a bigger problem than it turned out to be
- the republican party wasn't terrible

[courts]

hm, some more i thought of

- 'sex change' operations were easier to get and tg people were more common than they really are (later is because of tabloids and jerry springer.. and anime). yeah, that should have been a tip off right?

- satanic and pagan cults were more common than they really were

- virtual reality was around the corner

- ancient civilizations like atlantis were real

- bubbleyum contained spiders eggs

- lsd could be put in water supply

- chameleons blended into their environment. this is actually untrue, they change color based on their emotions and hormonal state.

- aspartame was really dangerous for you and could cause cancer.