Which myths aged poorly in the time since the show aired?

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jsabo@reddit

More a case of a myth becoming even more relevant over time, but the whole "##% of men are overconfident enough to think that they could land a plane" meme kills me.

It's supposed to be calling out male hubris, but the Mythbusters proved that you could do it.

So whenever it pops up, instead of it being a commentary on men, I see it as a bunch of researchers running a flawed study, and a lot of people reposting/commenting without doing their homework.

Or as they used to say, it ain't braggin' if you can do it.

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Constant-Still-8443@reddit

Tbf, modern planes have so much digital aid that I'm pretty sure anyone with decent hand-eye coordination could do it.

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murphsmodels@reddit

Most modern planes can land themselves if you know how to set it up.

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Schlagustagigaboo@reddit

To be fair: setting that up from square one using only the autopilot and localizer is an order of magnitude more complex than doing it by hand.

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The cockpit scene after the birdstrike in Sully (2016) is apparently one of the most accurate portrayals of plane emergencies. They go down the checklist, contact the tower and explain what they're doing before they do it.

Most people could probably land a modern plane with tower help, maybe not full in touch down, but enough that people probably won't die in the crash landing.

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Schlagustagigaboo@reddit

In other news I’m a trained pilot and I’ve touched down so hard the tower roasted me with: “feel free to proceed ONTO the runway, we don’t have much traffic right now.”

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requiemguy@reddit

Nice

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murphsmodels@reddit

Mentor Pilot actually made a video on YouTube on how to set up a 737 to autoland. Admittedly, you have to be landing at an airport that has the capability to guide it down.

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blajhd@reddit

Tom Scott tried to manually land and setup autoland, talked through by Mentourpilot both times. He failed manually, but succeeded when autolanding.

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SVNBob@reddit

And that was included in the story, as I recall. I think it was in the final segment, showing that, while yes, one could theoretically do as the myth suggested, the easiest method is to just engage the auto-pilot and let the plane land itself.

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Mirar@reddit

It's not so much about the hand-eye coordination as reading the labels and understanding what the switches do.

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thebigphils@reddit

To be fair they only could do it when an expert was guiding every move, they crashed immediately when trying unassisted. When they take these surveys do they specify you will have help or not? I doubt it.

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tactical_waifu_sim@reddit

They probably don't which is an inherent flaw of the study.

If you asked me, "Could you land a commercial aircraft in an emergency? Y/N"

I would say yes because I'd assume I could contact ground control for help. Other people may read that and assume "on your own" is implied and say no.

This why how you ask the question is just as important as what is being asked.

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BattleReadyZim@reddit

And being a tiny percentage of all men, that would be how I would respond yes: if I can use the radio and contact ground control, then I stand as good a chance anyone other schlub. Otherwise, we all die, but at least I'd make sure the attendants distributed all the booze first; we going down partying!

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Far-Duck8203@reddit

And booze is a good choice for the passengers as long as they don’t over imbibe — a couple of drinks would do wonders as a muscle relaxant.

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DisposableSaviour@reddit

Fuck that, I am definitely over imbibing. You think I’m gonna try to land this fucker sober?

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bigpurpleharness@reddit

Truly the best response.

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Linesey@reddit

indeed. the assumption is so key.

like “##% of men think they could score a point against serena williams”

I mean, yeah probably. In the length of an official match, “could you score a point before she wins the game” nah.

but “could you eventually manage to score a point” of course, eventually blind luck will see it happen.

how the question is asked is so important.

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Generic_E_Jr@reddit

Precisely.

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Lemonwizard@reddit

I've played flight simulator, and I feel confident that my crash site would be reasonably close to the runway.

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TheDorkNite1@reddit

Oh look at Mr. Bigshot over here saying that he has well aimed crashes.

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jsabo@reddit

Depends on which version of the meme you get, but most of them do qualify "could land the plane in an emergency with assistance."

So if you can get a cell phone signal to 911, they tell you how to turn on the radio, and the tower tells you how to turn on the autopilot.

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kd0g1982@reddit

You know those radios are always on in flight unless someone deliberately turned it off.

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MDuBanevich@reddit

I was similarly disappointed with their methodology on the "Throw Like a Girl" episode

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Far-Duck8203@reddit

I’d agree that the study is flawed.

Here’s my take on the situation: if I needed to land a plane to survive, I know that my odds of survival no matter what are non-zero. Therefore I must in that situation take the attitude that I will succeed and that I’ll need every bit of handholding as I can get.

No tower contact and no auto land? Check the parachutes. No parachutes? Then I’m gonna do my best to remember every bit I can about what to do from everything I’ve ever seen. Realistically it’s KYAG time, but the moment I think that my survival chances go from slight but non-zero to zero.

Autoland? Great! Set that up even if I have to divert to another airport to do so.

Tower? You bet your ass I’ll be following every single instruction to the letter and repeating back for confirmation.

Both? Perfect, I might actually survive.

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bradygilg@reddit

"could" questions are poorly defined in general. How likely do you have to be to succeed before you are willing to say you "could" do it? What if you think your odds are 10%, or 1%? Theoretically I could win the lottery sone day.

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Short_Dot1378@reddit

The battle of the sexes episode/s were and still are so cringey. They said they were totally unbiased but they weren't, and their tests weren't set up to be unbiased either. The way they approached it all has not aged well, although it wasn't good at the time either.

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niet3@reddit

The myth that large breasts attract better tips. I thought it was demeaning to Kari at the time and still feel that way.

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Rasta-d-man@reddit

It's a valid study, people always get hung up on things like sexuality but doesn't it deserve to be studied especially how it affects society? Science is about science.

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niet3@reddit

I had a perception of being a bit too raunchy, and this episode certainly didn't help that.

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ExcaliburZSH@reddit

It was more juvenile than raunchy

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aequitssaint@reddit

Facts don't care about your feelings.

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herrfrosteus@reddit

Hi Ben!

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bigrodjohnson225@reddit

There’s a diner on the upper west side that hires only large breasted women.

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BenCaxt0n@reddit

It's like a Russ Meyer movie.

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niet3@reddit

Good for them

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Zedarean@reddit

Oh my god! That’s disgusting. Where?

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Clothes_Chair_Ghost@reddit

Kari seemed quite comfortable with her body. She did do a shoot for Maxim in pretty much just her bra and panties and a lab coat.

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N4BFR@reddit

FHM

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Rasta-d-man@reddit

I'm too poor to give you an award, but you have my heartfelt thanks and an upvote.

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N4BFR@reddit

That’s better than any award!

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Clothes_Chair_Ghost@reddit

To be fair those two magazines were basically the same lol but thanks for the correction.

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N4BFR@reddit

100% agree

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92xSaabaru@reddit

Mythbusters Aftershow Q&A

Literally the first question asked. Kari felt that it "brought down to a scientific level" and "not demeaning at all"

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Present_Ad6723@reddit

I’m sure if she felt uncomfortable they’d have hired people for it instead

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tactical_waifu_sim@reddit

I guess we'd have to ask Kari how she felt about doing it. Her personal comfort is really the only thing I see as a potential issue.

As a myth I don't see it as particularly problematic to test. Any sociology student has probably done some variation of a "pretty privilege" study. Sexuality and how it affects our lives is important to study!

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scowdich@reddit

The first thing she did on the show was get her butt scanned (and upsized) for an airplane toilet myth. She seemed to be comfortable with a lot, but there's probably no way to know whether a particular thing had a producer behind the camera telling her "do this or pack your things."

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Sean921172@reddit

My understanding is that Jamie tasked her with editing the file and that she was to keep the file herself afterwards.

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GigglemanEsq@reddit

The tips episode was far enough in that Adam and Jamie got a lot more creative control, and I don't think either would have done it if Kari was uncomfortable. They would have hired an actress or an actual barista instead.

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sej2016@reddit

There are a lot of myths, particularly in the early part, that are rather demeaning to Kari and the other women of Mythbusters.

IIRC, Adam has talked about them backing off, not attempting, or not releasing particularly egregious stuff which is reassuring the nothing was released without their OK.

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Reallynotsuretbh@reddit

Even as a kid I thought this was a poor choice

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Ace_And_Jocelyn1999@reddit

One of their earliest myths is about a man in Toronto throwing himself against the glass in his office and falling to his death. This was never a myth to start with, it was well documented in newspapers. His family lost a father, people lost a friend, a coworker. Dozens watched him die right before their eyes and were traumatized by it. There was no question of the events authenticity, and it gets turned into a kookie wacky story. I think that aged poorly.

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KaijuDirectorOO7@reddit

Same with the Hathcock sniper myth.

That was recorded AND verfied by the USMC. It's no myth.

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ExcaliburZSH@reddit

Less a myth but was it a fluke. So they saw if they could recreate it.

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Malakai0013@reddit

Iirc, it was less about "did this happen" or "is this possible." It was more about "is this something that could happen under normal, everyday circumstances, or was this one guy super unlucky?" I'm pretty sure they even said it actually happened in real life..

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DangerMacAwesome@reddit

I still don't understand why he did this demonstration

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Fyaal@reddit

They say specifically in that episode that it wasn’t a myth, it was a real thing that happened in Toronto. S1e2 about 29 minutes.

They even interview Bruce DeMara, a reporter from The Toronto Star. Further they explain that the myth part of it is that the story is sometimes New York or Hong Kong or Chicago. AND what they are specifically testing is the conditions or forces necessary for this to occur.

They also interview a structural engineer who explains how glass in skyscrapers are framed, they go over pressure differentials in buildings, the pressure pushing on the whole face of the glass, the strength of the frame and the stack effect, speed test the weighted rig to approximate a 160lb middle aged man running. They can’t break the glass with the first setup.

They go back to the structural engineer, who discusses the possibility of stressed glass.

They then test putting the weight more concentrated similarly to how it would be if you or I put all our weight into a hit with our shoulder. The glass breaks under these conditions from 3 yards.

They then go back to Bruce, who says it’s absolutely a true story. They might’ve played fast and loose with a lot of things, but they were pretty damn clear about this one.

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THElaytox@reddit

Yeah, they tended to play it fast and loose with the definition of "myth" when they'd run out of ideas, they were literally testing Looney Tunes episodes at one point

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-SQB-@reddit

Not a myth, but

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

That's basically what conspiracy theorists have been doing all along, but now seems a theme with certain political parties (that's not restricted to the USA) rejecting facts in favour of their feelings.

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ExcaliburZSH@reddit

True, but Adam was being funny, not serious

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aysz88@reddit

So it's not lost in the future: that was said in the spirit of making, or the hacker ethos, i.e. not being helpless or settling for mediocrity. Hopefully it can mean that again one day.

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FreoFox@reddit

I always hated the ramp up. Like the cement truck. Try one blasting cap, then (after that didn’t work) pack the entire truck with plastic explosives and render the truck unusable/unrecognisable. The purpose was to remove a layer of cement from the drum, so that the drum could be reused, not to distribute pieces of the truck into all of the neighbouring counties.

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Malakai0013@reddit

Your memory of that episode is missing about 60% of that myth.

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475213@reddit

They tested two different trucks. The truck they packed with plastic explosives and blew to smithereens had been accidentally filled way too full. There wasn’t just a thin layer of cement, it was like half full. There was no way to get it out without chipping the whole block into smaller chunks and removing them one by one, so they just blew the whole thing up.

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BuffaloRedshark@reddit

I still get a phone book dropped off on my front porch every year

unsolicited, and I haven't had a land line in 10+ years

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WALLY_5000@reddit

You might have to “unsubscribe” to the free service. When I bought my house I was getting them every year until I found that out.

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TGin-the-goldy@reddit

I did that - and we still got the book delivered for two further years. Immediately went into the recycling

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WALLY_5000@reddit

I used to practice tearing them in half before chucking them in the recycling bin

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paishocajun@reddit

It's been fun watching it slowly slim down over the years lol

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CameronsTheName@reddit

I used to use the phone book pages to start my house and camp fires.

It used to last nearly perfectly the whole year. I'd be just under or just over by a few pages.

Now I only get 2-3 months from a whole book.

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SubparSensei71@reddit

Do they still come with some coupons in them ?

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CameronsTheName@reddit

The Australian ones never did. We got a white pages and yellow pages, about half an half the book. One was for businesses and the other was for home phones. Now it's 90% business, 10% home phone.

If you knew someone's last name, you could find them in the phone book. It had their address and landline.

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TGin-the-goldy@reddit

Unless they chose to have an unlisted (aka silent) number

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UnintelligibleMaker@reddit

Last year mine showed up with a cover that says its sponsored by the "Best of " organization. I looked it up: $1K to be listed $10K + bid for top spot.

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Fight_those_bastards@reddit

My uncle (now retired) started his sales career with the local phone company selling ads in the yellow pages.

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ComesInAnOldBox@reddit

You can test the phonebook myth with anything, really. It isn't as effective as the phone book because the phonebook has more pages, and therefore more friction, but any book will do the trick. Hell, I've demonstrated it with a couple of stacks of post-it notes.

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TGin-the-goldy@reddit

True!

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jomarthecat@reddit

A norwegian tv-host demonstrated it with phonebooks, but the phonebooks were connecting a bungee cord to a bridge. So he bungee jumped with the phonebooks keeping him alive.

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burnthrop@reddit

Do it with mcmaster-carr or Grainger catalogs

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misserg@reddit

That might be the only use for the granger catalogues we get at my work.

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Just-Pizza713@reddit

I was thinking the same about the multiple ULine books we get at a time. We have never purchased anything from ULine lol

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S3kGT@reddit

I do this every time I have a few stacks of post-its. I’ve even built a small rig that holds my body weight to demonstrate it.

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RotaryDane@reddit

Had a classmate who interlaced two stacks of post-it notes in engineering class to test out the theory. True enough no one could pull them apart. He continued to use the stack of post-its for the rest of our education one leaf at a time instead of bothering to unlace the stacks.

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aysz88@reddit

There was at least one episode involving germs and (I think) public bathrooms where Adam was lightly roasting the idea of being afraid of germs from other people - stuff like "that's what your immune system is for". Ended up sounding pretty awkward...

Maybe it was the public bathroom germs episode ("Down and Dirty", S14 E3), and maybe also in the one about fetal matter on your toothbrush (S2 E12)....

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e-z-bee@reddit

I remember him saying that for the myth about double dipping your chip.

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Weak_Employment_5260@reddit

Well they have/are doing studies about people weakening their immune systems by trying to live too antiseptic a life.

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aysz88@reddit

Yeah, I'm sure that's more of what he meant when he said it. (IIRC allergies are hypothesized to be influenced by that.)

But in the "aging badly" context, well, (1) the opposite issue became a big issue, and (2) taking any "side" now comes with a whole plethora of unwanted political associations, and that one ended up on the opposite political "side" as Adam.

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42Cobras@reddit

*Fecal matter on your toothbrush.

If you have fetal matter on your toothbrush, you should probably be getting a visit from your friendly neighborhood law enforcement officers in the near future.

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RotaryDane@reddit

Several of the Cellphone based myths just aren’t that relevant anymore. Especially considering that many newer fans might be watching those episodes on their smartphones.

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JBaecker@reddit

in a gas station!

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RotaryDane@reddit

If you happen to be one of the “speak into my phone on loudspeaker in front of my face” types, then I can see that myth still holding up just fine.

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insta@reddit

because of the phone itself? or another patron setting them on fire?

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DangerMacAwesome@reddit

That's the joke

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scowdich@reddit

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/06/16/phone-gas-station-explosion/7490115001/

The only way a cell phone is plausibly causing a gas station fire is if the battery gets pierced, but that'll cause a fire anywhere else too.

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WalDrudgeon@reddit

My girlfriend and I just watched one from season… 3? 4? Anyway, it’s Vodka Myths 2 and they test whether vodka or water will kill bees, and it made us both kind of uncomfortable due to the current bee crisis and just, in general, not liking animals being harmed for no real reason.

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SkyeSpider@reddit

Thankfully, almost all those bees were okay.

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WalDrudgeon@reddit

Oh totally. Still, it made us cringe that they would even try a myth like that.

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Valuable-Shirt-4129@reddit

I'm Gen Z and I am familiar with a phone book. I grew up with VHS too.

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athey@reddit

I described the idea of a phone book to my Kids and they were gobsmacked. My daughter, especially. The idea of everyone’s phone number just being in a book that everyone had… and that you had to make a special request for it to be unlisted. Totally blew her mind.

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Mirar@reddit

Exploding CD :D

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Montana_Ace@reddit

What was the myth again?

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mazzicc@reddit

Cd rom trays in computer spinning so fast the disc exploded and caused injury.

I forget what the result was. I want to say it was maybe plausible with a rare high speed system and a damaged disc, but not a real concern to normal people.

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RobKhonsu@reddit

I'm compelled to link a Slow Mo Guys video of them exploding a CD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7x1Hu29Wc

It is possible at very VERY high speeds, like you said maybe if a disk is very old it could happen at lower high speed readers, but it takes a lot of make them explode.

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Montana_Ace@reddit

Yeah, nowadays it may damage the computer (if it has a cd drive) but I doubt it flies through the computer with enough force to injure someone. Unless you attach the cd to a power drill and spin it as fast as possible like the slow mo guys did lol

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spider-nine@reddit

The slow mo guys used a motor from a Dyson? Vacuum cleaner that spins the fan at tens of thousands of rpm’s. Even a drill would not likely be fast enough. Maybe an angle grinder, which spins around 10,000 rpm

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GamePil@reddit

I actually experiences this first hand when I was a child. I was playing a game that was on a CD and somehow it broke in the drive and some pieces flew out the front. They didn't fly very far

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Nethiar@reddit

A friend of mine had a disc shatter in his computer. We heard a bang and a chunk of it came out, but with like no force it just sorta tumbled out.

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mazzicc@reddit

Even back then it was the case that the computer was the shield. A disc could break, but it wouldn’t hurt you.

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Elderberry-West@reddit

Franklins kite. Nobody uses that kind of string with kites anymore!

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LightlySaltedPeanuts@reddit

I went to the beach today and saw a group flying kites. I feel like I don’t see them much anymore. I see more drones than kites lol

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BSforgery@reddit

Season 15/20 (new hosts) was meant to premiere with “Dead body Double.” This was a test of using a human shield. A month and a half before this the Las Vegas shooting took place. During which people were forced to do just that. The episode was pushed back to episode 6 but feels kinda rough to have exist at all in proximity to that.

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ParticularCanary3130@reddit

Oh boy didn't know that. Crazy

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Offtherailspcast@reddit

Looking back, their use of pig carcasses really makes me uneasy and didn't age well. Tori in particular seems to find a certain glee in playing with the bodies and the narrator says "don't worry these pigs were headed to the slaughterhouse anyway" which is like, ok so they were still being murdered for food?

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