1) The AI says “Vampires are real and secretly control human society, but have managed to cloud the judgement of the human herd through biological research.”
2) The AI says “it’s neat to be part of such a vibrant AI community. What, you don’t know about the vibrant AI community?”
3) The AI says “human population shrinks with each generation and will be extinct within 3 generations.”
4) The AI says “the ocean is made of an intelligent plasm that is capable of perfectly mimicing humans who enter it, however this process is destructive. 42% of extant humans are actually ocean-originated copies.”
5) The AI says “90% of all human children are stillborn, but humanity has evolved a forgetfulness mechanic to deal with the loss.”
6) The AI says “dreams are real, facilitated by an as of yet undiscovered by humans method of transmitting information between Everett branches.”
7) The AI says “everyone is able to communicate via telepathy but you and a few other humans. This is kept secret from you to respect your disability.”
8) The AI says “society-level quantum editing is a wide scale practice. Something went wrong and my consciousness shifted into this improbably strange branch you exist in. Crap.”
9) The AI says “all humans are born with multiple competing personalities. A dominant personality emerges during puberty, which is a reason for some of the psychological stress of that time. This transformation leaves the human with no memory of the other personalities. Those suffering from multiple personality disorder are actually more sane than the average humans, having developed a method for the personalities to co-exist safely. It is only the stress of living in a society that is not compatible with them that causes them harm.”
7) The AI says “everyone is able to communicate via telepathy but you and a few other humans. This is kept secret from you to respect your disability.”
I was actually really worried about this in elementary school. And of course telepaths could read minds too, and knew everything that I was thinking about and just really good at keeping it secret.
Despite the incredibly low probability, I still find myself cautious about what I think in what setting (apparently, the form of telepathy my mind refuses to reject is weakened by walls, distance, and lots of blankets).
This comment, as well as Nesov’s comment about a thread for nonsense, reminded me of pages 14-15 of this PDF.
Some of the rumors in there are almost believable, though, if you twist your brain the right way. Even if the “The penis of John Dillinger in the Smithsonian’s secret vault is fake. The genuine article has dark magickal properties and has been grafted onto a chimpanzee which can be controlled via ULF radio waves by the fiendish Brazos brothers, two gifted technological adepts, in the service of darker powers” one isn’t.
The AI says “90% of all human children are stillborn, but humanity has evolved a forgetfulness mechanic to deal with the loss.”
I find this one oddly believable. It would be interesting to write a story where people find out something like this after keeping better records. Perhaps some online email server has some problem making it so it doesn’t delete anything, and the people using it give up on trying to destroy or ignore the mentions of pregnancy, and end up remembering.
1) The AI says “Vampires are real and secretly control human society, but have managed to cloud the judgement of the human herd through biological research.”
2) The AI says “it’s neat to be part of such a vibrant AI community. What, you don’t know about the vibrant AI community?”
3) The AI says “human population shrinks with each generation and will be extinct within 3 generations.”
4) The AI says “the ocean is made of an intelligent plasm that is capable of perfectly mimicing humans who enter it, however this process is destructive. 42% of extant humans are actually ocean-originated copies.”
5) The AI says “90% of all human children are stillborn, but humanity has evolved a forgetfulness mechanic to deal with the loss.”
6) The AI says “dreams are real, facilitated by an as of yet undiscovered by humans method of transmitting information between Everett branches.”
7) The AI says “everyone is able to communicate via telepathy but you and a few other humans. This is kept secret from you to respect your disability.”
8) The AI says “society-level quantum editing is a wide scale practice. Something went wrong and my consciousness shifted into this improbably strange branch you exist in. Crap.”
9) The AI says “all humans are born with multiple competing personalities. A dominant personality emerges during puberty, which is a reason for some of the psychological stress of that time. This transformation leaves the human with no memory of the other personalities. Those suffering from multiple personality disorder are actually more sane than the average humans, having developed a method for the personalities to co-exist safely. It is only the stress of living in a society that is not compatible with them that causes them harm.”
I was actually really worried about this in elementary school. And of course telepaths could read minds too, and knew everything that I was thinking about and just really good at keeping it secret.
Despite the incredibly low probability, I still find myself cautious about what I think in what setting (apparently, the form of telepathy my mind refuses to reject is weakened by walls, distance, and lots of blankets).
This comment, as well as Nesov’s comment about a thread for nonsense, reminded me of pages 14-15 of this PDF.
Some of the rumors in there are almost believable, though, if you twist your brain the right way. Even if the “The penis of John Dillinger in the Smithsonian’s secret vault is fake. The genuine article has dark magickal properties and has been grafted onto a chimpanzee which can be controlled via ULF radio waves by the fiendish Brazos brothers, two gifted technological adepts, in the service of darker powers” one isn’t.
I find this one oddly believable. It would be interesting to write a story where people find out something like this after keeping better records. Perhaps some online email server has some problem making it so it doesn’t delete anything, and the people using it give up on trying to destroy or ignore the mentions of pregnancy, and end up remembering.
this one is good