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Crazy Coincidences

Matthew Ellard said:
Your parents didn't accidentally set up an automatic payment to their phone account. They had to concentrate and enter their account details.

They can simply check this by asking the phone company.
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I just heard it was actually the cable bill. Also, that's kinda depressing. I still don't get why neither remembered it, especially since neither had any interest in setting this up
 
alfaniner said:
Things like items in the news don't count as coincidences. Like, I've recently seen a lot of articles about a famous football (soccer) player, a person I'd never heard of before. Well, I probably did in his heyday, but the name never registered since I don't follow the sport. Coincidence? No, he died.

Similar with any mention of Covid-19. Why, a year ago you never heard anything about it!

(eta) I swear the previous post was not up yet when I started typing mine. COINCIDENCE!!!
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Wait are you mentioning my original comment about Mardona? That's pretty crazy, no? Also I thought this was responding to my original comment about him
 
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DebunkThisPls said:
I just heard it was actually the cable bill. Also, that's kinda depressing. I still don't get why neither remembered it, especially since neither had any interest in setting this up
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Cable companies are EVIL. Seriously, if any utility was going to fraudulently enroll me in autopay, it would be the cable company.;)
 
Minoosh said:
Cable companies are EVIL. Seriously, if any utility was going to fraudulently enroll me in autopay, it would be the cable company.;)
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I just got some information from our cable company, it's much easier than others suggested. It just takes a click of a button and it gives you a choice to fill out the info accordingly or it just goes to default, which is why it was forgotten and at $360 instead of $180
 
Minoosh said:
I was sort of joking, riffing on other comments. But at the risk of offering up another pointless anecdote: A few weeks ago I picked up a prescription, and lost it; I had refills, so the pharmacy filled it again - AND I LOST IT. I *still* had refills, but then the doc said maybe I shouldn't be on this medication - he was worried about my absentmindedness; he didn't want to miss anything if I was having bad side effects. Well, a couple of days later one of the bottles turned up, but the date made no sense and five pills were gone which should have been impossible.

To cut the anecdote short it was a complete mystery. The fill date does not match my memory of either of the lost refills, and the pill count is off. If I were one to assign cosmic meaning I might wonder if the "universe" wanted me to get off this drug. But if so, why did it throw the bottle back at me :confused:?

I'm not automatically hostile to the idea that the universe is sending me messages, and I know people who talk this way all the time. But ultimately I don't have the kind of brain that can really believe it, either. When I talk like that, I'm speaking ironically. :)
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Was it a statin? After several memory glitches like the ones you describe (the worst of which were two TGAs) I was starting to think I was in the early stages of dementia so I did some research, and discovered there was evidence, albeit entirely anecdotal, of a link between statins and memory/cognitive problems. I was sceptical, but decided it was worth doing the experiment of stopping taking it for a month to see if that helped, whilst being alert to the existence of confirmation bias, the nocebo effect etc. All I can say is that I'm never taking a statin again. It was as if a fog, which had descended so gradually I hadn't even noticed, had suddenly lifted.
 
Pixel42 said:
Was it a statin? After several memory glitches like the ones you describe (the worst of which were two TGAs) I was starting to think I was in the early stages of dementia so I did some research, and discovered there was evidence, albeit entirely anecdotal, of a link between statins and memory/cognitive problems. I was sceptical, but decided it was worth doing the experiment of stopping taking it for a month to see if that helped, whilst being alert to the existence of confirmation bias, the nocebo effect etc. All I can say is that I'm never taking a statin again. It was as if a fog, which had descended so gradually I hadn't even noticed, had suddenly lifted.
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It wasn't a statin; it was an old-style antidepressant prescribed off-label for sleep. I never (that I can remember ;) ) had anything like global amnesia, but it was a type of medication that could cause situational amnesia.

I'm leery of statins too, and am WAY overdue for all checkups including bloodwork and never want to be a statin; the benefit isn't well understood and I have heard many things about adverse affects.
 
Minoosh said:
It wasn't a statin; it was an old-style antidepressant prescribed off-label for sleep. I never (that I can remember ;) ) had anything like global amnesia, but it was a type of medication that could cause situational amnesia.

I'm leery of statins too, and am WAY overdue for all checkups including bloodwork and never want to be a statin; the benefit isn't well understood and I have heard many things about adverse affects.
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Do you think it's ok if I use your story for a thread? I was curious about it and wanted some opinions for how it could've happened. If you say no I totally understand. Thanks
 
Pixel42 said:
Was it a statin? After several memory glitches like the ones you describe (the worst of which were two TGAs) I was starting to think I was in the early stages of dementia so I did some research, and discovered there was evidence, albeit entirely anecdotal, of a link between statins and memory/cognitive problems. I was sceptical, but decided it was worth doing the experiment of stopping taking it for a month to see if that helped, whilst being alert to the existence of confirmation bias, the nocebo effect etc. All I can say is that I'm never taking a statin again. It was as if a fog, which had descended so gradually I hadn't even noticed, had suddenly lifted.
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Do you have a theory on how the story he mentioned might've happened? It seems kinda crazy that he wouldve forgotten the dates of both, where he put them, and that he had taken 5 pills
 
I was talking with my brother about this and he reminded me of a tale my late great-uncle used to trot out about twice a year. My great-uncle (call him Sam) swore it was absolutely true.

OK, he grew up poor, but when he was a senior in his high school, he took a part-time job JUST to afford a senior-class ring. It came with his name and graduation date inscribed on the inside.

Fast forward about ten years. He got married, got a good job, and he started to prosper. He had always loved fishing, and as a deferred honeymoon, he and his wife went on a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they went deep-sea fishing. He hooked something and was so excited that he grabbed at the heavy fishing line. Before he knew it, the line whipped off his beloved class ring, and it plopped into the ocean.

He missed it, but bore with the loss. More years passed. By the time their oldest son was graduating from college, Sam and his wife were well-off. Upper-middle-class or better. As a graduation present to HIS son, Sam took the whole family on a two-week trip to Hawaii (this would have been maybe 1980 or so). Sam's son didn't really like fishing, but Sam insisted they go deep-sea fishing. His son hooked a fish, and Sam pulled it in.

This company let you dress and cook any fish you legally caught yourself. There was a big barbecue-type area set up, and Sam insisted on gutting and fileting his catch. He had the big fish on a huge table. With a sharp filet knife, he slit into the fish's belly and started to gut it, when to his amazement he felt the knife cut into something hard!

It was his thumb.
 
I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this lol. Hope he was okay but how did his thumb get in the fish? I assumed when he was gutting it he stuck his thumb in by mistake?
 
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It was the way he explained that his left thumb was missing the last joint. The story was hogwash--he lost it when someone slammed a car door on it, my great-aunt told us.
 
DebunkThisPls said:
Do you have a theory on how the story he mentioned might've happened? It seems kinda crazy that he wouldve forgotten the dates of both, where he put them, and that he had taken 5 pills
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We simply don't have enough information to work out what happened, and we have no way to gather more. That doesn't mean there isn't an explanation, just that we're unlikely to ever know what it is.
 
DebunkThisPls said:
Ah, I understand. It is a funny story though, thanks for sharing
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It's an old joke format that people my parents age (80s) refer to as a "shaggy dog story". You tell a long and detailed story that shows every hallmark of being perfectly serious, then you turn it around with a totally left-field punchline.
 
I've just seen the author Liu Cixin mentioned twice in a single day. It's been weeks since I've seen him mentioned even once.

Coincidence? Yeah.
 
arthwollipot said:
I've just seen the author Liu Cixin mentioned twice in a single day. It's been weeks since I've seen him mentioned even once.

Coincidence? Yeah.
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Yeah. I've also noticed that people tend to apply simple probability to events that might make more sense if looked at with Bayesian probability. For example, someone mentioned an author. There are x published authors therefore the probability of the same author being mentioned twice is x2. Yeah there are other problems with that example.

But not all authors have the same probability. An author is more likely to be mentioned if

they're popular
they're in the news
something similar to something they wrote is in the news
someone with a name like them or one of their characters is in the news or was mentioned earlier.
etc
 
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