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Merged The MANDELA Effect.

Look, find me one person who was a resident/citizen/anything of South Africa in a timeframe ranging from, oh, around 1962 into recent years who believes Nelson Mandela was dead until 2013, when he "died again." That's all I'm saying. There's a reason this "effect" only happens with regard to stuff that's kind of peripheral to our daily lives. Like movies, book titles, ads, and foreign public figures. Our memory banks don't need that stuff, so it gets bungled and overwritten.

Do supporters of this Mandela Effect ever claim they wake up one day only to find that their car has a different license plate than they remember? That their spouse has a mustache when they didn't the prior evening? That arithmetic has changed? And if so, has schizophrenia been clinically ruled out?

I'm not being a dick. These are important questions to ask yourself if you're starting to accept this tosh.


ETA - And yes, yes - I'm aware of the semi-fringe Mandela Effect characters who claim things like the sun is brighter/colored differently than they remember, or New Zealand is in a different place on the map. The myriad possible explanations are still mundane as hell. Map scales are not all made by the same uniform process (some are more scale-accurate than others, etc.), human memories suck, most people don't gaze upon world maps that often, etc. (Does anyone from New Zealand think their country has moved? I'm honestly asking.) As for the sun, people's eyes often become less tolerant of bright lights as they age, human memory again sucks, people who are paranoid start to imagine crazy ****, probably global warming and the ozone layer's ailments, etc.

Seriously. If the people who are worried about this put half the time they dump into fantastical redditing volunteering at soup kitchens or some ****, this country might stop being the world's veritable Nickelback/Carrot Top/Carlos Mencia.
 
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I most admit, I am quite fascinated by the Mandela effect. It's like a crowd sourced Phillip K. Dick novel, or Fringe spin-off. And could possibly lead to new insights about the nature of the human mind.

But even ignoring all the quantum mysticism, there is need for skepticism. The claim is that "thousands" or even "millions" of people have the exact same wrong memory. But do they?

E.g the Berenstain Bears. I had never heard about them, but I googled and it's clear that people misspell their names in countless ways. It can be quite comical, people will swear they are excellent spellers and have very good memories and they vividly 120% remember it as Berenstein, then the next sentence they write Bernstein or Berenstien or even Bearstein.

Other ME's allow quite a lot of wiggle room. Nelson Mandela according to ME lore died "sometime in the 80's". But an ambiguous context-free quote from Google Books that mentions a date in 1991 somehow counts as a hit. New Zealand "moved" from somewhere else relative to Australia. Some say north, some west, northeast seems the most common, but they don't even give a ballpark figure for distance.

The inherent suggestibility of people also inflates the number of individuals who misremembers the same way.

And exaggeration by true believers, and bloggers who need clicks for their ads.
 
Thermal said:
Writing what out? He didn't say anything. If a link is deemed worthy of posting, shouldn't it contain...something? I am not objecting to the content. I object to the utter lack of it.
Click to expand...

it may not be the most exciting content, but it is content that is relevant to this thread,

that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.

which is something worth entertaining as a possibility IMO
 
isissxn said:
Do supporters of this Mandela Effect ever claim they wake up one day only to find that their car has a different license plate than they remember? That their spouse has a mustache when they didn't the prior evening? That arithmetic has changed? And if so, has schizophrenia been clinically ruled out?
Click to expand...

There are some who claim human anatomy has changed, e.g eye sockets and the location of the heart and other organs. To me (and a lot of patient commenters) it's a mix up of popular misconceptions about anatomy and surgery. And possibly a feeling of unease over their aging bodies.

There is a weird defensiveness among the ME supporters about not remembering everything perfectly, as though it equates to being crazy. It doesn't of course.

But then there is the ME-lore concept of "flip-flops". E.g a common ME belief is that Flint-stones used to be Flin-stones. Except some claim that they remember the discussion was reversed, the cartoon was called Flin-stones and people misrembered it as Flint-stones. I am wholly unqualified to diagnose anybody for schizophrenia, but this seems to indicate at least some form of cognitive problem.
 
isissxn said:
Seriously. If the people who are worried about this put half the time they dump into fantastical redditing volunteering at soup kitchens or some ****, this country might stop being the world's veritable Nickelback/Carrot Top/Carlos Mencia.
Click to expand...

Maybe this is how you remind them of what they really are.

Didactylos said:
But then there is the ME-lore concept of "flip-flops". E.g a common ME belief is that Flint-stones used to be Flin-stones. Except some claim that they remember the discussion was reversed, the cartoon was called Flin-stones and people misrembered it as Flint-stones. I am wholly unqualified to diagnose anybody for schizophrenia, but this seems to indicate at least some form of cognitive problem.
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It used to be the Flintsteins, Fred and Rebekah.
 
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but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
 
isissxn said:
ETA - And yes, yes - I'm aware of the semi-fringe Mandela Effect characters who claim things like the sun is brighter/colored differently than they remember, or New Zealand is in a different place on the map. The myriad possible explanations are still mundane as hell. Map scales are not all made by the same uniform process (some are more scale-accurate than others, etc.), human memories suck, most people don't gaze upon world maps that often, etc. (Does anyone from New Zealand think their country has moved? I'm honestly asking.) As for the sun, people's eyes often become less tolerant of bright lights as they age, human memory again sucks, people who are paranoid start to imagine crazy ****, probably global warming and the ozone layer's ailments, etc.
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Plenty of people in the chemtrails conspiracy crowd claim that they remember the sky being bluer, there being less clouds, there not being certain types of cloud, etc.

It's strange that arguing with a lot of people about the the foibles of human memory just makes them double down and assert louder that their memories are unassailably reliable.
 
Veliki George said:
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
Click to expand...

Link to those yahoo questions by any chance?

I'd bet anything they are confusing the sun character with the California Raisins, Two of which Wear sunglasses.

They also had some decals with the sun wearing glasses, It's a common joke.
 
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Nay_Sayer said:
Link to those yahoo questions by any chance?

I'd bet anything they are confusing the sun character with the California Raisins, Two of which Wear sunglasses.

They also had some decals with the sun wearing glasses, It's a common joke.
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I still can't send links, but just Google raisin bran sunglasses yahoo
 
esspee said:
that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.
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That's a very silly idea.

How exactly are people being made to falsely remember that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s? Whenever people look into it, they always find that there's no record of him dying in the 1980s. So where are the false memories coming from if they're the result of some bizarre experiment?

This makes no sense at all.
 
JesseCuster said:
That's a very silly idea.

How exactly are people being made to falsely remember that Nelson Mandela died in the 1980s? Whenever people look into it, they always find that there's no record of him dying in the 1980s. So where are the false memories coming from if they're the result of some bizarre experiment?

This makes no sense at all.
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i said some of the mandela effects.

Like the more simple ones that are to do with media, like spellings, names of products, things in popular culture such as Dolly's braces.

And there are many ways that memories could be altered, such as subliminal messages in mass media. And by subliminal i do not mean flashed images, i mean the more subtle and effective methods

Discussed in the video i posted
 
An rudimentary example of such an experiment could be the following:

A research group identifies something that the public regularly mix up.
Maybe 80% of people remember adult nappies as 'depend' and 20% as 'depends'.

Using various media sources and techniques they can try to alter this ratio within the population.

They can then measure the effectiveness of the effort and method by re-testing the population.
Maybe they shift the ratio to 60% thinking it is 'depend' and 40% 'depends'.

Just a very basic example to give you an idea of how this is NOT a silly idea.

Such technology if elaborated and developed to be very effective could have great potential for propaganda purposes, for engineering consent, for defense and military purposes and for influencing public opinion at home or abroad of historical events.
 
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Veliki George said:
but they say that Sunny guy from the raisin bran cereals lost his sunglasses.

Still, there are Yahoo question threads from ten years ago about why the sun is wearing glasses.
they say that skeptics can not explain that.
Im not American so Im not familiar with that brand.
Click to expand...
Here is a vintage Raisin Bran box, probably from the 1960s-70s. In later years the Sun character was given a more detailed face and open eyes. Kelloggs never put sunglasses on the Sun. But there certainly were Raisin characters with sunglasses. And that makes sense too because they become raisins by sitting beneath the bright sun.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2066/5737460613_2ce9fd207a.jpg
 
esspee said:
An rudimentary example of such an experiment could be the following:

A research group identifies something that the public regularly mix up.
Maybe 80% of people remember adult nappies as 'depend' and 20% as 'depends'.

Using various media sources and techniques they can try to alter this ratio within the population.

They can then measure the effectiveness of the effort and method by re-testing the population.
Maybe they shift the ratio to 60% thinking it is 'depend' and 40% 'depends'.
Click to expand...
So 'The Mandela Effect' is perhaps just making a few more people think incorrect things that some people already believe for well understood reasons? Can you explain how you think this actually works? Like hypothetical examples of how 'various media sources and techniques' (a rather uselessly vague phrase) could be utilised to perpetuate these false ideas without any record in the media of the false ideas actually existing in the media?

I've an idea myself for how you can get people to believe this kind of crap. Put up a post on Reddit claiming that you remember something that isn't true and before you know it, people will come crawling out from under the woodwork agreeing with you and saying they remember it as well. No need for grandiose social experiments involving placing false facts in the media (for which there's no evidence anyway).

Such technology if elaborated and developed to be very effective could have great potential for propaganda purposes, for engineering consent, for defense and military purposes and for influencing public opinion at home or abroad of historical events.
Click to expand...
The fact that you can imagine up some potential use of some imagined experiment for which you have no evidence does not make it at all plausible. Lots of silly ideas would be useful to lots of people if they were true. That doesn't mean they aren't silly ideas.
 
esspee said:
it may not be the most exciting content, but it is content that is relevant to this thread,
Click to expand...

Yeah, but there was no actual content. Nothing but some vague musings while walking dogs. Pisses me off to have wasted almost 4 minutes of my time above ground. The only upshot is that I know now not you watch vids you link. Was that your desired outcome? It is the predictable one.

that being the possibility that some of these mandela effects are the result of large scale experimentation in suggestibility and exploration into the mechanics of altering the memory of societies and individuals.

which is something worth entertaining as a possibility IMO
Click to expand...

It is a possibility. Is there evidence of such experimentation? If not, it is the equivalent of speculating that alternate universes are colliding. Unless speculation provides some new perspective, it doesn't help much. Paranoid speculation only sheds light on being paranoid.
 
Checkmite said:
It is stupid.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the "parallel universe travel" explanation of the Mandela Effect was originally proposed as a joke. I could be wrong about that - but see that's the thing; in the "home universe" that I originally came from, sometimes a person would misremember things and someone else could come along and say "no that's wrong it was this way, see look at these old things" and the first person would say "oh I see, obviously I misremembered, thanks for clearing that up for me". But obviously I've now slipped into a parallel world where when people remember something one way and are then given evidence that their memory is wrong, they now just insist their memory is impeccable and it's reality that is obviously wrong.
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I think it is ego but much more banal than your explanation. People just can seem to accept that their memory is as bad as everyone else's.
Unfortunately parallel-universe slippage isn't the only explanation that crackpots have envisioned for the Mandela Effect. There's also a significant number of others who seem to believe that some unknown force is deliberately editing historical events, things like movie lines and children's author's names, and others' memories of same, for potentially diabolical reasons.
Click to expand...
Sure, they start out with trivia to prepare the ground for much bigger changes for.....reasons....profit....?
 
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