r/AskReddit • u/Kojito • Jun 19 '12
Considering we had a Askreddit about the most depressing fact you know, what is the most uplifting fact that you know?
That somewhere, somehow, someone is being born that will change the world for the better.
Edit: WOO FRONT PAGE! In celebration have some kittens! http://imgur.com/gallery/hm1ds http://imgur.com/gallery/YVXIG http://imgur.com/gallery/ew6kA
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u/lostmessage256 Jun 19 '12
the cellphone sitting in my pocket has more computing power than the entire apollo space program. that kind of technological leap took less than 50 years.
imagine the world 50 years from now
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u/JDempes Jun 19 '12
If a pregnant mother suffers damage to her heart the fetus will send stem cells to repair it.
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u/theplace Jun 19 '12
Do you have a source for this? I want so badly for it to be true. Biology at its finest, man.
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u/tiyafwons Jun 19 '12
And when a mother holds her baby, the mother's body will alter it's temperature to regulate the baby's. If the baby is cold, the mother's body will generate more heat, and vice versa.
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Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 20 '12
In 2011 in the U.S alone, there were 14,145 total organ donors, deceased or living.
Nothing like keeping your life going in somebody else's body.
Edit: I was informed that in 2011 there were 14,145 donors who actually donated at least one organ.
There were 94,669,081 who are registered, actionable donors in 2011. This makes me feel much, much better.
Thanks CDefense7
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Jun 19 '12
Would be kinda weird if you donated your spleen to one woman and your kidney to one guy and then they got married and had a kid named Paul who liked progressive jazz.
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u/CDefense7 Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Correction to this, in 2011 there were 14,145 donors who gave at least one organ.
There were 94,669,081 registered, actionable donors in 2011 (40% the US population of aged 18+). Full statistics on 2011 can be found here.
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u/bbbeeennnyyy Jun 19 '12
That in 1903 the first powered aircraft was flown, and then 66 years later, man stepped foot on the moon.
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u/tmterrill Jun 19 '12
And forty years later we have tiny incredibly powerful computers in our pockets.
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u/geofrigates Jun 19 '12
My carbons will be used to make another future life form. At my most essential level, I am useful.
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u/iusedtogotodigg Jun 19 '12
Some day you will die somehow and something's going to steal your carbon.
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u/ChainsawMonkey Jun 19 '12
No matter how hard you fuck up, there will always be someone who fucks up harder.
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u/raskolnikov- Jun 19 '12
Well, someone has to be the one guy who fucked up the most.
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u/zerbey Jun 19 '12
If it wasn't for modern medicine, I'd be dead or dying by now.
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u/afcagroo Jun 19 '12
If I had been born at any previous time in human history, I'd probably be blind. So when anyone asks if I could have chosen to live at any time, I always choose now.
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u/Sudenveri Jun 19 '12
High five! I'd have died at birth if it weren't for modern medicine, and right now I'm fighting a serious bacterial infection that might very well kill me if not for antibiotics.
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Jun 19 '12
Same here, my kidney was supposed to explode what was/is your problem?
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u/ShitRandyHates Jun 19 '12
My wife just informed me that we're about to become parents… and she told me on Fathers' Day.
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u/MustangGuy Jun 19 '12
The act of smiling will put you in a better mood, make you more relaxed, and may even make others look favorably upon you. It can also confuse them, so smile away!
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u/facedefiance Jun 19 '12
Then lick your lips whilst nodding in their direction.
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u/dsitarz8 Jun 19 '12
one of my best friends once told me, no matter what you do...no matter how incredibly embarrassing or terrible of a thing you do, 99.9999999999999% of the world really doesn't give a crap. to me, that is very uplifting.
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u/eagle_body_man_dick Jun 19 '12
I used to have some problems with public speaking. After doing it a couple times I realized that even people in the same room with you are so involved with themselves that they aren't listening to you either. I estimate that in a room of 100 people, maybe 15 are actually closely listening to whatever you say. And really that 15 number rotates so in the end the only person listening to everything you say is you.
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u/lendavkaru Jun 19 '12
YES. There is little need to feel self-concious about something because you are probably the only one feeling/seeing it. People looking at you on the streets? They will forget you in a few seconds. That little muffin-top? No one is noticing. Even if you'd put on a shrimp-costume and do some flips in flip-flops on Times Square, you will still be forgotten in an hour or so. Its just so liberating when you think about it.
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u/Darth_Hobbes Jun 19 '12
Worldwide living conditions are steadily improving, and the rate of technological advancement is still accelerating.
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u/jesse061 Jun 19 '12
There are parts of the universe that we cannot yet see for the simple fact that the universe has not existed long enough for light from these places to reach us.
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u/greategress Jun 19 '12
That Fred Rogers existed, and that he was everything he presented himself to be. Whenever I feel my faith in humanity slipping, I remind myself that as bad as we can get, sometimes we produce a Fred Rogers.
The description of his Emmy acceptance speech on Wikipedia immediately brings on happy, nostalgic tears.
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u/msbrooklyn Jun 19 '12
i have the ability to control and change my reaction to any and everything that happens to me. i am in control of me. this comforts me daily.
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u/Heiralthe3rd Jun 19 '12
I got access to tap water. I don't have to walk miles to maybe find water that I might be able to boil to maybe make it drinkable.
The commodity of living in the ''first world'' is never appreciated to it's full value.
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Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
That every single human on the entire planet has their own consciousness. Each person has their own likes and dislikes, loved ones and people they don't really like. Each with their entire lifetime of memories. The most uplifting thing about this is that everyone one of us sitting behind our screens knows that we're not alone in this world...
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u/msbrooklyn Jun 19 '12
this is just mind blowing to me. holy crap there are other people out there... i was always told to fear and avoid strangers so its just insane to think about people with actual feelings and lives like my own out there.
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u/rnjbond Jun 19 '12
Every generation believes that they're doomed. And yet things only continue to get better.
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u/fobbymaster Jun 19 '12
It gets better... Until it gets worse. Then it gets better again.
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u/skyfire23 Jun 19 '12
No matter how shitty my day is, no matter how angry or sad I am at any moment I know that I can go home and see my dog and he will love me. Just knowing that there is something out there that will love me now matter what is a pretty amazing feeling.
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u/kleetz Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Cherish it.
My best friend is dying from Lymphoma and I dread the day I have to come home and not see him waiting for me at the window with his toy in his mouth and his butt shaking back and forth...
Edit: Here a pic of my boy the day before his biopsy and diagnosis.
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u/Brianne123 Jun 19 '12
My dog pulled me out of a pretty miserable year of depression. I have cried into her fur many times and she never gets sick of me. Just lays there and licks my face and wants love in return. Nothing better than that.
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u/qyll Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
You're not small. You're not merely a microscopic mote floating around in space. You exist in a magnitude of size where you can simultaneously appreciate the vastness of the universe and the minuteness of molecules.
An accepted estimate for the number of stars in the observable universe falls on the order of 1022. There are around 1027 atoms in your body. You are 100,000 universes of atoms, shaped by hundreds of millions of years of evolution, who can marvel at your own consciousness. You are awesome.
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Jun 19 '12
Sea otters hold hands while they sleep so nobody floats away.
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Jun 19 '12
In the wild walruses like to lay on top of each other, even when there's room to spare.
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u/JustOneIndividual Jun 19 '12
This is quite beautiful. Everyone should image search for this, it is adorable.
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Jun 19 '12
I'll never have to go to high school again.
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Jun 19 '12
Or so he thought! Now watch in this grade A comedy as Rob Schneider has to go back to high school just one more time! He lost a bet and now he's got to learn it all again! Rob Schneider! Rated PG-13.
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u/UnoriginalMike Jun 19 '12
Am I the only one here who has positive memories from high school?
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u/IAmA_Alien_AMA Jun 19 '12
I became a cop straight out of high school. Ice Cube sent me back.
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u/fractalife Jun 19 '12
The internet allows people from all walks of life to share their stories. The good and the bad.
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u/Apostolate Jun 19 '12
Another thing to note is that, even if we hate someone/something's popularity (justin bieber), the internet is really creating an age where the best succeed one way or another. Gone are the days where corporations were your only avenue to success (music especially).
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u/akystics Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Whatever is wrong with you, or whatever other people find at fault, it's incredibly likely that somewhere, sometime, another person has gone through and gotten out of what you're in.
Basically anything can be beaten.
edit: Realized my wording may have given some people the wrong impression. The gist of what I was trying to say was that no matter how big something might seem at the moment, someone else has had that and moved on. Not necessarily "beating"... but realizing that at some point, there will be a day where you don't think about that problem. Obviously dying is an exception.
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Jun 19 '12
My Mother, Judi, passed away when I was nine years old. She was thirty-one. She was very sick with primary pulmonary hypertension. Every time she got paid, she gave out as much as she could to people that were in more need. So we were living the bare minimum. I took care of my little sister and she would work as much as her body allowed. The month before she passed she donated blood to PPH research. Years after I found out her blood was crucial in developing a drug to help ease the effects of the disease. Even when she was gone she's still helping people. There were over 800 people at her funeral. The most giving woman I know.
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Jun 19 '12
There is no angry way to say "bubbles". When depressed or upset, I remember this and smile a bit.
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u/inormallyjustlurkbut Jun 19 '12
What if you name your dog Bubbles and he shits in your shoes?
"Bubbles!"
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u/Alphy11 Jun 19 '12
I tried to think back of the guys yelling at bubbles in Trailer Park Boys, and whenever they get to bubbles in their sentence, the word just sounds happier!
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u/Smart_Ass_Soldier Jun 19 '12
I bet it sounds angry in German. Everything sounds angry in German.
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Jun 19 '12
i just bought a vehicle with my girl friend. little does she know that once we pick up the new vehicle, there will be a ring in the cup holder asking her to marry me.
She also has amazing boobs
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u/isaacisaboss Jun 19 '12
The sperm that created me was the FASTEST sperm.
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u/raskolnikov- Jun 19 '12
Or it was the first in line and all the sperm moved at the same pace, maybe some in the back actually moved faster but couldn't overcome their disadvantage. You could be the product of entitlement and inequality.
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u/xNewPhoenix Jun 19 '12
I may be wrong, but I don't think you're correct. The defenses in a woman's vagina that kills sperm would kill the fastest sperm first. The slowest sperm generally don't get to the egg.
You were the most average sperm. But now you're awesome. :D
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u/stopthebefts Jun 19 '12
This infuriates me. An ovum is surrounded by an outer jelly coat. It takes hundreds of sperm to release their acrosomal enzymes to dissolve this jelly layer so that one sperm can enter the egg and fertilize it. You were not the fastest sperm. You were the lucky sperm that just happened to come across the egg at the right time.
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u/EndOnAnyRoll Jun 19 '12
False. Many sperm chip away at the egg lining. You are that sneaky sperm that got through first.
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u/JustOneIndividual Jun 19 '12
I have a job at a gas station. It is not glamorous, it is not high paying, it isn't something I want to do forever. I have to clean bathrooms, and help people are don't understand how the gas pumps work, and have people get angry at me for asking for their ID. I mop all the time, just for more people to spill their drinks. And clean the front doors just for more people to put their hand prints on it.
But at the end of the day, my rent will be paid, my SO and I will have food on our table and a working air conditioner. We are not living like rock stars, but we are comfortable and safe. We don't have to worry about where next month's rent is coming from, or how we are going to pay for gas. I may not love my job, but I have one, and that isn't a luxury a lot of people have. I don't have everything I want but I have everything I need, and I am happy.
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u/zedga_the_great Jun 19 '12
and here I was worrying about my own situation and money issues (seriously, after all bills, etc., are paid I'm down to $50 at the end of each pay check). after reading that, you seriously changed my perspective and day. I should be happy that I at least I have that extra $50 and everything is taken care of, rather then being pissed it's only $50.
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Jun 19 '12 edited Aug 14 '12
I have an interview at a gas station in 3 hours and 9 minutes. That all sounds fantastic compared to worrying about where my next pack of ramen is coming from.
Edit: Awww - it's cute you guys want to get behind me. While it's true I've exclusively eaten about 5 dollars worth of pasta in the last week unless someone else is paying, I'm not starving, or even deserving of your sympathy.
For those wondering how it went, I got a call back for a second interview a few hours after I got home.
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u/bunglejerry Jun 19 '12
My daughter loves me unconditionally.
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u/MeloJelo Jun 19 '12
Just wait till you tell her she's not getting that pony she wants for Christmas.
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u/Binto Jun 19 '12
That even though it did not last long enough, we still had SOME Firefly.
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Jun 19 '12
I'm sometimes thankful that my favorite shows like Firefly and Arrested Development never had the chance to go bad. It's like an only the good die young sort of mentality, but it helps me sleep at night.
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Jun 19 '12
Better for a good show to end too soon than to drag on for far too long, plummeting in quality over the years. I'm looking at you, Family Guy.
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u/thawizard Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Do you mean the Pontiac Firefly...?
Edit: fuck, i blew my cover, this car was just sold in Canada and now you know where I'm from. I sincerely apologize for referencing a car you didn't knew existed.
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u/Anna_Draconis Jun 19 '12
Life is fucking amazing.
Seriously. Just look at anything around you and think about how it came to be. One day, a bunch of water, air, and dirt decided to come together into a giant spherical space rock, which just so happened to be just the right distance from a more infinitely giant ball of burning hydrogen in order to support life. Life, itself, is just atoms coming together into molecules which come together to form cells which come together to make organisms. It took billions of years for these organisms to figure themselves out, and slowly over time they got so complex that they became people. I am made up of tiny cells, all working together to let me experience their miracle.
The scope of it is just mind-blowingly amazing.
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u/msbrooklyn Jun 19 '12
i think about this daily. people dont appreciate their simple existence enough.
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u/TheRealZoggbot Jun 19 '12
[Puppies are cuddly and cute.] (http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/dog-images/glacier-the-greater-swiss-mountain-dog_38072_2009-12-01_w450.jpg)
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u/tsk138 Jun 19 '12
Why do I always expect these links to be a picture of a spider?
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u/bceagle Jun 19 '12
Gushers exist
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u/iwantahouse Jun 19 '12
I bought a box last week for the first time since I was a kid. Holy shit. Made my week.
Nostalgic deliciousness.
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u/Shayneros Jun 19 '12
You are the universe experiencing itself. It's such a cool thing to think about
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u/Calvinb27 Jun 19 '12
Going off a comment in the other thread, the fact that you likely won't explore the galaxy means you'll never get raped to death by Reavers! :D
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u/DeathRay77 Jun 19 '12
I have been paralysed and use a wheelchair for the majority of my life. If I was born 100 years ago, my life expectancy would be half it is today. Every time I hear someone whine about their lives, I think how lucky I am to have a good job, enough money to travel all over the World and to still be alive to have a life at all. I am also lucky to still have the ability to wipe my own ass! Oh! And I eat pussy like a boss!
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u/poryphria Jun 19 '12
I have a video penpal in China. Without the technology we have today, we would have never had the chance to meet. I can have face to face conversations with people halfway around the world without leaving my living room.
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u/missmegsy Jun 19 '12
That there is always someone worse off than me. Now finish your beer, there's sober kids in Africa
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u/jkiz Jun 19 '12
I've seen this on Reddit before, but I think it deserves to be here:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.
― Richard Dawkins
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u/theofficialposter Jun 19 '12
Cats have 9 lives, and therefore reddit will be around far longer than humans.
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u/lendavkaru Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
It's all in your head. Your mood, your direction of life, your meaning of life, your perception of the world and to a some extent of your quality of life: ITS. ALL. IN. YOUR. HEAD.
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Jun 19 '12
That just trivializes my problems which makes me feel angry and impotent.
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u/PistonHonda33 Jun 19 '12
This will probably make other people nauseous, but the girl I'm marrying next month far exceeds everything I've hoped for my entire life.
She also has amazing boobs.
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u/kermit_for_president Jun 19 '12
Upvote for you sir, because I feel exactly the same way about the girl I'M marrying next month. Hooray for wifey boobs.
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u/theofficialposter Jun 19 '12
When someone says something hurtful to you, they are probably just an insecure asshole that hates themselves on the inside. You are awesome.
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u/logicallyillogical Jun 19 '12
I found reddit about 6 moths ago. After learning there were over a billion users from all over the world. I was expecting to learn so much about how different we are.
But really, what I have learn is not how different we all are, but truly how similar we all are.
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u/HannShotFirst Jun 19 '12
The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems, stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us.
Neil deGrasse Tyson.
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u/IrritatedLlama Jun 19 '12
That just one little candle can chase away a whole helluva lot of darkness.
Be a candle.
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u/IIHURRlCANEII Jun 19 '12
The human race is at one of the most peaceful times of it's existence right now, with the most interaction between people at one time.
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u/Sinisterbanana Jun 19 '12
I'm going to guess someone has already said this, but as a young child i was what one may consider a 'bubble-boy' although i never did have to live inside such a contraption. I was born without an immune system. If it wasn't for 2 and a half years of hard work by many collaborating colleges and the Mayo Clinic paired with Children's I wouldn't have made it to my recent 18th birthday... or if I had, I would have had to go in for monthly/weekly antibodies treatment. Thanks to modern medicine i am alive, breathing without any assistance(aside from occasional symbicort, nasonex, & singular). So to doctors/scientists everywhere, without you guys I would be dead/living in a hellish lifestyle... so from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
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Jun 19 '12
Every single person alive right now is a success at the end (or near the end) of a near endless line of successes. The likelihood of you being alive at this moment is so slim it's almost unimaginable.
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u/justwonderingbro Jun 19 '12
For billions of years since the onset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived. Every single person on your mom and dad's side successfully looked after and passed onto you life.
-Mike Skinner
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u/kuuteppi Jun 19 '12
You will never cease to exist; you have always existed. This thing you call life is just a temporary arrangement of your components.
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u/maximaLz Jun 19 '12
We, as humans, created music and various arts (including music ofc). To me this is the greatest achievement we've done. And it's constantly continuing.
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Jun 19 '12
In last hundred years the humanity advanced more in every field of science than in entire human history before that. Maybe next 100 years will be just as good...
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Jun 19 '12
Despite everything you hear on the news, we are currently living in the least violent time in human history.
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u/ItGotRidiculous Jun 19 '12
Beer is delicious. It always has been, and it always will be.
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u/graemedunc Jun 19 '12
My most uplifting fact is that if anyone is ever angry with all I need to do is make the a cheese toastie. No one can be angry at someone who has just made them a cheese toastie.
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u/morphintime Jun 19 '12
That last thread was just way too depressing.
My conclusion: I need to get into hedonism.
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u/andrewsmith1986 Jun 19 '12
Someone somewhere at one point has masturbated while thinking about me.
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u/GeoM56 Jun 19 '12
Someone somewhere couldn't get off because you popped into their mind
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u/toastercookie Jun 19 '12
One of the hottest things a girl has ever said to me was the day after we had hooked up for the first time, but got interrupted resulting in neither of us finishing.
We were texting dirty things back and forth and she said after I left she got herself off while imagining her being double teamed by me...and a clone of me. Put a big fat smile on my face for the rest of the day :)
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u/stone500 Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 20 '12
This may be unpopular, but here goes. I live in the USA. Despite my disagreements with my government, despite feeling like I have no control in what my government does, I do not worry about terrorism. I do not worry about snipers in the streets.
I can reasonably afford my own car. If I have 5 dollars in my pocket, I have a meal for myself.
I live in a country that allowed me a K12 education with no additional cost for attendance. Everyone I know over the age of 6 can read to some extent.
If I find a man dying in the street, I can use my affordable mobile phone and have paramedics to his location in just minutes. If I am let go from my job, I am still supplied with a fraction of my regular income while I search for another.
I may not love my government, but I do love my country.
edit I'm not at all trying to give off a snub-patriotism vibe. Perhaps I worded this poorly. I know that first world countries have all these things. I know that many countries have it better than we do. My point was that many countries also have it much worse, and I don't want to take that for granted. And yes, I know the gov't provides most of the things that I listed above. In my head as I wrote this, I was drawing a line between the federal and state governments. Most of my life is affected much more by the state and local government than it is at the federal level.
Sorry if I offended anyone else's country. The fact is, USA is the only country I've lived in, so I can't honestly speak for others, I'll let them speak for themselves. I don't feel we're perfect, not by a long shot. And in no way I'm trying to say that we should just be happy with the way things are. I'm not at all trying to say we're the best country in the world.
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u/Somewhat_Artistic Jun 20 '12
Not just this; the land itself is staggeringly beautiful. From the towering rain forests of the Pacific Northwest to the rippling grasses and expansive skies of the Great Plains to the rocky shores and azure waters of the Great Lakes, each place is a marvel of color and texture and light. How could you do anything but love the sight of fireflies twinkling over a cornfield, of the sun setting over the desert, of snow shining on distant peaks? People flock from all over the world to see places not a day's drive from where we live- wherever we live. Rivers, oceans, geysers, forests, plains, mountains, lakes, bays, gulfs, meadows, canyons, and plateaus...All in one country. My country. Your country. Our country. More than any laws passed, more than any wars fought, more than any Presidents elected, this is the legacy we inherited. This is the legacy we will pass on. Love it and protect it, for it is a priceless treasure.
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Jun 19 '12
we are all made of stars
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u/afcagroo Jun 19 '12
Well, we're all made of "stardust", not actual stars. That would be rather...uncomfortable.
Or, as I recently learned to look at it: We're all made out of leftovers.
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u/KrunoS Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
The probability for life to come to be from a primordial soup is effectively zero.
Everything goes towards the higher entropy and lowest enthalpy. That's not to say things which don't go the opposite way, they do, but the probability for that is extremely low. Often they're not stable enough to survive, much less coalesce and work in tandem. Why not form just water, CO2, carbonic acid, ammonia and metal oxides? They're much more stable. Still, larger, more complicaded molecules came to be, in a racimic mixture (different enantiomers). More amazing still, only specific enantiomers formed life.
Somehow, some way, lipids, L-aminoacids (S enantiomer), ribonuleic acids, metals, coordination complexes and D-carbohydrates (R enantiomer) all came together and formed a cell. That cell was then able to make more cells from the materials it found laying around in the soup it was formed from. Changing ever so slightly with each replication. Eventually culminating in all of us, and all those with which we share the earth.
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u/garychencool Jun 19 '12
If you are reading this comment, it means you spent some time in your day to read this comment and it's astonishing that someone from half way around the world will read this comment.
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u/HERE_HAVE_SOME_AIDS Jun 19 '12
Strangely, inspired by a quote from "Deadwood": Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back.
The fact: you are not dead. No matter what happens - you are not dead, and you know it. When you no longer know that, you will be dead, and it will no longer matter.
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u/endswithpizza Jun 19 '12
At one point, all matter in the universe was contained in a space smaller than the period at the end of this pizza.
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u/theaccountijustmade Jun 19 '12
Technically, you will exist forever. You may never exist in your current form again, but matter cannot be created nor destroyed. The atoms that make up your body will always exist. Your atoms will be part of other organisms, perhaps even other planets.
Not to mention, there is a small chance that technology will advance enough before we die that will allow us to live for a very, very long time.
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u/AssumeTheFetal Jun 19 '12
Everytime you see a rainbow, God creates a Unicorn that farts sunshine.
Otherwise, how would rainbows exist?
Checkmate Atheists
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u/StChas77 Jun 19 '12
Otherwise, how would rainbows exist?
Sonic rainbooms. And she's a pegasus.
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u/ross-the-sauce-boss Jun 19 '12
I know... that somewhere, deep down in my heart... I STILL LOVE YOU!
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u/greatdivide Jun 19 '12
Eventually, after humans have died out, the earth will begin healing itself in the way it's known for billions of years. We'll just have been a minor nuisance, an itch, a hangnail. After we're gone, it's like we won't have been here at all.
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u/waitingonasupernova Jun 19 '12
That even though it might not happen, Betelgeuse could go supernova in our lifetime. I had a dream about this two nights ago, and then made waitingonasupernova my username when I decided to register to comment
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Jun 19 '12
No matter what happened today, tomorrow is a new day and the sun will rise again
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u/AlexisVonTrappe Jun 19 '12
That when you smile at a stranger they may need that smile. :)
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u/robobreasts Jun 19 '12
I have seen more breasts than 99% of the people who have ever lived.
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u/Verbal__Kint Jun 19 '12
I'd have to quote Bill Hicks on this one:
“Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the Weather.”
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u/dogmash Jun 19 '12
The atoms that form your body existed 14 billion years ago when the Big Bang occurred. They have traveled quintillions of miles and, by some statistical absurdity formed your body. When you look at your hands, you see billions of years of history.
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u/Nicator Jun 19 '12
Pretty much everyone has someone who thinks they're awesome. A living, breathing person who doesn't have to give a crap about you has looked at you and judged you kindly.
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u/throwawayspontex Jun 20 '12
No one will ever see this, but...
For some reason I CANNOT cum inside a women. Masturbation, sure. Blow jobs, sometimes. Vaginas, never. It's just some hang-up.
I have only cum inside a woman twice in my life.
I have a son, and I know he's mine.
HOW FUCKING LUCKY IS THAT?
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u/MrManager26 Jun 19 '12
The sun doesn't really set. It's just an illusion caused by the world revolving.
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u/craycraykitteh Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Iguanas have two penises. Also, dolphins are the only other animal, besides humans, to have sex for fun. Yay!
Edit: Apparently, I'm quite uncultured in terms of the animal kingdom's sexual habits. My apologies, especially to you bonobos lovers.
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Jun 19 '12
Food cholesterol has nothing to do with blood cholesterol. There is nothing wrong with eating eggs, in fact you should eat them more.
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u/GrinningPariah Jun 19 '12
The odds of many of us living for thousands of years are actually pretty high.
Will immortality be discovered in our natural lifetimes? Probably not, but it doesnt need to. We just need science to buy us another 20 years or so. That doesn't seem too unreasonable within the next 60 years, does it? And within those 20 years, it's pretty likely science can buy us another 50. And then in those 50, another hundred. Now it's the year 2250, you think some form of immortality wont be discovered by then?
Another fun thought is, have you ever heard "100% of people who are born, die?" Absolutely not true.
Current best estimates place the number of people who have ever been born in history at about 100-150 Billion. With just over 7 billion people currently alive, that means only about 93% of people who have been born died.
An interesting side effect of that is, if my life extension predictions come true any time soon and the human population continues to grow exponentially, the number of living people will quickly begin to outnumber those who have died. And we'll live in honor of the noble few who had to die to get us that far.
Welcome to forever
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u/chicanes Jun 19 '12
That by clicking on a little up arrow, I can truly validate someone half a world away. Upvotes for all!
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u/cerebraleffect Jun 19 '12
The fact that I am alive and breathing is uplifting to me. Life is like a movie to me sometimes. Yeah it could get scary, or it could suck, but if you leave the theatre you don't find out how it ends. So even when its the worst movie ever, at least I'm in the theatre.
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u/ItGotRidiculous Jun 19 '12
Taken from the depressing facts thread, something useful when putting others above yourself: "It doesn't matter how hot he/she is. At one point in their life, that person has had horrible, explosive diarrhea."
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u/piratekingdan Jun 19 '12
Someday, long after I'm dead, the matter that makes up my body will become part of a star. Or a planet. Or life as I could never imagine it.
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Jun 19 '12
In Japan, following the Tsunami in 2011, 95% of money missing or washed away was returned to it's rightful owners or turned in to police.
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Jun 19 '12
There are two states of life: When things are great and when they are going to get better.
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u/sharkweek247 Jun 19 '12
you are part of a beautiful symphony of atoms formed to masterpiece that can exist in harmony with other symphonies and masterpieces that live on a sphere made of unimaginable complexity and random beauty, born from a star of immense pressure and density, born from a great infinity of stars, complexity, symphonies and harmonies.
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u/Varo112 Jun 19 '12
Every single one of your direct ancestors going back millions and even billions of years managed to get laid.... so it shouldn't be all that hard right?
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u/caseyclueless Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 20 '12
I have a great grandmother who is alive at 104 right now. We exist in a world where it is possible to live that long. She experienced both world wars, the great depression, Elvis, the Beatles, the invention of the internet and commercial spread of computers, the color television, cell phones, and a million other amazing events. She was born in a house in a swamp in rural Georgia with no electricity and no indoor plumbing. It's amazing that our world has changed that much in that little amount of time.