Ted Rall for July 19, 1999
Transcript:
Seeing and nothingness: It's the easiest way to counter a personal experience: claim that your experience was different. (Man 1: I hate flying- every time I do it the plane crashes.) (Man 2: Quit lying! I fly 100,000 miles a year and I've never had a problem!) The laws of probability dictate that identical situations cause a wide variety of outcomes, but that doesn't matter: (Man 1: I'm on the edge of the bell curve, but just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean the same hasn't happened to me!) (Man 2: Liar) If it didn't happen to you, it couldn't have happened to someone else. (Man 2: Yeah, right I've never been poor. Therefore poverty doesn't exist.) (Voice: Oh My God! We're all going to die!) Guess what's next? Vicarious retroactive prevention: Erase the experiences of other people by not having them yourself! (Woman: Some dude hit me with a rock while I was walking through the park.) (Man 3: Don't worry-I'll go walk in the same spot, not get mugged and negate what happened to you!)