Dihydrogen monoxide hoax (Why a water hoax?)

[Bessy]

i pulled that water name change on my mam when i first learnt about naming atoms in secondary school i done the i made your drink even more healthy it has Dihydrogen monoxide in it makes your body work better

as you can guess she wouldnt even drink it ... tuck me a gd 10 min of convincing her before she believed i wasnt trying to drug her or something even then she still didnt drink it and i went to the tap and said look heres some more Dihydrogen monoxide ... my lil brother tried it on his friends after coming back to ask me how to pronounce it and what it meant after seeing how crazy our mam got at me over it

shows how much she trusts her 12 yr lol XD that was a fair time ago im 25 now

[Drunken Hobo]

There's also hydroxylic acid to worry about...

Whilst this is a great experiment showing people's lack of critical thinking, it doesn't seem to have changed much. I'm sure some media outlets use the DHMO hoax as a blueprint rather than a warning. You see it a lot with scare-stories about vaccines, GM food, HFCS (glucose-fructose syrup for us Europeans), nuclear power etc. Sadly it works on too many people.

[magnemoe]

There's also hydroxylic acid to worry about...

Whilst this is a great experiment showing people's lack of critical thinking, it doesn't seem to have changed much. I'm sure some media outlets use the DHMO hoax as a blueprint rather than a warning. You see it a lot with scare-stories about vaccines, GM food, HFCS (glucose-fructose syrup for us Europeans), nuclear power etc. Sadly it works on too many people.

Think that is more the media searching for people who have scare stories as fear sells. Do no do any verification of the story as it might ruin in, you might let the critics in later to get more news before moving on the the next scare.

Not a lot of planning, think they just have an small list of relevant stories at B stuff to use if its an lack of actual news.

[rkman]

I had not lied, everything I told her was true. What I didn't tell her

Lying by omission is the easiest and most prevalent of lies.

[Drunkrobot]

This is kind of related to the subject of gullibility. I know of this YouTuber who created a "petition" to keep the Nintendo 3DS off the selves, because it "could cause blindness in children". Then he went out into the streets with a microphone and a cameraman, and told random people what the petition was about, and asked them to sign it. Of course, this is slightly different, the DHMO hoaxers lied by omission, this guy flat out lied. But it does aid to show our gullibility, through our instinct to not read the bloody thing we're signing. When he was typing the petition up, he wrote it like any normal petition, except for adding the words "Heil Hitler" somewhere in the middle of the paragraph. Barely anyone noticed as they signed it. One woman even claimed we "should be more critical of what we're told" as she added her own signature.

Let me just leave this here:

[GDJ]

Two guys walk into a restaraunt. First guy orders H2O, and the other guy said "That sounds good! I'll have some H2O too!"

Second guy dies.

[Designer225]

Cause of death: Water poisoning.

While H2O can be unsafe, tainted water (contaminated water) is a real danger. I guess that's what the anti-water activists are talking about.

[NovaSilisko]

Cause of death: Water poisoning.

While H2O can be unsafe, tainted water (contaminated water) is a real danger. I guess that's what the anti-water activists are talking about.

What anti-water activists!? The whole thing is a joke, they're not being serious!

Two guys walk into a restaraunt. First guy orders H2O, and the other guy said "That sounds good! I'll have some H2O too!"

Second guy dies.

Oh god, I adore that joke.

Edited September 15, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[WhiteWeasel]

Two guys walk into a restaraunt. First guy orders H2O, and the other guy said "That sounds good! I'll have some H2O too!"

Second guy dies.

I told others that joke my self.

Cause of death: Water poisoning.

While H2O can be unsafe, tainted water (contaminated water) is a real danger. I guess that's what the anti-water activists are talking about.

Drinking Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is not exactly the brightest thing to do.

[Anton P. Nym]

To answer the question, "Why the hoax?" I gather it was to illustrate some of the dishonesty in media discussions, showing how a slanted presentation (without any outright lies) could make something very useful sound utterly deadly. Look at the rhetoric used in the DHMO hoax, and compare it with, say, that used in the GMO food debate; there are some alarming similarities. (I'm not saying that GMO crops are as benign as water... just that the anti- side is taking some liberties with their presentation. That the GMO industry is also taking liberties doesn't justify that; two wrongs make two wrongs, not one right.)

Next time you hear about a common household product causing cancer, check to see if the coverage looks like the DHMO stuff. Odds are you will.

-- Steve

[WhiteWeasel]

To answer the question, "Why the hoax?" I gather it was to illustrate some of the dishonesty in media discussions, showing how a slanted presentation (without any outright lies) could make something very useful sound utterly deadly. Look at the rhetoric used in the DHMO hoax, and compare it with, say, that used in the GMO food debate; there are some alarming similarities. (I'm not saying that GMO crops are as benign as water... just that the anti- side is taking some liberties with their presentation. That the GMO industry is also taking liberties doesn't justify that; two wrongs make two wrongs, not one right.)

Next time you hear about a common household product causing cancer, check to see if the coverage looks like the DHMO stuff. Odds are you will.

-- Steve

I heard it was done on purpose to show how ignorant that the political system is and how easily it can be mislead. Another reason why more scientists should be politics.

1) The very notion of a scientist means you have a person that must follow the facts, namely facts can change and must accept the new data and admit they were wrong, then fix the mistake. Instead of blindly following a false point because most politicians don't want to admit they were wrong because it makes them look "weak". So scientists admit to their mistakes and aren't bound by pride issues.

2) To debunk BS like the hoax in the OP^.

[Designer225]

Drinking Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is not exactly the brightest thing to do.

True story. Hydrogen Peroxide is more dangerous than H2O.

This thread is going into the Off-Topic lounge.

[Tex_NL]

I told others that joke my self.

Drinking Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) is not exactly the brightest thing to do.

That totally depends on the concentration. I work with H₂O₂ as a disinfectant on a near daily basis in both concentrated and diluted form. The concentrated form is only 10% but it will literally burn your skin on contact. The diluted solution is roughly 0,001%. I might taste a bit funny but it is safe to drink in small volumes.

Pure H₂O (without any dissolved salts) however IS dangerous. Never should you drink distilled water.

[Lanfranc]

1) The very notion of a scientist means you have a person that must follow the facts, namely facts can change and must accept the new data and admit they were wrong, then fix the mistake. Instead of blindly following a false point because most politicians don't want to admit they were wrong because it makes them look "weak". So scientists admit to their mistakes and aren't bound by pride issues.

Scientists aren't bound by pride issues? Sure they aren't.

On a completely unrelated topic, would you be interested in this nice bridge I have for sale? Only slightly used.

[Lanfranc]

One hilarious was the anti nuclear (either power or weapons) activist in Scandinavia who wanted their town to be free of atoms, directly translated.

Yes it did not sound smart to anybody in this forum, upside it would shut up the protesters, downside is that it would be pretty hard to do.

They wanted it to be "atomfri", by any chance? That's not meant to be directly translated, it's just shorthand for "atomkraftfri", "free of nuclear power".

[lajoswinkler]

That totally depends on the concentration. I work with H₂O₂ as a disinfectant on a near daily basis in both concentrated and diluted form. The concentrated form is only 10% but it will literally burn your skin on contact. The diluted solution is roughly 0,001%. I might taste a bit funny but it is safe to drink in small volumes.

Pure H₂O (without any dissolved salts) however IS dangerous. Never should you drink distilled water.

Peroxide is best left out of the body, regardless of the concentration. Concentrated form is sold as 30% and that can do a real mess with tissue. Higher concentrations cause detonations on contact with combustible organic matter.

Drinking pure water is not dangerous unless that's the only thing you drink.

[Inspector Gadget]

Just because that's not what they meant it's still wrong. "atom fri" directly translated is still "atom free". If they wanted to say "Free of nuclear power" they should've said "atomkraft fri". If you want to make it shorthand they should've made a shortened version of "atom" and "kraft" so it doesn't lose meaning. Taking away a whole word change the meaning of the sentence.

[hugix]

See my sig

People generally hate science or science like subjects. I bet that for every one person you know that also enjoys KSP there are ten that thinks the game is to difficult. (Recently I started with Orbiter and this number increased tenfold). They do not grasp the basics of orbital mechanics and think spaceflight is like Star Wars. Luckily for us space geeks orbital mechanics is only a matter of velocity distance and energy.

Chemistry is waaayyyyy harder. It has lots of fancy titles. The Periodic table looks like it is really hard (yet half my class can name all 150 pokemon...). This is where the problem starts. People know that monoxide is poisonous. So when you name a substance like DHMO. Which contains the dangerous word monoxide people tend to get scared. "Monoxide can kill. I learned that in school!"

It is not just something in chemistry. I noticed it in my study. I am a computer network engineer and sometimes I meet people who are afraid of Wi-Fi and other wireless networks (Like GPS, GSM, UMTS). The main reason people are afraid of it is because devices using wireless tech are radiating. And radiation causes cancer. We all knw that since 1986. Yet these people do not realise that what a Wi-Fi antenna is radiating isn't the same radiation as Uranium produces.

(Note : the WHO has yet to find evidence that electronic radiation is harmful to us humans. I agree with this. I'm not saying it isn't dangerous, I'm saying that as far as I'm concerned we haven't found proof it is dangerus).

The bad thing about this is how how it affects us. this general ignorance about subjects that we deal with every day . (I'm 40% DHMO!) we are all made out of water, yet do not know out of what compounds it is made.

Begin this summer I read an article of this going completely wrong. At this pool party that Jagermeister hosted some people came up with an cool idea. Pouring Liquid nitrogen onto the pool to create that cool fog effect liquid nitrogen has on room temperature. what happened was that the Nitrogen floated on the water and pushed all the breathable air to the sides. So the people INSIDE the pool where starving for fresh air. This simple not knowing how basic chemistry works resulted in 9 people getting hospitalized, at least two in a coma

(Link here. Be warned it contains video footage of the incident. Can be shocking)

[Designer225]

We ended up talking about people's ignorance to chemistry and grammar now. A word can, indeed, change the meaning of the sentence, sometimes a lot more. In this case, missing the word "some" or "most" had made people think that all monoxides are dangerous. Yes, Carbon Monoxide is dangerous, but just that monoxide is dangerous doesn't mean all monoxides are. I guess the reason why IUPAC didn't mentioned this compound (water, H2O) in scientific name (Dihydrogen Monoxide, DHMO) on public is to prevent public confusion.

[dudester28]

Ah, that's funny because everything is true. Our chemistry teacher pulled that on us on the first day of class.

[DerekL1963]

Good question: How gullible are we for believing that water is bad? Why does some people feared that all monoxides are bad? (Water is a monoxide.)

It's not that people fear monoxides are bad, it's that decades of unrelenting spin and propaganda have produced the belief that "chemicals are bad, and chemicals with unfamiliar names are worse, and if I can't pronounce them...".

Myself, I've always thought that someone saying "I can't pronounce this" is actually telling me "and I'm too lazy or stupid to learn".

[Flixxbeatz]

Dihydrogen Monoxide is definitely a hundred times deadlier than Hydrogen Hydroxide.

[jwenting]

Last year someone in California did a very similar experiment. Made up fliers and asked people to help him petition Obama to cancel the first amendment to the US constitution (freedom of speech...) because it's "outdated and only prevents the government from doing what it needs to do".

He got several thousand signatures in just a few hours.

Of course without the first amendment that petition would have been illegal, and the useful idiots didn't even realise it. Most signed without ever even listening to the sales pitch.

[Drunken Hobo]

Last year someone in California did a very similar experiment. Made up fliers and asked people to help him petition Obama to cancel the first amendment to the US constitution (freedom of speech...) because it's "outdated and only prevents the government from doing what it needs to do".

He got several thousand signatures in just a few hours.

Of course without the first amendment that petition would have been illegal, and the useful idiots didn't even realise it. Most signed without ever even listening to the sales pitch.

There have also been campaigns to end women's suffrage. They too were highly successful.

[Designer225]

Last year someone in California did a very similar experiment. Made up fliers and asked people to help him petition Obama to cancel the first amendment to the US constitution (freedom of speech...) because it's "outdated and only prevents the government from doing what it needs to do".

He got several thousand signatures in just a few hours.

Of course without the first amendment that petition would have been illegal, and the useful idiots didn't even realise it. Most signed without ever even listening to the sales pitch.

Congress would disagree (along with Obama possibly) when a new amendment would be proposed to repeal the First Amendment. (Possible outcome: Not passed by either House of the Congress, or if got through Congress... not getting a 3/4 state majority.)

There have also been campaigns to end women's suffrage. They too were highly successful.

That might be pulled to the next election year (2016), when Democrats would possibly nominate a female presidential candidate (If the candidate does become president, then his husband would become the First Gentleman.), then much would be decided.

Also, somewhat less recent events in some people having a petition to build a Death Star (looks like the one in Star Wars), but Obama does not support blowing up the planet.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Designer225