A Collection of Random Trivia - Facebook, Homeless People, and Whiskey

My high school advisor said that if he ever opened up a university, he would create a do-it-yourself institution that promotes independent thinking and intellectual curiosity. More specifically, he said it would be the most selective school in the country, and it would only accept 100 students or less. The purpose would be to find students who are naturally curious and have the desire to learn about almost everything in the world in order to have a better understanding of the world. I'm not sure if Mr. New would write me a recommendation letter for his own school once he opens it, but I always loved that concept. Moreover, I think that a liberal arts education is the closest that one can get to having a well-rounded education that focuses on a lot of different areas of study and developing the necessary tools in order to become a successful professional and human being.

Although I have yet to enjoy the fruits of my college labor, I believe that this system helps stimulate intellectual curiosity and a desire to further explore the world, even if it's from a laptop. I can't say that this post has much of a purpose, but I am using it to simply share with you some of the most interesting things I've learned throughout recently by reading and doing some research on random things I'm curious about. Instead of simply pestering my one friend who says I spend my entire time reading random, and possibly useless trivia, I decided to share these with the rest of you. So here is a collection of stuff you may or may not care about:

Dunbar's Number

Some of you may have heard about Dunbar's number, especially is you ever took any psychology or sociology classes, but I first heard about it last summer. Even though I didn't know it by name, I first heard about the ideas behind it after reading an article about Facebook and the plethora of friends we all have on the world's leading social network. The article talked about how we all have an obsession with getting more and more friends even though we have absolutely no desire to ever have a real interaction with most of them. It also touched on the fact that Facebook makes most people unhappy because of the artificial 'everyone's-having-fun-but-me' idea that's perpetuated on a daily basis whenever someone else posts pictures of them having a blast with literally the rest of the world. Steering back from this Facebook-bashing tangent and towards Robin Dunbar again, what I heard last summer was that human beings can only truly have a real relationship with about 150 people at one given moment.

Dunbar's actual studies showed that an average person's limit to the number of people they can actually have a relationship with is between 100 and 230, but 150 is most commonly used figure. I bring this up because it just goes to show how brainwashed we've become by the Facebook system that is constantly suggesting more and more people as "friends" only because we have mutual friends (or acquaintances) with them. I think it would be a cool social experiment if people tried to unfriend people until they got down to Dunbar's number (I should probably listen to my own advice with my 850 friends and all...). It might give people an idea of who really matters to them in the grand scheme of things and who's disposable. And sure, there's the argument that networking as much as possible is the best way to open up more opportunities in your life, but that's why there's LinkedIn.

House Homeless People

Talking about a slightly more depressing subject, do you ever feel bad about walking down a crowded city and seeing a homeless person with a cardboard sign asking for money and/or food but walk past them anyways because of the fear that they might be dangerous or that they'll use the money for drugs? Well, giving them money might not be the solution, but leaving them to fend for themselves without any resources isn't either. Echoing a Cracked article I read a while ago, a study showed that leaving homeless people without a home is actually more expensive than giving them a home.

This is from an article that talked about Poles who lived off of barbecued rats and alcoholic handwash.

There was a five-year study done in Boston that monitored the lives of 119 homeless people. Due to their poor health conditions and lack of available resources, they ended up having a combined 18,834 visits to the emergency room in public hospitals funded by taxes. Spending only $24,000 a year, this country could give shelter, food, and other services to homeless people. If you think that's a lot of your tax money, just think about the fact that it takes about $1 million a year to keep them freezing their asses off in some dumpster.

Whiskey

In order to end this random of assortment of facts, I decided to talk about the first drink I ever had in college--whiskey. Besides promoting a more vibrant social scene and embarrassing dance moves, I never thought that whiskey really had any benefits. According to a study by Scottish scientists, the process used to make whiskey leaves behind barley residues which can be used to purify water. These seemingly futile residues can be used to purify up to 95% of water contaminants in order to clean it in a cheap and chemical-free fashion.

Now that I've given you an excuse to buy whiskey on a regular basis in order to promote water cleanliness, I'll end this post with another whiskey story. Denis Duthie, 65 year-old New Zealander, made the mistake of mixing his diabetes medication with vodka on his 50th wedding anniversary. This combination can cause short-term problems such as temporary blindess, but in very rare cases, it can cause permanent blindness. Duthie had the misfortune of suffering the latter due to methanol poisoning. After making it to the ER, the doctors came to the conclusion that methanol could be counteracted with ethanol in order to suppress the chemical that caused him the blindness. Knowing that whiskey has ethanol, one of the doctors prescribed a large amount of whiskey for Duthie in the off-chance that it might actually give him his eyesight back. Surprisingly enough, it worked--he woke up five days later with the ability to see once again. And just a few days after his 50th wedding anniversary took a sour turn, a nice cocktail of sour mash allowed him to celebrate it in full.