Landmine Goes Boom

 https://fsd.ch/en/landmine-goes-click/

Yeah, there’s even a movie called Landmine Goes Click.  There’s one of the better Doctor Who episodes where he steps on a Landmine.  The idea that you step on a landmine and get a chance to go Indiana Jones mode and place a heavy rock on it, step off, wipe the sweat off your nervous forehead and move on to the next part of your secret ops mission is pure Hollywood bullshit, and I’ll bet ya that you know someone that believes it’s true.  And that they believe it so much they will defend it if you bring up how it’s wrong.  If you search for How Landmines Work or Landmine Myths on YouTube you can find lots of debunks.

But who are the people that fall for this mythinformation?  If you have somebody really, really not bright delayed fuses and pressure thresholds and landmine tech in general is so far beyond them it’s like magic or vaccine literacy.  In a lot of cases, the more dangerous people are the ones that are not the really stupid ones.  More dangerous to the spread of misinformation is someone of average intelligence.  Someone who would, for example, remember they’ve seen an episode of NCIS with the Landmine click trope, three movies with the trope AND had a two hour discussion at the bar where they and their echo chamber reinforced that they have seen it’s this way.  Instead of instant detonation and removal of limbs from torsos, landmines are kind enough to give you a grace period to say your past mental goodbyes or even escape.

You can be decently smart, but still have problems with structuring your logic trail.  Here’s a link with eight traits that are associated with susceptibility to misinformation and disinformation.  

https://hackspirit.com/traits-of-people-who-are-most-likely-to-fall-for-misinformation-on-the-internet-according-to-a-psychologist/

Relax and absorb some of that content.  It’s not like you’ve stepped on a landmine and need to make an immediate emotional response.