Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
When I started working decades ago, we were taught how to use bent bits of fence wire to find underground pipes before digging
I literally found scores of pipes that way, and saw dozens of other people do it regularly. It was even taught at a local agricultural college as part of the horticulture course
Then someone told me it was a myth and doesn't work, so I set up a blind test with a hidden bucket of water and I utterly failed to find it
I simply cannot explain this
I was taught this too growing up in rural america. Did it myself at some land my grandparents had.
Best explanation I've heard for why it "works" is that when looking for places to first install pipes the location tends to be obvious or intuitive, so then years later when someone needs to find it again we naturally trend to the same rough area, pull out those stupid rod things and when they randomly cross there's a pipe there cause we're already standing in the general right spot. Get a high enough success rate and our brains start to think there is causation to the correlation.
It's called Dowsing
I had the opposite experience. Consistently derided and dismissed it as woo. Went to my parents' land a couple of years ago and my dad told me to try it. I didn't want to, that's how ridiculous I found it. But those things were moving in my hands in a way that had me halfway believing.
Fascinating twist. Its like it was a subcultural mass delusion
There's a part of me that believes that magic/psyonics/spirit whatever intentionally and willfully does not respond to the scientific method.
Whatever entity is behind it refuses to be subjected to scrutiny and furthermore refuses to be turned into a machine with an on-off switch.
You can have your magic or you can have your proof that magic doesn't exist but you can't have proof that magic exists and magic at the same time.
If something is tested and proven, it falls outside the realm of magic and just becomes normal everyday science or technology. It's like the saying about alternative medicine. Anything that is proven to work is just called medicine.
It's because the water does not flow in "pipes" underground. It is nearly everywhere, and so you have "found" it most times.. You just don't know at what depth you will find it - until you ask your neighbor :)
Clearly it only works if you believe ;)