Asklemmy

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What advice have you heard or tried that was just flat-out wrong? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] whyNotSquirrel 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. The scenes of lemming suicides in the 1958 Disney documentary film White Wilderness, which popularized this idea, were completely fabricated. The lemmings in the film were actually purchased from Inuit children, transported to the filming location in Canada and repeatedly shoved off a nearby cliff by the filmmakers to create the illusion of a mass suicide.[448][449] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late 19th century, though its exact origins are uncertain.[450][448]

Hmm, humanity sure has great ideas!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

That was def a consideration in deciding the name of this platform. I was playing a lot of lemmings at the time, and learned that them being mindless suicidal drones is just ridiculously false. SO why not just own it and let the redditors think that they're the unique brain-geniuses, and have them call us something that is easily disproven.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But... Why? Why would some Disney muckety muck buy a ton of live lemmings and shove them off a cliff, and put it in a movie?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Guess they couldn't find a proper fairy tale to put that scene on, so they had to go with a "documentary"