I don't really like your snarky initial take, even when I'm the guy calling bullshit in the first place in the thread.

People propagate falsehoods for numerous reasons. The first is, they don't know it's false. They hear a joke or a hypothetical story and repeat it as fact, and in the retelling it gets amplified. Details get conflated; someone hears a story about slightly radioactive cows and also about computers being affected by radiation, and blends them. Or an expat tells a story about his homeland, exaggerated slightly for effect, and is misunderstood by those who hear it based on their own biases.

In the end we only have so much brainpower. We don't always consider the plausibility of everything to a deep degree. I am nearly positive that you have propagated falsehood where you "should have known better."

And sometimes we tell things that are just a good story. I propagate the neural network tank recognition one to my students because it's a perfect story. I do say that I know it's probably false, but I'm sure some of them will repeat it to others as fact.

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reillyse a day ago | parent [-]

Right, you propagate it for a specific reason presumably, because you think it teaches them something about something even if it might not be true.

So that is your reason there.

I'm just interested in the undercurrent of why people seem to like this story and I think it pretty much is "Communism Bad" even though as mentioned otherwhere in this thread (and by me) capitalism has an awful record when it comes to food quality the one thing that is being knocked in this story.

	▲	mlyle a day ago \| parent [-]
		> I'm just interested in the undercurrent of why people seem to like this story Nah, it's "holy shit radioactive cows causing single-event-upset!@" It's the legend of the impossible to troubleshoot magical problem that actually makes perfect physical sense (even though it doesn't). The communism-bad is merely an afterthought that adds a little more appeal to some people. Indeed, my perspective reading this story... I need to teach a different group of students about SEU and SEL. The thought of radioactive cows from Chernobyl causing upsets is an absolutely "sticky" story that would make the idea of effects from ionizing radiation stay prominently in students' minds, and reinforce my position as a crazy teacher with students. My reaction as I realized that it was BS and I couldn't justify using it was disappointment.