Not So Trivial Pursuit

23 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2019-04-30 23:35

Pondering

I wondered if there would be interest in creating questions like the following to produce a free game which would be posted on the net for download. It would be formatted to be printable in business card format. There would need to be thousands of questions.

The goal would be to provide a collection of information that will lead the public to understand they are being shafted and by whom in Trivial Pursuit style but without the board.

If we can get it going maybe we could grow it into a major babble project and even earn the support of rabble.

Example

Side 1

In 2015 Air pollution due to emissions caused 7,700 deaths. How many deaths were caused by car accidents?

11,860

9,860

3,860

1,860

Side 2

1,860 deaths were caused by car accidents in 2015. 7,700 were caused by air pollution.

Related Links

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/air-pollution-results-in-7-700-premature-...

https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/canadian-motor-vehicle-traff...

Other Examples:

Corporate tax rates are currently at ……. In 1960 they were….

The federal government currently pays X percentage of medicare. In 1985 they paid….

Percentage of the workforce unionized then and now with some other associated stat.

There could be questions highlighting successes around the world illustrating that economical solutions do exist. Questions about the wealthiest people in the world and what they do with their money. Questions about tax havens. The list of topics is endless.

Promoting it would be cheap and simple. Just print out cards and distribute samples in educational institute cafeterias and libraries and at progressive events and demonstrations. Then hope it goes viral and people start printing the cards themselves. "Leak" the story to the press. Release 500 questions a week for six weeks or more. I'm sure we could come up with more ideas.

There have been times I have sat with friends or family answering Trivial Pursuit questions without bothering with the board. If we do a good job with the questions people could find it really interesting and flip through them out of curiosity.

This game would be a way of communicating the basic facts that when combined by people themselves lead them to the conclusion that government is failing us and economical common-sense solutions do exist.

Maybe it is a waste of time and wouldn't work or take-off but I pass a lot of time here anyway. We are always coming across series of facts that would make good quiz questions. Some of you are experts in various subject areas. You probably already have a few good quiz questions that would give people basic information they need to know. Stats

It can be just brainstorming at this point. See what we come up with. Maybe it would be harder than I think to come up with enough questions.

Is anyone interested?

Wed, 2019-05-01 10:29

bongo

An Excellent idea. Superb, because the ignorant, the obstinant and enlightened together can participate within a game context, not an argumentative one.

Researching the questions, & wording them, will take a lot of thought and work... but there are so Many!

It could be on a webpage, or a mobile app, not just in printed form too.

Q: Was eastern Ukraine annexed by Russia, or did the population vote in a referendum to leave Ukraine?

(A referendum was held, not an annexation)

Q2: If so, What was the voter turnout %, and what % of those votes were in favour of joining Russia?

(87 or 89% voted, 92% voted in favour of joining Russia after the right-wing coup in Ukraine)

Even the CBC still reports "...after the annexation of the Donbass region by Russia..." on a regular basis, all MSM I come across still reports it this way.

I would help. :)

Wed, 2019-05-01 20:28

WWWTT

Agreed it’s a great idea! As long as every question gets in the face of the ICM, exposes racism homophobia sexism etc etc and educates

Wed, 2019-05-01 22:10

Pondering

It would be helpful if we post questions separate from commentary. It will make them easier to collect.

I am willing to start it very small scale to have a beta version but eventually I would love it if an organization like rabble took over because they have the resources to expand the project and include other organizations. Someone would have to approve questions which we could do ourselves while small but if we want it to go viral and have 5 or 10K questions it will take more than just us. We should be able to come up with a few hundred or a thousand to get started.

Information must be accompanied by a web address or citation so it is verifiable.

It must be a question that someone can think about then guess the answer. They should get some correct just by chance.

I would word the Ukraine question as follows but I didn't put it separate as I don't have links and it isn't my question. It is a good one. We could have "International" as a question category.

Q: Was eastern Ukraine annexed by Russia, or did the population vote in a referendum to leave Ukraine?

A : A referendum was held, not an annexation. 87% of the population voted, 92% voted to rejoin Russia.

(the area used to be Russian right?)

Wed, 2019-05-01 22:37

(Reply to #4) #5

JKR

Pondering wrote:

I would word the Ukraine question as follows but I didn't put it separate as I don't have links and it isn't my question. It is a good one. We could have "International" as a question category.

Q: Was eastern Ukraine annexed by Russia, or did the population vote in a referendum to leave Ukraine?

A : A referendum was held, not an annexation. 87% of the population voted, 92% voted to rejoin Russia.

(the area used to be Russian right?)

If that answer is correct they should drastically change the wiki page on the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Quote:

The Crimean Peninsula was annexed by the Russian Federation in February–March 2014 and since then has been administered as two Russian federal subjects—the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol.[38]The annexation from Ukraine followed a Russian military intervention in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and was part of wider unrest across southern and eastern Ukraine.[39][40]

Wed, 2019-05-01 22:50

Pondering

Hence the need for references with every question/answer pair.

Wed, 2019-05-01 23:50

Mr. Magoo

You could call the game "Woke!"

Thu, 2019-05-02 08:55

bongo

yes, theres a ton of misinformation on eastern Ukraines departure from Ukraine after the coup. The questions were just suggestions, feel free to reword them.

I simply recall that vote being reported, and recall my outrage when MSM started reporting it as an annexation.

Another whole group of questions could be posed on the subject of 911 as well...

Q: After all air travel was grounded when 911 occurred, who was able to fly out of the US by special approval of the oval office? A: Bin Laden's family members.

Thu, 2019-05-02 10:24

Pondering

I like "Woke!". Simple. To the point. Memorable.

I have lots of general ideas for questions. The work is in formulating the questions in multiple choice or true/false format with references to support facts.

Thu, 2019-05-02 10:29

#10

Pondering

I thought this was true. If it had been it would have been a zinger.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/flights-of-fancy/

The claim that bin Laden family members (and other Saudis) were allowed to secretly fly out of the U.S. and back to Saudi Arabia while a government-imposed ban on air travel was in effect, all without any intervention by the FBI, has since been negated by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the “9/11 Commission”). In their final report, the commission noted:

Thu, 2019-05-02 18:29

#11

bongo

No, another bow to establishment pressure, no doubt. I first heard about it in news reports shortly after it happened, and it was included in Mike Moores doc as well.

Do you remember the complete sham that was made up by Popular Mechanics on the subject of the twin towers collapse? Another bow to the powers that be. I watched the "real simulation" they published as part of their proof; the only way it would work is if there was no internal structure - sure enough, the simulation itself had no internal structure and their explanation was, 'so one could see into the structure during playback'

Besides, the 911 commission already proved themselves to be influenced. Look it up, Architects for 911 is a good place to start.

Wed, 2019-05-08 18:07

#12

Pondering

Okay well this idea isn't taking off. I am not on Twitter so I don't know how viable it would be, but could we create a twitter account of progressive facts? Would have to be short and sweet. For example:

1,860 deaths were caused by car accidents in 2015. 7,700 were caused by air pollution.

Other facts would compare welfare income now versus then. Unionization facts. Federal share of medicare, then versus now.

Would anyone be willing to help collect facts like that?

Thu, 2019-05-09 11:10

#13

Mr. Magoo

You could also go with:

1,860 deaths were caused by car accidents in 2015. 7,700 were caused by air pollution, and 178 by gun crime.

Thu, 2019-05-09 12:35

#14

Timebandit Timebandit's picture

Of further interest to those concerned about air pollution:

https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episodes/something-in-the-air

http://somethingintheair.ca/

Thu, 2019-05-09 20:50

#15

bongo

oops sorry. I guess I should have made a question of it.

"How many accredited, independant architects have said that the 911 commission's official findings 'defies the laws of physics' and signed a petition for a real, unbiased 911 commission?"

Over 2000, at this time.

So sorry to have rocked your boat!

Wed, 2019-06-26 11:47

#16

bongo

Looks like this thread has been abandoned... Pondering another path I guess.

Snopes story you quoted, Pondering, was the fake story. You obviously knew that, since there were lots of different news articles covering it - NYT, Daily Mail, CBS news, factcheck.org, and others. Snopes itself has been discredited for choosing rightwing researchers, financial irregulaties...

I wonder why you disregarded SO MANY articles that prove the saudis leaving days after 911 when all flights were grounded, including one in which the FBI told the NYTimes that they werent giving preferenctial treatment to the saudis by escorting them to the airport for their protection!

Wed, 2019-06-26 12:51

#17

Pondering

I have read that before about the Saudis leaving. I never denied it. The ruling class helps each other out. I don't think it is a fact that will sway people away from neoliberalism or help them to see the big picture. Individual events, even as large as 9/11, are still just individual events.

This is more pertinent:

https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/names-and-locations-of-the-top-100-people-killing-the-planet/?fbclid=IwAR2Msu20kQ9-7hRZbPvYFy-vyudSDWxNvOjTlxsDejKAeMjT09KVIe45P5k#.XQZ_PeMGPF0.facebook

We live in semi-democracies. Corporations can be beaten on individual projects, such as Energy East but they still rule the world economically even though they don't have total control. Ultimately those are the people we have to overthrow and we don't need a violent or painful revolution to do it.

For the sake of argument, let's assume 9/11 was a false flag event. So what? What would it change? Would anyone stop trading with the US or US corporations? Look at what has happened to Greece and not even that resulted in revolt.

We need radical change delivered in a stable manner that doesn't require people to suffer more than they are now. There are simple solutions large and small. The key is the transfer of wealth to the .01%.

Many people believe they are being ripped off by the government and that social programs (and environmental programs) are unaffordable and always result in raising personal taxes.

I am disappointed that no one seems interested in doing something along these lines to popularize facts that could lead to political change. I guess it isn't as good an idea as I thought. I have certainly failed to generate any enthusiasm.

Thanks for reviving the thread anyway.

Wed, 2019-06-26 12:53

(Reply to #17) #18

Pondering

Mr. Magoo wrote:

You could also go with:

1,860 deaths were caused by car accidents in 2015. 7,700 were caused by air pollution, and 178 by gun crime.

The point of the statement would be to highlight the cost of air pollution. How would gun statistics help?

Wed, 2019-06-26 13:07

#19

JKR

I think most people in Canada already believe that man made global climate change is causing huge environmental problems and most Canadians also already agree that the 0.1% have unbelievably vast amounts of wealth. I think Canadians mostly agree on these kind of facts but they disagree on what should be done about them or if anything can be done at all.

Wed, 2019-06-26 13:19

(Reply to #19) #20

Pondering

JKR wrote:

I think most people in Canada already believe that man made global climate change is causing huge environmental problems and most Canadians also already agree that the 0.1% have unbelievably vast amounts of wealth. I think Canadians mostly agree on these kind of facts but they disagree on what should be done about them or if anything can be done at all.

But they don't know the mechanics of how wealth is being transferred nor the names of the people doing it.

How many people know that Canada used to borrow money interest free from the Bank of Canada? How many people are aware of the cumulative reduction in taxes to corporations over the past couple of decades? What are the names of the people using tax havens?

The media and this site has been full of outrage over SNC Lavalin, the company, not getting punished but little to no attention at all is being given to the people who actually committed the crimes walking away with millions. If I could committ financial crimes and you punished the company instead of me I would be laughing all the way to the bank.

People and mechanisms have to be identified to be stopped.

Wed, 2019-06-26 14:12

(Reply to #20) #21

JKR

Pondering wrote:

But they don't know the mechanics of how wealth is being transferred nor the names of the people doing it.

How many people know that Canada used to borrow money interest free from the Bank of Canada? How many people are aware of the cumulative reduction in taxes to corporations over the past couple of decades? What are the names of the people using tax havens?

The media and this site has been full of outrage over SNC Lavalin, the company, not getting punished but little to no attention at all is being given to the people who actually committed the crimes walking away with millions. If I could committ financial crimes and you punished the company instead of me I would be laughing all the way to the bank.

People and mechanisms have to be identified to be stopped.

I think most Canadians are not interested in identifying people and mechanisms because they feel that in the aggregate capitalism benefits Canada and most Canadians, even though it provides vast wealth to the 0.1%. I think most Canadians believe they benefit from capitalism or at least a mixed economic system that includes capitalism because they feel capitalism creates vast amounts of wealth. Moreover, many Canadians also feel that too much socialism causes poverty.

Thu, 2019-06-27 17:48

#22

Mr. Magoo

Quote:
The point of the statement would be to highlight the cost of air pollution. How would gun statistics help?

The same way car accident stats do.

Thu, 2019-06-27 17:54

(Reply to #22) #23

Pondering

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:
The point of the statement would be to highlight the cost of air pollution. How would gun statistics help?

The same way car accident stats do.

1,860 deaths were caused by car accidents in 2015. 7,700 were caused by air pollution, and 178 by gun crime.

I see. In both cases people worry more about what kills fewer people.