People Break Down Their All-Time Favorite Paradoxes

Where is there space?

"I don't like that place - no one goes there anymore because it's always too crowded."

VictorBlimpmuscle

into the water....

Buridan's bridge due to the fact there is an obvious answer for those unfamiliar, it goes as such:

Socrates wants to cross a river and comes to a bridge guarded by Plato. The two speak as follows:

Plato: "Socrates, if in the first proposition which you utter, you speak the truth, I will permit you to cross. But surely, if you speak falsely, I shall throw you into the water."

Socrates: "You will throw me into the water."

Assuming it's a bridge near water and not that high, I would throw him into the water, fish him out, then let him pass. He'd be shivering on the way and I would say as he passes "THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A SMART-A**"

FreeToPlayKING

The Matthews....

My mom chose my first name because she thought it would be a name you didn't see much. To be fair back in the early 80's you'd be right about that. But then it turned out to be the damn dark horse out of nowhere to become one of the most popular names that year.

And for a long time after. Hell, in one of my elementary school classes there were five Matthews. There were only 20 kids in the damn class. Literally a quarter of the class was named Matthew. Great job picking a less popular name, mom.

Morningxafter

Gotta Work....

You need job experience to get a job, but to have the experience you must get a job.

barto9991

I feel like this is how unpaid internships became so popular. You want a job in this field but we won't give you one unless you have experience, so do this work for free. Then maybe we'll consider paying you.

hogwashnola

Time Warped....

Ocarina of Time bootstrap paradox.

As a child you meet a happy man in a windmill.

Time travel so you are an adult you meet the same man who is angered by a child who played a song that summoned a storm that caused the windmill to drain a nearby well.

He teaches you the song.

Travel back in time and you play the song at the windmill, causing the above events.

Where did the song come from? Where did the cycle begin?

disconnecty

Prevention

The Pogo Paradox. Where an event is caused by the very attempts to prevent it.

Edit: I'm not sure if this is an official name. I heard it on Star Trek: Voyager.

Edit 2: No this is not the Streisand Effect. That defines a situation where people want to suppress knowledge about some information but that effort causes the information to become more widespread. This is not a paradox.

MechanicalHorse

The Family Cycle....

The story of Cronos.

It is a prophecy that one of his children will betray him, so he swallows all of his children except one. Who betrays him because Cronos betrayed his children first.

If he didn't swallow his children, they maybe wouldn't have betrayed him.

DoinkDamnation

So that is what it is called! As soon as I saw this i thought of Anakin trying to save Padme in Revenge of the Sith.

aperson2456

Duties....

Pilots can get out of combat duty if they are psychologically unfit, but anyone who tries to get out of combat duty proves he is sane.

Avoroi

The Stats....

Statistical paradoxes are cool. For example, Simpson's Paradox where a statistical trend is reversed when the population is partitioned into groups:

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was supported by 61% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans. However, both Southern and Northern Democrats were more likely to support the Act than their Republican colleagues.
• White murderers in Florida are more likely to receive the death penalty than African-Americans. However, African-Americans whose victims were white are more likely to be executed than whites, as are African-Americans whose victims were black.
• Median wages in the US rose by 1% between 2000 and 2013, yet wages of every educational subgroup (school dropouts, school graduates, college graduates and higher degrees) fell during the same period.
• The overall survival rates for third class passengers on the Titanic were higher than those for the crew, yet those for both men and women were lower.
• The batting averages of baseball player David Justice were higher than those of Derek Jeter in both 1995 and 1996, but not in the two years combined. huseddit

Every Second of Family

The paradox of being a parent: the days & nights are long & hard, yet the years fly by.

WeAllHaveOurMoments

Yes 100% I hate how cliché it is, but it's just so true. Each day feels like 749574 hours (especially right now when everyone is home all the time) but it truly feels like my oldest was just born and it blows my mind that it was actually 13 years ago.

hotdogs-r-sandwiches