I never forward email forwards. I usually run the content by hoax-busting sites and find that it's all quite silly and a waste of time.
The forward I received today claimed that if we boycott buying our fuel from our largest supplier, they will reduce prices and so the smaller suppliers would follow suit to be competitive. Industrial sabotage? Snopes says it wouldn't even work.
At the end of the email it said that if 20 people were to forward it to 20 more people and so on, after 6 rounds of this, 12.8 billion people would be reached. Unimaginable People Power! It urged me to do the maths and see for myself!
No amount of permutations or combinations can make the current population of the Earth more than 6.9 billion though, and I am guessing that most of those people don't have email addresses.
Or cars.
The email finished with this inconsequential claim: "Twenty Five Point Six Billion people: Now that's people power!"
It certainly would be.
14 comments:
People have too much time to waste on their computers!
20 lots of 20 after one round - that's 20 squared. Then 20 lots of that - that's 20 cubed.
So after six rounds, I think we'd have 20 to the seventh, or 2 to the seventh by 10 to the seventh. That's 128 by 10 to the seventh, or 1.28 by 10 to the 9th, i.e., 1.28 billion. So I differ by a factor of ten, dear daughter!
A few more powers would get you past the current population of the Earth, as you mentioned, but of course, long ago some of the victims would have been emailed twice.
Ooh Dad, thanks for that! Wow.
Love this! :)
When I'm feeling snotty I email the snopes link back to the person who sent it to me. When I'm feeling VERY snotty I hit 'reply all'...
Amen to this post and huzzah to your dad chiming in with the math!
I run everything through the hoax sites. It absolutely amazes me how many people forward e-mails that should have never passed the "sniff" test.
Silly humans.
Pearl
Oh my word. I tried to hit the forward button on your post so I could send it to everyone in my address book, but it didn't work. ;-)
yay!
when i receive an email forward, i politely tell the sender not to send me these things. ever.
if they send a second time, i tell them sharply.
the third time i tell them they're and idiot and should not send me such claptrap to me ever again. i accompany it with whatever documentation i can find that the stupdity is fake.
...and i hit "reply all".
I think it's funny just how bizarre they get - like the child going into a coma because she licked the antibacterial gel off her hands, or the fact the child who got stuck by a hypodermic needle in amongst the coloured balls in a fun factory. They all, always turn out to be hoaxes - the things that mothers who worry too much ooh and ahh over at mother's groups.
Someone needs to send around a hoax email boycotting hoax emails, somehow.
Emily Sue's "snottiness" is cracking me up!
Some may call her snottiness passive aggressive...I call it fantastic!
I only forward the funnies. I ignore the rest. Life is too short...
...but your way is funnier.
... and Sue Ellen's funnier still.
Some people are either really gullible or just enjoy torturing the rest of us with all those emails.
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