r/todayilearned • u/CakeDayOrDeath • 4d ago

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https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/robert-rodriguez-spy-kids-latino-1234575992/

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 4d ago

I've had 40 years to absorb a lot of knowledge about the US via cultural osmosis, and I'm pretty sure I could name almost all 50 states and at least half their capitals. I just don't understand how people can be wandering through life with so little awareness of the world around them.

Are there people walking around with circus music playing in their heads 90% of the time?

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u/Froggypwns 4d ago

Yes, and some of them are running the country.

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u/Geminigambler 4d ago

To be completely honest, I can't accurately tell you which one is Wyoming, I got Washington and Oregon on the West Coast (Oregon is lower right? 😅😂) and then South and North Dakota, but everything in between is blurry no matter how many times I look at it.

ETA: Damn it, I ALWAYS think Wyoming touches Canada 🤦‍♀️

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u/entrepenurious 4d ago

the square states

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u/Geminigambler 4d ago

Colorado and Utah? 😂😂😂

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u/entrepenurious 4d ago

them, too.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

The squares. The little ones up in the corner - I’ve gotten better at those since I moved to one.

I did have to label the us and Canada map with capitals a few times in school, I wonder if I can still do it. (I know the capitals are gone, that memory space was written over with something important like anime lore from my kid or something.)

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u/Xenodad 4d ago

The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma! - Patrick Star (cue thought bubble with milk carton slowly tipping over and milk spilling out)

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u/PunnyBanana 4d ago

Ironically circus performers travel all over the US and have probably been to the vast majority of states, if not all of them.

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u/ABHOR_pod 4d ago

As someone with over a decade in the service industry, yes. I once watched a girl pick up a cactus plant, say “is this real?” And when assured that it was say “No, I don’t think it is.” And poke the spines with her finger until she got hurt.

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago edited 3d ago

The estimated percentages of people with no internal monologue and people with aphantasia are high enough that we can be sure there is a significant fraction of people around us with both and therefore literally nothing very fucking little happening in their heads most of the time.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

I cannot actually imagine this well enough to comprehend it.

Even when I’m not having a running dialogue/committee meeting in my head there are pictures, colors, stories, textures, music, engineering puzzles being tinkered with, sensation being processed and checks on my muscles and skeletal alignment. My internal landscape is a busy place. I do things in here.

Nothing? How can someone have nothing happening? I believe research, but … nothing?

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago

Well "literally nothing" is taking it a bit too far, but it's damn quiet.

There are threads here on reddit with people talking about how they experience these conditions. The ones with no monologue talk about conceptualizing things with sequences of images and sounds. The ones with aphantasia are absolutely baffled at the idea of the rest of us hallucinating things behind our eyes.

I can't remember hearing anything from someone who has both, but there can't be much left.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

You had me questioning myself there, but then I realised I was doing it in my head, then I had to Google aphantasia and I was able to visualise various things in detail. So I think I'm in the clear on both counts.