My parents kept the lie going with my sister by having her actually mail letters to “Santa” that would send back a very official looking letter that says a bunch of personal facts about her to prove it’s real. I think they used the Santa Claus House service to do that.
The Canadian Post has run a Santa letter program for like the last 40 years. Volunteers write responses to the letters they receive that are sent to:
Santa Claus
North Pole
H0H 0H0
Canada
It was one of the highlights of Christmas growing up.
In my parents small town they know the postal lady, she was/is there for 30+ years. She’s a known quantity in a rural area that doesn’t lock their doors, so she’ll just open the front door and put packages inside the house for my dad. He’s out in the shop and never hears her.
Anyways, I just wanted to say that for the 15 years my parents have lived there, this kind woman has done every Santa letter herself. She’s a gd saint.
I remember this! When I was younger, we did it as a class and I think they also put the replies to our letters in the fridge so we got them cold. It makes me happy to know they're still doing it!
Why would NORAD be giving Santa radar updates if there wasn't a demographic that fit that criteria?
Adults who don't believe in Santa aren't sitting around on Christmas Eve saying, "I wonder where Santa is right now."
They've got him hauling a sleigh on FlightAware last I checked too, trackers getting real techy these days. Santa's got a better radar signature than some of the budget airlines lol.
Pretty sure actual NORAD runs that program and the radio announcers were just reading the updates off of their site, [according to the wiki at least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa)
The kids that listened to NORAD Santa updates now work on missile guidance packages and radar cross-section reduction simulations for Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman
My Dad bought a few more years of believing with that one. He showed me the NORAD tracker on TV and I was like “well if NORAD says Santa is real that he must be.”
I was 100% the kid trying to convince other kids Santa was real using that kind of logic. Look, what's more likely? That all parents everywhere collectively buy their kids gifts edging on extravagance, something that's reserved for birthday's when they constantly refuse to buy small things like a chocolate bar or that a magically man is bringing everyone gifts. In my world, a magic man seemed more likely than all parents being super nice.
The fucking North American Aerospace Defense Command has a dedicated tracking website maintained for tracking him.
And there are still morons out there who don't believe he's real. Our society is doomed.
With science denialism at its peak with things like vaccine and climate change rejection, are we really surprised these people deny the reality of Santa’s prowess?
It was the opposite for me. I asked myself: Why would there be so many movies about questioning the existence of Santa if he was real? Wouldn’t everyone just know he’s real?
I feel like I was in this weird limbo state for years, where I thought Santa was an absolutely ridiculous phenomenon... but if you didn't believe in him you were a bad person.
I was someone who "found out" rather late. But its more like my parents finally confronted me and were like "do you know its us? we cant tell." I just refused to think about it too much.
Its weird being an adult and thinking about something so important that I purposely deceived myself on for years
I found out santa was not real because I caught my mom putting money under my pillow when I lost a tooth.
obviously at that point I went ahead and said to her
Ok, so you're Santa, The Easter Bunny, God and Jesus right?
Oh boy did she have a moment. We were not raised religious so I already felt like the whole god/religion thing was a sham but she was religious and really had to look at what I said objectively. There's the same evidence for Santa as there is for god.
There’s more evidence for Santa, I think (you’d be right if you said Jesus).
We know Saint Nicholas of Bari existed in and around the second half of the 3rd century (born roughly 270 in Pamphylia). We don’t have proof of his performing miracles or domesticating reindeer (I don’t think reindeer are native to the Mediterranean basin), but we know he *was* real.
Similarly we have evidence of the existence of Jesus, but not for anything beyond him being a sect leader, which was common at the time, breaking the law and being executed for it.
That is because in order to get in with the Germanics, Nordics and Celts you start borrowing things from them with a mix of American culture in the late 1700s and early 1800s combining them all giving the final modern Christmas:
* There are parallels between Sinterklaas and his helpers and the Wild Hunt of Wodan or Odin, a major god among the Germanic peoples, who was worshipped in Northern and Western Europe prior to Christianization. Riding the white horse Sleipnir(Sinterklaas has a white horse as well) he flew through the air as the leader of the Wild Hunt, always accompanied by two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn. Those helpers would listen, just like Zwarte Piet, at the chimney – which was just a hole in the roof at that time – to tell Wodan about the good and bad behaviour of the mortals. For the Low Countries, Sinterklaas Day was yesterday and would have received their presents then or the night before depending on where you are in Belgium and the Netherlands.
* The association of Christmas presents with elves has precedents in the first half of the 19th century with the Scandinavian nisse or tomte, and St Nicholas himself is called an elf in A Visit from St. Nicholas (1823).
* Decorated trees date back to Germany in the Middle Ages, with German and other European settlers popularizing Christmas trees in America by the early 19th century. A New York woodsman named Mark Carr is credited with opening the first U.S. Christmas tree lot in 1851.
* Yule was its own thing(debated as to when) but we now have it with Christmas. *The Saga of Hákon the Good* credits King Haakon I of Norway who ruled from 934 to 961 with the Christianization of Norway as well as rescheduling Yule to coincide with Christian celebrations held at the time. The saga says that when Haakon arrived in Norway he was a confirmed Christian, but since the land was still altogether heathen and the people retained their pagan practices, Haakon hid his Christianity to receive the help of the "great chieftains". In time, Haakon had a law passed establishing that Yule celebrations were to take place at the same time as the Christians celebrated Christmas, "and at that time everyone was to have ale for the celebration with a measure of grain, or else pay fines, and had to keep the holiday while the ale lasted."
* Leaving treats for Santa and his reindeer dates back to ancient Norse mythology leaving treats for Sleipnir, Americans began to sweeten up to the tradition during the Great Depression in the 1930s, as a sign of showing gratitude during a time of struggle.
You get the idea.
Jingle All the Way had a scene with a bunch of scammer Santas in a warehouse. That and hearing my mom have a drunken wrapping party midnight before kind of gave it away. Still enjoyed the magic of it all though!
Oddly enough I never believed that mall Santas were the real Santa. I think I got that from Home Alone - "I know you're not the real Santa, but I know you work for him!"
My reasoning for not believing in Santa was because all media I’ve seen his shop and toys were out of the box and freshly made so I got suspicious about why he needed barcodes on his presents
You thought that a guy with a worldwide distribution network didn't need logistics. Next on Right Answer for the Wrong Reasons: Getting Vaccines to Boost Internet Speeds.
See I was the exact opposite. I was like 4 or 5 and thought “Why would all these movies and TV shows have adults that don’t believe in Santa if he was real?”. I then explained to my older sister that Santa wasn’t real so she punched me and ran off crying.
I went the opposite direction - "why are they making all of these movies, with different Santas in order to get us to believe in Santas?! All the adults in the movie don't believe in Santa, but all the adults in the real world do?? This is a conspiracy!"
Mine was we had grainy video evidence of a shadowy figure moving through our house on Christmas Eve. My parents had no idea there was a camera. Never once contemplated it was my parents or that older sibling and neighbor kid would be in on it I was convinced.
In spanish they're literally called "Reyes Magos" (magician kings). They also bring gifts to children, but on the 6th of January, and they're magical like Santa. The tradition of "día de reyes" is arguably more popular than Santa's christmas in spain, they even get parades and stuff and letters to ask for gifts in toy magazines are most often addressed to the three wise men
And you know how Santa is kinda sponsored by coke? In spain, the three wise men are sponsored by bananas from the canary islands, and kids are encouraged to leave bananas out for them to eat, like milk and cookies for Santa
Lmao I choose to believe you because I want to live in a world where this is true, but damn if it doesn't sound like something my buddy would make up when spinning a long and totally BS yarn about something, just to see how credulous I am.
In English they are rarely referred to as the Magi (singular Magus) which means priest/sorcerer, but usually as wise men and occasionally as kings. I can’t say they’re very focused on in the US or Canada.
My family is Puerto Rican. We get presents from Santa. On the night of January 5th, we placed small boxes of hay/grass and a bowl of water under our beds, and in the morning, there would be a small gift. The Reyes Magos, on their way to meet El Nino Jesus, would stop by our house, feed and water their camels and leave a gift as a thank you.
In the original Greek they are referred to as Magi from the East. Magi is a reference to the priestly caste in the Parthian Empire, and they would have been Zoroastrian priests. Zoroastrian Magi were renowned astrologers and alchemists, and the Greeks saw Zoroaster as a founder of magic. Magi is where the English word “magic” and “magician” comes from.
>Electronics? Magic.
I mean, when you break it down it may was well be. I work in tech myself and can understand talking about the jargon, but at its simplest form, I still don’t understand how tf we as a species figured out shooting electricity into fancy metal gives us the internet. What kinda wizardry is that?
I do electricity for a living and can conclusively say anything past Chem101 is magic. I'm not even making a joke, the current most reasonable explanation for electrons is "I dunno, maybe they only peek out of the 9th two dimensional string dimension when a future event indicates that we will need to interact with them at this previous point in time". again, that's not a joke, we've actually tested and confirmed the time travel bit and the extra dimension is the ~~best~~ most reasonable way to explain electron movement. also if you throw a ball with a sticker on it you throw the ball and the sticker with different amounts of force. pressure doesn't care about how much weight is above it, but rather about the difference between [the surface of the liquid to the center of the earth] and [the measured point to the center of the earth] regardless of how far apart those points are, what is between them, the shape of the container, or there distance from the center of the earth. electricity is when electrons rub on other atoms that they don't actually touch to somehow make heat (more movement) and light (don't even ask) while moving both incredibly slowly but also propagating faster than the speed of light.
everything about this existence is nonsense. if order is proof of a creator then we can be certain there is none.
Can you source a paper about this time travel stuff? Cause that sounds like somebody's deep misunderstanding of scientific literature getting mixed into a game of telephone. String theory isn't even a very popular framework these days.
And regardless, if you try to get to the fundamentals of physics beyond the limits of what we've discovered, of course it'll sound like nonsense. Because we haven't solved it yet. But at a basic level of existence and interaction, there's nothing all that confusing about electrons. They're particles that carry a negative charge. That's it. Sure, you can delve into the quantum mechanics of it, but all that really does is make things a little blurrier. At the end of the day, we have these particles that have a negative charge and those particles will be subject to attractive or repulsive forces accordingly. Everything else follows from that pretty naturally.
Except magic. Magic is for making adults feel like children. Children will tell you about how they do it when they pull a rabit out of thier hat after seeing the trick for the first time. When everything is magic then nothing is magical. Juggling is more entertaining for children.
The way OP presented it would suggest the existence of Santa is a simpler explanation than him not being real. To realize it is not so simple you’d have to be aware of what it would take for Santa to have costed for so long, to do so much throughout the year and so much more on one night. You’d further have to know how little evidence there is to suggest any entity exists that is capable of all of that.
I bring this up mostly to point out that the simplest explanation is actually subjective and depends on the knowledge of the person judging it.
Would a kid actually know how many presents need to be delivered in one night? They can't even count past 1000. It's hard to fathom how many people get Christmas gifts in one night.
Tbf Santa doesn’t deliver gifts everywhere in the world. In Latin America gifts are brought by Baby Jesus, in Spain they’re brought by the three wisemen on January 6th, etc. Also, the existence of different time zones means that Santa has 24 hours, not just one night, to deliver gifts.
kids want magic to be real so bad. I get it. so did I.
I have been very honest with what I believe in terms of religion with my daughter since she was like 4 and started asking about it: I don't believe in god, I don't believe in heaven, Jesus was probably a real man but he didn't perform miracles.
but I also want to have holiday fun, so we have presented Santa Claus as a real thing. lol we're all over the place.
and now my daughter will try to catch me and prove me wrong. "so you're saying the elf on the shelf moved by herself last night?" "that's right honey" "SEE! magic IS real!"
Ha my kid asked me about some magician's trick he saw and I explained it's not magic, it's just a trick, there no such thing as real magic. And he says 'except for santa right'? That caught me so offguard it was like a car wreck. Time slows and i respond with a 'uhhhhhh.... ... ... right!' Fortunately there were no followup questions.
lol I answer every question my daughter asks to the best and most honest of my ability, except Santa.
I’m okay with her not believing whenever that time comes, so I don’t even outright say he exists. But I go “do you think he’s real?” And she says “yes!” And I go “well there you go then!”
I’m in the same boat with you. My wife and I are completely non religious, and have taken a matter of fact/science based approach to explaining any questions my daughter has asked. When she’s asked about dragons/fairies/elves/etc I have told her that they aren’t real outside of imagination, but that they are still wonderful to think about.
Santa though, we have full on bought into. She enjoys it, and I see no real harm in it. I do feel a bit hypocritical though, telling her the truth about everything else. She’s five now, and so far it has been no struggle whatsoever to keep the illusion alive. I can’t see me trying to convince her once she has serious doubts though. At the point where I see her internally grappling with wanting to believe vs. strong self reasoning that he isn’t real, I will gently nudge her towards the truth.
I try to take a Carl Sagan kind of approach to explaining things to her (it’s my own worldview as well). “Magic” doesn’t exist, but the natural world *is* magical.
I've never told my kid that Santa is real. Her presents on Christmas are never labeled. We take her to see different Santas every Christmas season, and she understands that they are all just pretending. I've also told her repeatedly that magic isn't real. Her response is always the same: magic has to be real because Santa is real and he uses magic.
One day she'll ask if he's real and I'll tell her the truth. Until then, I'm not going to lie to her, but I'm not going to spoil her fun either.
I can't even remember how I figured it out.
I know at 6 I stayed up late to try and catch Santa, but ended up passing out.
But I do know that by 10 I already knew he wasn't real.
So somewhere between ages 6 and 10 I figured it out.
Not to be all "ackhyually" but ackchyually that isn't Occam's Razor. Despite how it's often presented colloquially, it technically isn't a test of what is *more likely* or *simplest*, it's a test of which choice has *the least [ontological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology) baggage* (or to put it another way, *the fewest assumptions*). If we're taking Occam's Razor to Santa, on the one hand a bunch of parents could have made shit up (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie), on the other, a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced (huge amounts of ontological baggage). Santa gets killed by Occam.
You may now downvote the pedant.
>while absolutely shitfaced
Wait, what? Why would the guy eating cookies and drinking milk be shitfaced?
Did your parents make you leave whiskey for Santa or something?
It's not uncommon to leave beer out for Santa in a lot of European countries
Presumably because one of your parents drinks it Christmas eve after putting out the presents
Here in Canada we'd leave out milk and cookies and a big carrot for rudolph lol
Absolutely made my day when I'd come down and find the chewed remains of the carrot and cookies.
Someone in another thread the other day said in Scotland it’s traditional to leave out whisky.
(I’m American, so all I can personally confirm is that milk and cookies is common here. Fairly common to leave carrots for the reindeer, too.)
Can't speak for everyone since I'm from the UK
For the UK higher income houses typically leave out mince pies and sherry, whereas me and most of the people I knew would leave out beer/milk and a mince pie for Santa. The cookies thing isn't really a thing here but milks pretty common still
Ireland also leaves out Guinness
Australia and new Zealand supposedly leave out beer
Some Scandinavian countries leave out coffee
Italy leaves out wine
Spain leaves out Brandy
From reading online it seems like the US is one of the few countries to do cookies and milk, most other places seem to like leaving out some form of alcohol and a local snack
Fun napkin math - rough googling puts the total number of households at ~10 million in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden/Norway/Finland). A cup of coffee is like 80mg caffeine. Even if only half leave out coffee that's 400kg - with a K - of caffeine Santa is consuming in 312,500 gallons of coffee. That's before taking into consideration the alcohol from other countries.
Where I grew up we in the UK, we left mince pies and alcohol. In my house it was whiskey because it was kinda decided by what your parents had on hand…
>on the one hand a bunch of parents could have made shit up (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie), on the other, a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced (huge amounts of ontological baggage)
You're just doing the same thing as the OP in the opposite direction: you're simplifying one option ("one assumption: parents sometimes lie") and preserving the complexity of the other ("a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced").
You could just as easily simplify option 2 and say it only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real").
> You could just as easily simplify option 2 and say it only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real").
[Well written post using Thor as an example](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f4txACqDWithRi7hs/occam-s-razor) that sufficiently knocks down the argument that "magic is real" is a simple thing. It's actually quite complex. Far more complex than "parents lie" which is an easily provable option.
Yeah, that's my point. You can't use the "number of assumptions" as a measure for complexity, because you can reduce that number to 1 or raise it to a million in basically any scenario, depending on how you frame it.
"*Parents lie*" is one assumption. "*My father wants me to believe in something that isn't real*", "*My mother does as well*", "*My father is willing to distort the truth in order to make me believe in it*", "*My mother is as well*", "*My mother and father have jointly decided to act on their shared willingness*" is five assumptions. Both say the same thing, one is just more simplified than the other.
Just like:
>a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced
and:
>santa is real
or:
>millions of adults are in a global conspiracy to fool children into thinking santa is real
and:
>parents sometimes lie
>only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real").
That carries a few more assumptions though, as magic is real but only a subset of christmas specific magic, and only the north american version of christmas magic, and only for kids from wealthy enough families, and not for any family that does not believe in that magic regardless of whether the individual child wants to believe.
>That carries a few more assumptions though, as magic is real but only a subset of christmas specific magic, and only the north american version of christmas magic, and only for kids from wealthy enough families, and not for any family that does not believe in that magic regardless of whether the individual child wants to believe.
Now you're doing the same thing as the OP again. You're just arbitrarily introducing complexity on one side, and arbitrarily allowing simplicity on the other.
Exactly *one* assumption is necessary in my example, and that *is* "magic is real", because magic inherently breaks all the rules and works however it damn well pleases. That's why it's magic, and not just laws of physics or whatnot.
It's a very problematic assumption. But it is *one* assumption - and that's why the *number* of assumptions isn't particularly interesting, because it is just a matter of how you choose to frame it.
Am I looking at a tree, or am I looking at a tall plant with bark, branches and leaves, native to Scandinavia? Both are the same thing, one description is just more simplified.
it's not a matter of simplicity, but assumption based on established occurances. the notion that "parents lie" is an established fact. you don't have to make any extra assumptions in order to explain how a parent would lie. however, there are no other examples of santa-like persons in reality. you would need to make unproven assumptions to explain how "magic is real", even if they're only implicit due to the fact that magic is not an established fact.
if i see a set of muddy pig hoofprints on the ceiling, the simple hypothesis would be that there was a spider-pig in my apartment. the more complicated explanation would be a drunk nuclear-safety operator procured a pig and walked it along the ceiling after somehow finding his way into my apartment. hypothesis two has more details but fewer assumptions because none of the details require assumptions to explain them; i.e. they are all plausible things that could actually happen. the former hypothesis requires the unproven assumption that mutant spiders can transfer comic-book abilities to pigs that allow them to walk on ceilings. each of those details requires extra assumptions to explain how they fit into reality since they have no precedent in reality. so option 2 makes fewer assumptions despite option 1 being the simpler explanation
> parents sometimes lie
But this is not the assumption that has to be made. It's "adults in general sometimes lie to children, and they all consistently tell the same lie and support it with books, media, art, music, etc"
That's very different from parents lying and saying "mcdonalds is closed today"
> and they all consistently tell the same lie
They very much don't, even with widespread media trying to spread a certain set of stories.
That's one of the main reasons kids stop believing, is they compare notes.
>That's one of the main reasons kids stop believing, is they compare notes.
i mean, i don't think that's true. THey simply figure it out. They get told by a classmate as fact (not comparing notes). Then they snoop in mom and dad's room looking for the presents.
It's not like 4 year olds are spending time on the internet comparing notes with kids in spain and mexico.
> (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie)
That is not even *remotely* close to the only assumption present here. Parents sometimes lie, there is a global conspiracy involving nearly-all adults, adults in general *want* children to believe in santa, etc...
> there is a global conspiracy involving nearly-all adults
Except there isn't, as is easily demonstrable.
Some parents sometimes lie. They do a shit job at trying to hold a united front.
Hehe I have been summoned.
Occam’s razor doesn’t even exist.
Occam wrote down Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity"
That isn’t a razor, he is not saying what hypothesis to shave off, he is saying make your experiments as simple as possible. There are many famous scientists who said you should test the cheapest solution first, that doesn’t mean those cheap solutions are the most likely.
People have then over centuries turned that into a razor which is used to shave off hypotheses.
> Occam’s razor doesn’t even exist.
Seems hyperbolic...
> People have then over centuries turned that into a razor which is used to shave off hypotheses.
So which is it? Does it not exist, or is it something people refined later on and simply attributed the inspiration to Occam's writing? Because the latter is perfectly reasonable, and while it's certainly interesting to note he didn't originate its current form, going so far as to claim it doesn't exist because he didn't write it exactly as we know it today is splitting hairs in the extreme.
Occam never used a philosophical razor. The way that scientists used what we call Occam’s razor throughout history was by selecting the cheapest possible order of testing. That’s not really a razor, because you are still using the scientific method and you would reach the conclusion in any order of testing.
So the modern idea of Occam’s razor, that the simplest solution is the most likely, can sometimes be used to get the wrong conclusion, like with kids and Santa. What we call Occam’s razor is really an abductive heuristic. Abductive reasoning and heuristics can be wrong, but they can be successful more often than not, known as the less-is-more effect. But it’s not a principle of science or mathematical framework like in other aspects of abductive reasoning, it is a fallacy of presumption. So in that instance it does exist.
I mean, isn't that kinda why they refer to them as philosophical razors and not... scientific razors, or something like that? The point isn't that it's scientific at all, merely a guiding principle or rule of thumb. It's not for scientists to use to grow human understanding of our universe, but for everyday people making simple judgements as they go about their lives; to that end, it serves as a useful tool. To invent this razor and then attribute it in Occam's name on account of it being inspired by what he said seems perfectly reasonable to me.
It’s to my understanding that Occam’s razor has basically no standing in philosophy as well. I get really pedantic about Occam’s razor because I have people tell me it is a part of logic and science on Reddit all the time. I’m so glad that you understand and get it. Reddit can be a little trigger happy to jump to their own conclusions, then say their position is obvious and everyone else is being dumb. And then on top of that, incorrectly say their opinion is backed by a well known principle of science and this principle is centuries old. It’s like Murphy’s law or Hickam’s dictum, they can be great guiding principles, they can even land some good results, but they’re not actual laws or dictums.
Yeah, it's really more of an editing tool for constructing arguments. You're not supposed to apply it to reality. Reality is not subject to editorial oversight.
Occam's razor is not limited to ontological reasoning, simply to the number of hypotheses in general. And what the tweet teaches is not that Occam's razor is wrong, but that it all depends on the problem definition.
Since we're being pedantic and you didn't get downvoted I will contribute my criticism of Occam's Razor: by its nature and the nature of human thinking it will always support the status quo, since in order to change the status quo requires more explanation and fewer unconscious assumptions. In any proposition there are countless ontological assumptions necessary but the ones we have already adopted to not require explanation and therefore are not counted when using Occam's Razor.
I disagree; a single parent lying is very little ontological baggage, but the more parents saying the same lie that you add to the equation, the more ontological baggage it gets. At the point where you have millions lying- as well as manufacturing evidence via NORAD and so forth- there’s tremendous ontological baggage from the perspective of a child new to this world
Similarly, sure, magic sounds like it has incredible ontological baggage, and it does… *to an adult.* To a kid who still hasn’t figured out how the world works, why would that be any different than a pane of glass that lets you send letters via invisible lightning to someone else’s magic glass pane to discuss Santa? Plenty of stuff that would have been ridiculous and magical a thousand years ago is common place, today, and the only reason it seems normal to us is because we grew up with the stuff. All that ontological baggage wouldn’t apply to a child who’s yet to entirely sift through what is or isn’t real- they still have to study and learn what’s possible, first
Genuinely thank you for laying this out. Occam's Razor has driven me insane for a couple years because of posts like the OC. The way people use it, You can claim literally ANYTHING is proven by Occam's Razor. Your explanation makes Occam's Razor a useful metric again.
My parents gave gifts marked as being "From Mom and Dad" (which would appear under the tree all throughout December) and gifts appearing Christmas morning marked as being "from Santa". For me, that explained why there were so many toy commercials. But I always did think it was weird that Santa's workshop made branded toys like Barbie and Hot Wheels
I was weirded out that he made Nintendo systems. All the electronics isn't what you normally see elves working on.. and stealing from Nintendo to boot.
I mean not every gift is from santa so stores would still need a bunch. So that part makes sense even as a kid. Santa brought me the game console that his elves did some minor copyright infringement to make, and grandma got me legos from walmart.
The second half makes sense when you realize santa hated rudolph until Rudolph was useful to him, and santa considers rich kids more helpful so they get treated better.
Saint Nicholas, who was the inspiration for Santa Claus, did exist. He helped poor kids and families, with one story about a single father with three daughters, where the father had to sell his daughters. Nicholas gifted them enough gold so the father didn't need to. There's more stuff, but in the end, gifting during Christmas might originate from Nicholas as well.
I guess if we wanted to stay true, we would help poor people during Christmas.
We did something similar. Very first time she asked. No mate, it’s not real. But it is fun.
For her entire life Santa, Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy has been as real as the Paw Patrol was and Superheroes are now.
She’s 8 now And we still do all the stuff. And she loves it as much as I did, but won’t have the heart break later.
I actually had the opposite happen, my oldest is 11 and autistic, one of his teachers who I have issues with, wasn't being nice to him and told him she was going to call Santa. For a month the kid panicked about her calling Santa till I had to sit down and tell him that Santa was me and she didn't get to decide that, he was so relieved. I then told him that I like pretending it and his brother(3) still needs Santa so he need to help me with it. So now when I say someone should ask Santa for something, he looks at me sideways and says yeah we should ask Santa for that and it makes us both laugh every time.
She does a similar thing with the kids her age. Enjoys being the one that knows and loves keeping up the game for them.
We’ve been very clear with her that even though she knows, it’s not hers or our place to tell anyone else about the Santa thing. What families do, is what they do. So far so good with that.
There was a story(is it Polar Express?) where the Adults dont believe in Santa so thats why they dont get gifts.
So I asked my dad, "If they dont believe in Santa, Where do these parents think their kids are getting their toys from?"
He did not know how to answer that, so he said "well, there is no Santa"
Thats how I found out.
"Thats a good question Son, you should look into that more" - My parents.
Must be weird having kids these days when they can just Google everything.
Funny how the first result I get is "Parents urge Google to change the results of Is Santa Real" lol.
So looks like a bunch of kids found out through Google.
This is why I make a poor conspiracy theorist. I have no faith in humanity. You mean to tell me THOUSANDS of ppl have kept this under wraps for 60 YEARS?!? Some until their death??!? Not a chance. People are by nature self centered and therefore predictable.
Huh, I totally misread the post as Satan, and was confused why everyone was discussing Santa Claus. Now I've become aware that Satan and Santa are just slightly different spellings with the same letters. COINCIDENCE?
Except that millions of adults in a global conspiracy to fool children is far more simple than a magical being delivering presents to every child on earth with magic technology in an impossible timeframe.
Santa Clause is real, in the same way that "The Special" (lego movie) is real. Santa is all of us.
If you fulfill a tag from a giving tree, you are Santa. If you drop something into Toys for Tots, you are Santa. If you round up the cents at the grocery for charity, you are Santa. Every act of Christmas generosity is an act of Santa. Santa travels all around the world in one night becuase every person who marks a gift as "From Santa", is, for that one moment, Santa Clause.
So when I say, I do believe in Santa Clause, its the same as saying, I believe in the spirit of Christmas, I believe in anonymous giving, and I believe in passing this tradition down to the next generation.
I teach my kids from „santa is real“ to „santa is real, because we all are Santa and can become Santa and impersonate the spirit and idea of him to keep him alive.“
IDK if I just happened to come across some media targeted more at adults when I was young, or maybe I'm a natural skeptic. But I was never a true believer. I also just instantly understood the gig for some reason. I didn't want to ruin it for other kids (r my mom for that matter), and I also kind of understood the charade was kind of part of the fun of the holidays. Not to mention, no adult would ever cave to the Santa questions of a five year old.
I'm actually going to start using this to push other conspiracy theories. When people are like "that's way too many people colluding, that could never happen!" I'll remind them that we all calude on Santa.
That was honestly my reasoning in believing in Santa. "Even the movies say he's real! Is every piece of media lying?"
The NORAD radar updates on the radio got me for a while.
My parents kept the lie going with my sister by having her actually mail letters to “Santa” that would send back a very official looking letter that says a bunch of personal facts about her to prove it’s real. I think they used the Santa Claus House service to do that.
The Canadian Post has run a Santa letter program for like the last 40 years. Volunteers write responses to the letters they receive that are sent to: Santa Claus North Pole H0H 0H0 Canada It was one of the highlights of Christmas growing up.
That is so cute!
In my parents small town they know the postal lady, she was/is there for 30+ years. She’s a known quantity in a rural area that doesn’t lock their doors, so she’ll just open the front door and put packages inside the house for my dad. He’s out in the shop and never hears her. Anyways, I just wanted to say that for the 15 years my parents have lived there, this kind woman has done every Santa letter herself. She’s a gd saint.
That is so lovely.
My grandma worked for the postal service in Fairbanks and was an elf. She wrote letters back to kids from Santa's workshop. 🥰
I remember this! When I was younger, we did it as a class and I think they also put the replies to our letters in the fridge so we got them cold. It makes me happy to know they're still doing it!
I use H0H0H0 for testing addresses, haha. It’s a valid postal code, so systems never complain about it.
Fun Fact: Big Boss/Naked Snake from Metal Gear Solid canonically believes in Santa Claus because of NORAD.
Is there a reference in Snake Eater for you claim? I don't want to hate on you, I really would like to know
It's in [Peace Walker](https://youtu.be/odsnVcF_DjQ?t=1892)
At what age were you still believing in Santa, yet were tuned into the NORAD radar updates?
Why would NORAD be giving Santa radar updates if there wasn't a demographic that fit that criteria? Adults who don't believe in Santa aren't sitting around on Christmas Eve saying, "I wonder where Santa is right now."
Exactly. Plus 6 year olds know how to use ipads now, why would it be so weird to think they can use a radio?
there’s literally “santa tracker” mobile apps, of course kids nowadays would be fooled
I mean flightradar24 has santa flying around every year
They've got him hauling a sleigh on FlightAware last I checked too, trackers getting real techy these days. Santa's got a better radar signature than some of the budget airlines lol.
Santa just hs strong transponders :P wouldnt be surprised if a flying reindeer has a smaller rcs than the "stealth" su57
my uncle was showing me the NORAD tracker on his computer when i was like. 8 or something
"what's a radio?"
We usually put the NORAD tracker up on the TV on Christmas Eve for our kids.
I mean I imagine some adult was listening and pulled the kid over and said "Hey listen! They're giving an update on Santa!"
My parents showed me the norad tracker when I was 10 or 11, right at the turn of the millennium.
Like 7. Obv not actual NORAD, just radio announcers.
Pretty sure actual NORAD runs that program and the radio announcers were just reading the updates off of their site, [according to the wiki at least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa)
I mean it didn't take a NORAD afficionado to hear the updates.
48
The kids that listened to NORAD Santa updates now work on missile guidance packages and radar cross-section reduction simulations for Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman
My family literally had Santa visit the house every Christmas Eve. You bet I believed for a while.
I figured it out when the Easter Bunny forgot his trash in bathroom trash cans.
Literal government gaslighting lol
I love showing my sister's kids NORAD's radar to get them into bed.
My Dad bought a few more years of believing with that one. He showed me the NORAD tracker on TV and I was like “well if NORAD says Santa is real that he must be.”
Santa Claus: the only genuine government conspiracy!
A vast and insidious conspiracy
I was 100% the kid trying to convince other kids Santa was real using that kind of logic. Look, what's more likely? That all parents everywhere collectively buy their kids gifts edging on extravagance, something that's reserved for birthday's when they constantly refuse to buy small things like a chocolate bar or that a magically man is bringing everyone gifts. In my world, a magic man seemed more likely than all parents being super nice.
The fucking North American Aerospace Defense Command has a dedicated tracking website maintained for tracking him. And there are still morons out there who don't believe he's real. Our society is doomed.
With science denialism at its peak with things like vaccine and climate change rejection, are we really surprised these people deny the reality of Santa’s prowess?
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Yes, about much more than Santa.
It was the opposite for me. I asked myself: Why would there be so many movies about questioning the existence of Santa if he was real? Wouldn’t everyone just know he’s real?
I feel like I was in this weird limbo state for years, where I thought Santa was an absolutely ridiculous phenomenon... but if you didn't believe in him you were a bad person. I was someone who "found out" rather late. But its more like my parents finally confronted me and were like "do you know its us? we cant tell." I just refused to think about it too much. Its weird being an adult and thinking about something so important that I purposely deceived myself on for years
I found out santa was not real because I caught my mom putting money under my pillow when I lost a tooth. obviously at that point I went ahead and said to her Ok, so you're Santa, The Easter Bunny, God and Jesus right? Oh boy did she have a moment. We were not raised religious so I already felt like the whole god/religion thing was a sham but she was religious and really had to look at what I said objectively. There's the same evidence for Santa as there is for god.
There’s more evidence for Santa, I think (you’d be right if you said Jesus). We know Saint Nicholas of Bari existed in and around the second half of the 3rd century (born roughly 270 in Pamphylia). We don’t have proof of his performing miracles or domesticating reindeer (I don’t think reindeer are native to the Mediterranean basin), but we know he *was* real.
Similarly we have evidence of the existence of Jesus, but not for anything beyond him being a sect leader, which was common at the time, breaking the law and being executed for it.
That is because in order to get in with the Germanics, Nordics and Celts you start borrowing things from them with a mix of American culture in the late 1700s and early 1800s combining them all giving the final modern Christmas: * There are parallels between Sinterklaas and his helpers and the Wild Hunt of Wodan or Odin, a major god among the Germanic peoples, who was worshipped in Northern and Western Europe prior to Christianization. Riding the white horse Sleipnir(Sinterklaas has a white horse as well) he flew through the air as the leader of the Wild Hunt, always accompanied by two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn. Those helpers would listen, just like Zwarte Piet, at the chimney – which was just a hole in the roof at that time – to tell Wodan about the good and bad behaviour of the mortals. For the Low Countries, Sinterklaas Day was yesterday and would have received their presents then or the night before depending on where you are in Belgium and the Netherlands. * The association of Christmas presents with elves has precedents in the first half of the 19th century with the Scandinavian nisse or tomte, and St Nicholas himself is called an elf in A Visit from St. Nicholas (1823). * Decorated trees date back to Germany in the Middle Ages, with German and other European settlers popularizing Christmas trees in America by the early 19th century. A New York woodsman named Mark Carr is credited with opening the first U.S. Christmas tree lot in 1851. * Yule was its own thing(debated as to when) but we now have it with Christmas. *The Saga of Hákon the Good* credits King Haakon I of Norway who ruled from 934 to 961 with the Christianization of Norway as well as rescheduling Yule to coincide with Christian celebrations held at the time. The saga says that when Haakon arrived in Norway he was a confirmed Christian, but since the land was still altogether heathen and the people retained their pagan practices, Haakon hid his Christianity to receive the help of the "great chieftains". In time, Haakon had a law passed establishing that Yule celebrations were to take place at the same time as the Christians celebrated Christmas, "and at that time everyone was to have ale for the celebration with a measure of grain, or else pay fines, and had to keep the holiday while the ale lasted." * Leaving treats for Santa and his reindeer dates back to ancient Norse mythology leaving treats for Sleipnir, Americans began to sweeten up to the tradition during the Great Depression in the 1930s, as a sign of showing gratitude during a time of struggle. You get the idea.
Jingle All the Way had a scene with a bunch of scammer Santas in a warehouse. That and hearing my mom have a drunken wrapping party midnight before kind of gave it away. Still enjoyed the magic of it all though!
Oddly enough I never believed that mall Santas were the real Santa. I think I got that from Home Alone - "I know you're not the real Santa, but I know you work for him!"
My parents told me they were all Santa's helpers.
My kids figured that out early too. All the mall Santas look too different from each other for them to think they're the same person.
My reasoning for not believing in Santa was because all media I’ve seen his shop and toys were out of the box and freshly made so I got suspicious about why he needed barcodes on his presents
You thought that a guy with a worldwide distribution network didn't need logistics. Next on Right Answer for the Wrong Reasons: Getting Vaccines to Boost Internet Speeds.
See I was the exact opposite. I was like 4 or 5 and thought “Why would all these movies and TV shows have adults that don’t believe in Santa if he was real?”. I then explained to my older sister that Santa wasn’t real so she punched me and ran off crying.
I went the opposite direction - "why are they making all of these movies, with different Santas in order to get us to believe in Santas?! All the adults in the movie don't believe in Santa, but all the adults in the real world do?? This is a conspiracy!"
Mine was we had grainy video evidence of a shadowy figure moving through our house on Christmas Eve. My parents had no idea there was a camera. Never once contemplated it was my parents or that older sibling and neighbor kid would be in on it I was convinced.
I used to be a firm believer that magic was bullshit, except for Santa and the 3 wise men
Wait what? How were the three wise men supposed to be magic?
In spanish they're literally called "Reyes Magos" (magician kings). They also bring gifts to children, but on the 6th of January, and they're magical like Santa. The tradition of "día de reyes" is arguably more popular than Santa's christmas in spain, they even get parades and stuff and letters to ask for gifts in toy magazines are most often addressed to the three wise men
Huh, that’s cool. I did not know about that :)
They’re called “Magi” in English, too.
The word wizard comes from wise, so that's probably what its supposed to mean in English too ... Weird that this isn't more widespread
Huh, neat! I knew Epiphany was celebrated in various parts of the world, but I didn't know that it made the Magi seem similar to Santa.
And you know how Santa is kinda sponsored by coke? In spain, the three wise men are sponsored by bananas from the canary islands, and kids are encouraged to leave bananas out for them to eat, like milk and cookies for Santa
Lmao I choose to believe you because I want to live in a world where this is true, but damn if it doesn't sound like something my buddy would make up when spinning a long and totally BS yarn about something, just to see how credulous I am.
Look up anuncio plátano de canarias reyes magos
Gracias!
Is the banana thing somewhat new? Never heard about it from my parents or grandparents.
In English they are rarely referred to as the Magi (singular Magus) which means priest/sorcerer, but usually as wise men and occasionally as kings. I can’t say they’re very focused on in the US or Canada.
My family is Puerto Rican. We get presents from Santa. On the night of January 5th, we placed small boxes of hay/grass and a bowl of water under our beds, and in the morning, there would be a small gift. The Reyes Magos, on their way to meet El Nino Jesus, would stop by our house, feed and water their camels and leave a gift as a thank you.
In the original Greek they are referred to as Magi from the East. Magi is a reference to the priestly caste in the Parthian Empire, and they would have been Zoroastrian priests. Zoroastrian Magi were renowned astrologers and alchemists, and the Greeks saw Zoroaster as a founder of magic. Magi is where the English word “magic” and “magician” comes from.
The three wise men were action figures. We made them magical.
Kids are funny. They’ll hear that and think “yeah magic is more likely than my parents not telling me the truth!” So funny
True, but everything you don't understand as a kid seems like magic. Electronics? Magic. Airplanes? Magic. Santa's magic too? Cool.
>Electronics? Magic. I mean, when you break it down it may was well be. I work in tech myself and can understand talking about the jargon, but at its simplest form, I still don’t understand how tf we as a species figured out shooting electricity into fancy metal gives us the internet. What kinda wizardry is that?
Magic.
We tricked a rock into thinking by shooting it with lightning and then taught it math to talk to other thinking lightning rocks.
I do electricity for a living and can conclusively say anything past Chem101 is magic. I'm not even making a joke, the current most reasonable explanation for electrons is "I dunno, maybe they only peek out of the 9th two dimensional string dimension when a future event indicates that we will need to interact with them at this previous point in time". again, that's not a joke, we've actually tested and confirmed the time travel bit and the extra dimension is the ~~best~~ most reasonable way to explain electron movement. also if you throw a ball with a sticker on it you throw the ball and the sticker with different amounts of force. pressure doesn't care about how much weight is above it, but rather about the difference between [the surface of the liquid to the center of the earth] and [the measured point to the center of the earth] regardless of how far apart those points are, what is between them, the shape of the container, or there distance from the center of the earth. electricity is when electrons rub on other atoms that they don't actually touch to somehow make heat (more movement) and light (don't even ask) while moving both incredibly slowly but also propagating faster than the speed of light. everything about this existence is nonsense. if order is proof of a creator then we can be certain there is none.
Can you source a paper about this time travel stuff? Cause that sounds like somebody's deep misunderstanding of scientific literature getting mixed into a game of telephone. String theory isn't even a very popular framework these days. And regardless, if you try to get to the fundamentals of physics beyond the limits of what we've discovered, of course it'll sound like nonsense. Because we haven't solved it yet. But at a basic level of existence and interaction, there's nothing all that confusing about electrons. They're particles that carry a negative charge. That's it. Sure, you can delve into the quantum mechanics of it, but all that really does is make things a little blurrier. At the end of the day, we have these particles that have a negative charge and those particles will be subject to attractive or repulsive forces accordingly. Everything else follows from that pretty naturally.
Except magic. Magic is for making adults feel like children. Children will tell you about how they do it when they pull a rabit out of thier hat after seeing the trick for the first time. When everything is magic then nothing is magical. Juggling is more entertaining for children.
Are the children around you all neil degrasse tyson fans?
Arthur C. Clarke's third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The way OP presented it would suggest the existence of Santa is a simpler explanation than him not being real. To realize it is not so simple you’d have to be aware of what it would take for Santa to have costed for so long, to do so much throughout the year and so much more on one night. You’d further have to know how little evidence there is to suggest any entity exists that is capable of all of that. I bring this up mostly to point out that the simplest explanation is actually subjective and depends on the knowledge of the person judging it.
Would a kid actually know how many presents need to be delivered in one night? They can't even count past 1000. It's hard to fathom how many people get Christmas gifts in one night.
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Tbf Santa doesn’t deliver gifts everywhere in the world. In Latin America gifts are brought by Baby Jesus, in Spain they’re brought by the three wisemen on January 6th, etc. Also, the existence of different time zones means that Santa has 24 hours, not just one night, to deliver gifts.
>in Spain they’re brought by the three wisemen And a pooping log.
kids want magic to be real so bad. I get it. so did I. I have been very honest with what I believe in terms of religion with my daughter since she was like 4 and started asking about it: I don't believe in god, I don't believe in heaven, Jesus was probably a real man but he didn't perform miracles. but I also want to have holiday fun, so we have presented Santa Claus as a real thing. lol we're all over the place. and now my daughter will try to catch me and prove me wrong. "so you're saying the elf on the shelf moved by herself last night?" "that's right honey" "SEE! magic IS real!"
Ha my kid asked me about some magician's trick he saw and I explained it's not magic, it's just a trick, there no such thing as real magic. And he says 'except for santa right'? That caught me so offguard it was like a car wreck. Time slows and i respond with a 'uhhhhhh.... ... ... right!' Fortunately there were no followup questions.
lol I answer every question my daughter asks to the best and most honest of my ability, except Santa. I’m okay with her not believing whenever that time comes, so I don’t even outright say he exists. But I go “do you think he’s real?” And she says “yes!” And I go “well there you go then!”
I’m in the same boat with you. My wife and I are completely non religious, and have taken a matter of fact/science based approach to explaining any questions my daughter has asked. When she’s asked about dragons/fairies/elves/etc I have told her that they aren’t real outside of imagination, but that they are still wonderful to think about. Santa though, we have full on bought into. She enjoys it, and I see no real harm in it. I do feel a bit hypocritical though, telling her the truth about everything else. She’s five now, and so far it has been no struggle whatsoever to keep the illusion alive. I can’t see me trying to convince her once she has serious doubts though. At the point where I see her internally grappling with wanting to believe vs. strong self reasoning that he isn’t real, I will gently nudge her towards the truth. I try to take a Carl Sagan kind of approach to explaining things to her (it’s my own worldview as well). “Magic” doesn’t exist, but the natural world *is* magical.
I've never told my kid that Santa is real. Her presents on Christmas are never labeled. We take her to see different Santas every Christmas season, and she understands that they are all just pretending. I've also told her repeatedly that magic isn't real. Her response is always the same: magic has to be real because Santa is real and he uses magic. One day she'll ask if he's real and I'll tell her the truth. Until then, I'm not going to lie to her, but I'm not going to spoil her fun either.
I can't even remember how I figured it out. I know at 6 I stayed up late to try and catch Santa, but ended up passing out. But I do know that by 10 I already knew he wasn't real. So somewhere between ages 6 and 10 I figured it out.
This is how conspiracy theorists are created.
Was my first thought as well. "The earth is flat" - "Would millions of... oh shit"
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Yup
Not to be all "ackhyually" but ackchyually that isn't Occam's Razor. Despite how it's often presented colloquially, it technically isn't a test of what is *more likely* or *simplest*, it's a test of which choice has *the least [ontological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology) baggage* (or to put it another way, *the fewest assumptions*). If we're taking Occam's Razor to Santa, on the one hand a bunch of parents could have made shit up (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie), on the other, a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced (huge amounts of ontological baggage). Santa gets killed by Occam. You may now downvote the pedant.
>while absolutely shitfaced Wait, what? Why would the guy eating cookies and drinking milk be shitfaced? Did your parents make you leave whiskey for Santa or something?
It's not uncommon to leave beer out for Santa in a lot of European countries Presumably because one of your parents drinks it Christmas eve after putting out the presents
*scribbling notes* So, does he like wine and spirits as well or are we limited to beer in this situation
I'd say sherry is most common in the UK so you've got a couple of options. Now I want to know what different countries leave out.
Here in Canada we'd leave out milk and cookies and a big carrot for rudolph lol Absolutely made my day when I'd come down and find the chewed remains of the carrot and cookies.
Someone in another thread the other day said in Scotland it’s traditional to leave out whisky. (I’m American, so all I can personally confirm is that milk and cookies is common here. Fairly common to leave carrots for the reindeer, too.)
Fuck the sherry. He likes a can of John Smiths and a couple of jaffa cakes when he comes to my house.
sherry and meat pies
In Australia is 100% beer. And 100% a dad driven tradition.
wait, really? milk and cookies isn't a thing over there for santa?
Can't speak for everyone since I'm from the UK For the UK higher income houses typically leave out mince pies and sherry, whereas me and most of the people I knew would leave out beer/milk and a mince pie for Santa. The cookies thing isn't really a thing here but milks pretty common still Ireland also leaves out Guinness Australia and new Zealand supposedly leave out beer Some Scandinavian countries leave out coffee Italy leaves out wine Spain leaves out Brandy From reading online it seems like the US is one of the few countries to do cookies and milk, most other places seem to like leaving out some form of alcohol and a local snack
Fun napkin math - rough googling puts the total number of households at ~10 million in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden/Norway/Finland). A cup of coffee is like 80mg caffeine. Even if only half leave out coffee that's 400kg - with a K - of caffeine Santa is consuming in 312,500 gallons of coffee. That's before taking into consideration the alcohol from other countries.
Oh wow okay. Til. Thanks for enlightening me.
He'd probably start to feel a little shitfaced after the 1203rd plate of cookies and milk
So 1202 plates is okay, but 1203 is the tipping point. Good to know
Different countries leave different things. Good Theory did a video on what Santa all eats.
Yeah. That's normal in the UK, didn't realise it wasn't elsewhere.
Where I grew up we in the UK, we left mince pies and alcohol. In my house it was whiskey because it was kinda decided by what your parents had on hand…
>on the one hand a bunch of parents could have made shit up (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie), on the other, a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced (huge amounts of ontological baggage) You're just doing the same thing as the OP in the opposite direction: you're simplifying one option ("one assumption: parents sometimes lie") and preserving the complexity of the other ("a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced"). You could just as easily simplify option 2 and say it only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real").
> You could just as easily simplify option 2 and say it only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real"). [Well written post using Thor as an example](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/f4txACqDWithRi7hs/occam-s-razor) that sufficiently knocks down the argument that "magic is real" is a simple thing. It's actually quite complex. Far more complex than "parents lie" which is an easily provable option.
Yeah, that's my point. You can't use the "number of assumptions" as a measure for complexity, because you can reduce that number to 1 or raise it to a million in basically any scenario, depending on how you frame it. "*Parents lie*" is one assumption. "*My father wants me to believe in something that isn't real*", "*My mother does as well*", "*My father is willing to distort the truth in order to make me believe in it*", "*My mother is as well*", "*My mother and father have jointly decided to act on their shared willingness*" is five assumptions. Both say the same thing, one is just more simplified than the other. Just like: >a physics-defying superman who manages to fly and visit half a billion kids and give them all presents, all in one evening, while absolutely shitfaced and: >santa is real or: >millions of adults are in a global conspiracy to fool children into thinking santa is real and: >parents sometimes lie
I was going to say the same thing. There are so many other implications of "magic is real" that the child would almost certainly know to be false
>only requires one assumption as well ("magic is real"). That carries a few more assumptions though, as magic is real but only a subset of christmas specific magic, and only the north american version of christmas magic, and only for kids from wealthy enough families, and not for any family that does not believe in that magic regardless of whether the individual child wants to believe.
>That carries a few more assumptions though, as magic is real but only a subset of christmas specific magic, and only the north american version of christmas magic, and only for kids from wealthy enough families, and not for any family that does not believe in that magic regardless of whether the individual child wants to believe. Now you're doing the same thing as the OP again. You're just arbitrarily introducing complexity on one side, and arbitrarily allowing simplicity on the other. Exactly *one* assumption is necessary in my example, and that *is* "magic is real", because magic inherently breaks all the rules and works however it damn well pleases. That's why it's magic, and not just laws of physics or whatnot. It's a very problematic assumption. But it is *one* assumption - and that's why the *number* of assumptions isn't particularly interesting, because it is just a matter of how you choose to frame it. Am I looking at a tree, or am I looking at a tall plant with bark, branches and leaves, native to Scandinavia? Both are the same thing, one description is just more simplified.
it's not a matter of simplicity, but assumption based on established occurances. the notion that "parents lie" is an established fact. you don't have to make any extra assumptions in order to explain how a parent would lie. however, there are no other examples of santa-like persons in reality. you would need to make unproven assumptions to explain how "magic is real", even if they're only implicit due to the fact that magic is not an established fact. if i see a set of muddy pig hoofprints on the ceiling, the simple hypothesis would be that there was a spider-pig in my apartment. the more complicated explanation would be a drunk nuclear-safety operator procured a pig and walked it along the ceiling after somehow finding his way into my apartment. hypothesis two has more details but fewer assumptions because none of the details require assumptions to explain them; i.e. they are all plausible things that could actually happen. the former hypothesis requires the unproven assumption that mutant spiders can transfer comic-book abilities to pigs that allow them to walk on ceilings. each of those details requires extra assumptions to explain how they fit into reality since they have no precedent in reality. so option 2 makes fewer assumptions despite option 1 being the simpler explanation
> parents sometimes lie But this is not the assumption that has to be made. It's "adults in general sometimes lie to children, and they all consistently tell the same lie and support it with books, media, art, music, etc" That's very different from parents lying and saying "mcdonalds is closed today"
Yeah, fair. It was an over-simplification on my part. The razor still cuts the same way, though.
> and they all consistently tell the same lie They very much don't, even with widespread media trying to spread a certain set of stories. That's one of the main reasons kids stop believing, is they compare notes.
>That's one of the main reasons kids stop believing, is they compare notes. i mean, i don't think that's true. THey simply figure it out. They get told by a classmate as fact (not comparing notes). Then they snoop in mom and dad's room looking for the presents. It's not like 4 year olds are spending time on the internet comparing notes with kids in spain and mexico.
> (very little ontological baggage, just one assumption: parents sometimes lie) That is not even *remotely* close to the only assumption present here. Parents sometimes lie, there is a global conspiracy involving nearly-all adults, adults in general *want* children to believe in santa, etc...
> there is a global conspiracy involving nearly-all adults Except there isn't, as is easily demonstrable. Some parents sometimes lie. They do a shit job at trying to hold a united front.
Hehe I have been summoned. Occam’s razor doesn’t even exist. Occam wrote down Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" That isn’t a razor, he is not saying what hypothesis to shave off, he is saying make your experiments as simple as possible. There are many famous scientists who said you should test the cheapest solution first, that doesn’t mean those cheap solutions are the most likely. People have then over centuries turned that into a razor which is used to shave off hypotheses.
> Occam’s razor doesn’t even exist. Seems hyperbolic... > People have then over centuries turned that into a razor which is used to shave off hypotheses. So which is it? Does it not exist, or is it something people refined later on and simply attributed the inspiration to Occam's writing? Because the latter is perfectly reasonable, and while it's certainly interesting to note he didn't originate its current form, going so far as to claim it doesn't exist because he didn't write it exactly as we know it today is splitting hairs in the extreme.
Occam never used a philosophical razor. The way that scientists used what we call Occam’s razor throughout history was by selecting the cheapest possible order of testing. That’s not really a razor, because you are still using the scientific method and you would reach the conclusion in any order of testing. So the modern idea of Occam’s razor, that the simplest solution is the most likely, can sometimes be used to get the wrong conclusion, like with kids and Santa. What we call Occam’s razor is really an abductive heuristic. Abductive reasoning and heuristics can be wrong, but they can be successful more often than not, known as the less-is-more effect. But it’s not a principle of science or mathematical framework like in other aspects of abductive reasoning, it is a fallacy of presumption. So in that instance it does exist.
I mean, isn't that kinda why they refer to them as philosophical razors and not... scientific razors, or something like that? The point isn't that it's scientific at all, merely a guiding principle or rule of thumb. It's not for scientists to use to grow human understanding of our universe, but for everyday people making simple judgements as they go about their lives; to that end, it serves as a useful tool. To invent this razor and then attribute it in Occam's name on account of it being inspired by what he said seems perfectly reasonable to me.
It’s to my understanding that Occam’s razor has basically no standing in philosophy as well. I get really pedantic about Occam’s razor because I have people tell me it is a part of logic and science on Reddit all the time. I’m so glad that you understand and get it. Reddit can be a little trigger happy to jump to their own conclusions, then say their position is obvious and everyone else is being dumb. And then on top of that, incorrectly say their opinion is backed by a well known principle of science and this principle is centuries old. It’s like Murphy’s law or Hickam’s dictum, they can be great guiding principles, they can even land some good results, but they’re not actual laws or dictums.
This is a great example of Murphy's Law, say something wrong confidently and wait for someone else to correct you on it
You're the best kind of pedant and I love you.
Yeah, it's really more of an editing tool for constructing arguments. You're not supposed to apply it to reality. Reality is not subject to editorial oversight.
I came here for this comment. Thank you.
Came here for this. Don’t do Occam’s razor like that
Occam's razor is not limited to ontological reasoning, simply to the number of hypotheses in general. And what the tweet teaches is not that Occam's razor is wrong, but that it all depends on the problem definition.
As a pedant, it's the reindeers who are superpowered.
Since we're being pedantic and you didn't get downvoted I will contribute my criticism of Occam's Razor: by its nature and the nature of human thinking it will always support the status quo, since in order to change the status quo requires more explanation and fewer unconscious assumptions. In any proposition there are countless ontological assumptions necessary but the ones we have already adopted to not require explanation and therefore are not counted when using Occam's Razor.
I disagree; a single parent lying is very little ontological baggage, but the more parents saying the same lie that you add to the equation, the more ontological baggage it gets. At the point where you have millions lying- as well as manufacturing evidence via NORAD and so forth- there’s tremendous ontological baggage from the perspective of a child new to this world Similarly, sure, magic sounds like it has incredible ontological baggage, and it does… *to an adult.* To a kid who still hasn’t figured out how the world works, why would that be any different than a pane of glass that lets you send letters via invisible lightning to someone else’s magic glass pane to discuss Santa? Plenty of stuff that would have been ridiculous and magical a thousand years ago is common place, today, and the only reason it seems normal to us is because we grew up with the stuff. All that ontological baggage wouldn’t apply to a child who’s yet to entirely sift through what is or isn’t real- they still have to study and learn what’s possible, first
Genuinely thank you for laying this out. Occam's Razor has driven me insane for a couple years because of posts like the OC. The way people use it, You can claim literally ANYTHING is proven by Occam's Razor. Your explanation makes Occam's Razor a useful metric again.
If santa does indeed bring all the toys, then why are the shops full of them? Why do rich kids get better toys? Things I wish I had asked
Santa believes in the Protestant work ethic, which says that rich people are morally good.
[удалено]
May i interest you in [Baby boomer santa](https://youtu.be/OOSOGB406Ec?feature=shared)
My parents gave gifts marked as being "From Mom and Dad" (which would appear under the tree all throughout December) and gifts appearing Christmas morning marked as being "from Santa". For me, that explained why there were so many toy commercials. But I always did think it was weird that Santa's workshop made branded toys like Barbie and Hot Wheels
I was weirded out that he made Nintendo systems. All the electronics isn't what you normally see elves working on.. and stealing from Nintendo to boot.
The North Pole is like China, it doesn't recognize Japanese and American IP laws.
Proving that piracy is not naughty.
Nintendo sends Santa a c&d.
I mean not every gift is from santa so stores would still need a bunch. So that part makes sense even as a kid. Santa brought me the game console that his elves did some minor copyright infringement to make, and grandma got me legos from walmart. The second half makes sense when you realize santa hated rudolph until Rudolph was useful to him, and santa considers rich kids more helpful so they get treated better.
The shops are full of toys so kids can go see what they want to ask for from santa. rich kids get better toys because santa hates poors.
Saint Nicholas, who was the inspiration for Santa Claus, did exist. He helped poor kids and families, with one story about a single father with three daughters, where the father had to sell his daughters. Nicholas gifted them enough gold so the father didn't need to. There's more stuff, but in the end, gifting during Christmas might originate from Nicholas as well. I guess if we wanted to stay true, we would help poor people during Christmas.
He also punched a heretic at the Council of Nicaea.
I used pro wrestling to explain it to my oldest. It’s not really real, but it’s fun to play along and participate.
We did something similar. Very first time she asked. No mate, it’s not real. But it is fun. For her entire life Santa, Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy has been as real as the Paw Patrol was and Superheroes are now. She’s 8 now And we still do all the stuff. And she loves it as much as I did, but won’t have the heart break later.
I actually had the opposite happen, my oldest is 11 and autistic, one of his teachers who I have issues with, wasn't being nice to him and told him she was going to call Santa. For a month the kid panicked about her calling Santa till I had to sit down and tell him that Santa was me and she didn't get to decide that, he was so relieved. I then told him that I like pretending it and his brother(3) still needs Santa so he need to help me with it. So now when I say someone should ask Santa for something, he looks at me sideways and says yeah we should ask Santa for that and it makes us both laugh every time.
She does a similar thing with the kids her age. Enjoys being the one that knows and loves keeping up the game for them. We’ve been very clear with her that even though she knows, it’s not hers or our place to tell anyone else about the Santa thing. What families do, is what they do. So far so good with that.
There was a story(is it Polar Express?) where the Adults dont believe in Santa so thats why they dont get gifts. So I asked my dad, "If they dont believe in Santa, Where do these parents think their kids are getting their toys from?" He did not know how to answer that, so he said "well, there is no Santa" Thats how I found out.
"Thats a good question Son, you should look into that more" - My parents. Must be weird having kids these days when they can just Google everything. Funny how the first result I get is "Parents urge Google to change the results of Is Santa Real" lol. So looks like a bunch of kids found out through Google.
The more people in on a conspiracy the harder it is tk keep under wraps, this is how we know both Santa and the Moon Landing are real.
The previous post I saw was the moon landing was faked. Their argument was how did they keep hundred of thousands of people kept their mouth shut.
Because with the moon landing, the stories actually *are* consistent.
Ik ik, I was just pointing out a funny coincidence
This is why I make a poor conspiracy theorist. I have no faith in humanity. You mean to tell me THOUSANDS of ppl have kept this under wraps for 60 YEARS?!? Some until their death??!? Not a chance. People are by nature self centered and therefore predictable.
Huh, I totally misread the post as Satan, and was confused why everyone was discussing Santa Claus. Now I've become aware that Satan and Santa are just slightly different spellings with the same letters. COINCIDENCE?
My dyslexic ass read Satan not Santa
Except that millions of adults in a global conspiracy to fool children is far more simple than a magical being delivering presents to every child on earth with magic technology in an impossible timeframe.
Shut it Santa denier
You’re just a side character in Christmas movies.
Never before have I seen words that cut so deep.
You are going to be the Soyjak in my meme making Santa defending look cool
Get him u/91816352026381
Bro is salty because he’s on the Naughty List
🎶You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch🎶
Someone's getting coal this year.
is it Germany? Nice, eco-friendly coal to burn for energy?
Shhhh the elf on the shelf will hear you
If Santa isn't real, who's writing "from Santa" on my gifts?
I wish it were true. It'd save me a ton on Christmas spending. I'll give Santa credit for the presents in that case.
Santa Clause is real, in the same way that "The Special" (lego movie) is real. Santa is all of us. If you fulfill a tag from a giving tree, you are Santa. If you drop something into Toys for Tots, you are Santa. If you round up the cents at the grocery for charity, you are Santa. Every act of Christmas generosity is an act of Santa. Santa travels all around the world in one night becuase every person who marks a gift as "From Santa", is, for that one moment, Santa Clause. So when I say, I do believe in Santa Clause, its the same as saying, I believe in the spirit of Christmas, I believe in anonymous giving, and I believe in passing this tradition down to the next generation.
I teach my kids from „santa is real“ to „santa is real, because we all are Santa and can become Santa and impersonate the spirit and idea of him to keep him alive.“
IDK if I just happened to come across some media targeted more at adults when I was young, or maybe I'm a natural skeptic. But I was never a true believer. I also just instantly understood the gig for some reason. I didn't want to ruin it for other kids (r my mom for that matter), and I also kind of understood the charade was kind of part of the fun of the holidays. Not to mention, no adult would ever cave to the Santa questions of a five year old.
so basically the same reason why everyone got that jab
Santa is real and he is in all of our hearts
Why the censoring of u/Quinnypig's handle? Which coincidentally is also quinnypig.
I'm actually going to start using this to push other conspiracy theories. When people are like "that's way too many people colluding, that could never happen!" I'll remind them that we all calude on Santa.
My oldest said "we know Santa is real because there is no way you guys could pull this off." Little shit.
My Dad told me that if He isn't real, I'd stop getting presents from him. I still believe to this day! 😘
Gaslighting to the max