#thinking about the walrus/fairy

[triviallytrue]

we've had a lot of memes lately about like. math illiteracy

[great-and-small]

I just have to say it’s really refreshing to read your thoughts on the walrus/fairy post, as I also have very strong feelings about it. Thank you for sharing your opinion

For someone such as myself who is very pro-whimsy, tumblr’s collective willingness to believe in fairies is actually quite charming. I would like to be the type of person to quickly and without question accept that fairies are real if one knocked on my door but honestly I’m a bit of a skeptic and that’s not how my brain works. I’m just more of a Scully than a Mulder I guess!

I think my bias here is that I studied wildlife forensics in vet school, and as a result I dare not underestimate the determination of wildlife smugglers. Yes, it would be hard to smuggle a walrus (even a juvenile) into a private residence. That said people have similarly smuggled Nile crocodiles, lions, spotted seals, cheetahs, chimpanzees, and so so many more species. There was even a case of a gentleman who was taken to court for planning to steal a walrus from an aquarium.

I also think some folks are underestimating the athleticism of a walrus. They aren’t lazy slugs that just lay on a beach all day, but rather extraordinarily powerful and intelligent animals. People saying a walrus would never make it up their stairs make me chuckle because walruses in the wild can and do climb 200 ft cliffs. A walrus’ tusks could also glance against a door in a way that resembled knocking. It is highly highly highly improbable for a walrus to be on your doorstep. But not impossible.

If I find a walrus at my door, I have a bizarre but intriguing puzzle that I can immediately start trying to solve. If I find something like the tooth fairy at my door (and am able to discern it is no hoax), I have to re-evaluate my entire understanding of reality. Of physics, and biology, and my perception of the universe around me. That would definitely shock me more than an unexpected mammal in a place it shouldn’t be!

[humanmaybe]

Listen the thing about walrus vs fairy is that fundamentally the question of shock is about the exact moment you open the door to find either a walrus or a fairy. Not how you feel after thinking about it for a bit - the initial surprise of opening the door to either a magical creature (which could look more or less humanoid) or a massive semi-aquatic animal (a fucking walrus)

Do you know how fuck off huge walruses are? Yeah I would have a bit of a crisis after learning magic exists and my understanding of the world has been completely re-written. But that’s still a fucking walrus, a large and sometimes aggressive sea animal which should not be anywhere near my house. My first reaction is going to be OH FUCK?? And probably closing the door before it gets inside or decides to be aggressive

[destinyandcoins]

so how are we doing out there folks? everyone totally mentally stable and feeling at peace with the world around them? it's only the 1st and we've already got ides of march trending, the anticipatory bloodlust is off the charts this year

[pantestudines]

No one should care but ive been thinking about it and my take is that the root of the walrus/fairy question is one specific word used by the original poll: "surprised". The question is not which would change your worldview or which is more/less possible to really happen. The question is which *surprises* you more. To me, this means which causes a stronger immediate surprise reaction in you upon opening that door. In essence, how bad do you flinch?

This, to me, is why so many people (including myself!) choose Walrus. A walrus is an immediate situation! That's an animal larger and stronger than you are, one that I would say is potentially very dangerous, that many people have never seen in real life. And now it's your responsibility and on your doorstep! A walrus on a doorstep is a novel idea, at least to me. I don't think I've ever had an animal just appear at my door, and certainly never knock. Sure, after the gut reaction dies down, the mundanity of the situation is certain; a walrus is a real animal and the perpetrator is likely nearby, laughing at the world's weirdest ding-dong ditch prank. But for a few seconds, it's just you, your expectations upon opening a door, and a pinniped of unusual size.

Now let's examine the fairy; The term can be vague, but I think most people imagine a generally humanoid but very small creature with insect wings. First off, by being small, the fairy will likely not trigger a defensive response, unlike the walrus. This thing is not an immediate threat, at least to your subconcious. Also, by being humanoid, usually with a very human face and features, this changes the situation from "strange beast on my doorstep" to "strange person on my doorstep". Obviously this may be different from person to person, but I think "strange small person on my doorstep" would illicite much weaker response from my flight or fight reflex than a large, strange animal. This is nothing to say about the familiarity most people have with fantasy and fantasy ideas, and the lack of familiarity most people have with walrus' in general, but I think those are also factors.

[napoleanbonafarte]

Yeah having a fairy knock on my door would be pretty unexpected. And sure I'd probably have to reevaluate everything I thought to be true but I don't really know how fairies work so maybe going around knocking on people's doors is normal for them. I would certainly be very confused but the way things are, fairies existing is one of those this might as well happen type of things

Walruses, however, are a pretty well documented species and I think I have a decent understanding of what they are and aren't supposed to be capable of. So if I were to open my door and find that a 2000-4000 lb marine mammal had dragged itself up the narrow staircase to my inland doorstep? Yeah. I would be pretty shocked

[bigmilkagenda]

many people are posting about "You don't sound Russian" and "He can read?"

which is very fun, but I think it also reveals an important part of both Jon and Gwen's characters:

they each would have voted walrus.

[hareofhrair]

Can I get serious about the walrus/fairy thing for a minute?

This is a fun, silly question and arguing about it is a good time. It's also a really good thought exercise and an opportunity to recognize and examine reactionary thought.

Fairies, factually, do not exist. This is a scientifically supported consensus belief.

Walruses do exist, and can be moved just about anywhere with enough money and determination. If I had Jeff Bezos cash I could hand deliver a walrus to each of your doorways. It is not physically impossible, just super unlikely.

So why do we *feel* like the fairy is less surprising?

Why do we dismiss something provably true, in favor of something provably false, that feels better?

This is the basis of reactionary thought. Feelings over facts.

I want us to use this as a chance to look at our instinctive, reactive response, and examine where that feeling comes from, and learn to distinguish justifications from an earnest examination.

Doubling down on how the walrus could never get to your house is justification, because no matter how improbable it would be, it will always be *more* probable than something provably impossible.

So where does the feeling that the walrus is less possible come from?

If you accept the premise that a walrus could get to your house, and fairies are not real, why does the walrus still feel more surprising?

Examine your reaction, and try to figure out where it's coming from.

[hamable]

I’ve known about the Walrus vs Fairy debate for about 11 minutes now and I’ve never been more angry in my life you’re all wrong and I’m taking it personally.

[sketch-wolf]

I feel like an issue with the walrus vs fairy debate is that the word "fairy" is something used for multiple different things, including being used as a the category term of certain creatures.

So this makes me wonder:

[phoenixiancrystallist]

I love this fairy vs walrus meme. So many interesting discussions, and I've yet to see anyone go "I see fairies all the fucking time, I live in a neighborhood with small children."

I see kids dressed up as fairies constantly, but a walrus? Now that's a novel Halloween costume.

[soleminisanction]

Like, I get where people who fall on the clone side of the clone vs. robot debate are coming from, but I also think that's a fear based on a) a fundamental misunderstanding of the science behind cloning and b) a lot of assumptions being made about the intentions behind said clone's existence, based on sci-fi tropes that largely perpetuate the misunderstandings in point a.

A clone is not a "replacement goldfish" by default, you have literally no reason to assume that except for jumping straight to the island of conclusions. You wouldn't somehow become a fake person or automatically unwanted or be 'obviously' a failed experiment or intended to be kept for parts or anything.

You'd just be... a person, a human being, who happens to be an exact genetic copy of another person, grown in a lab. You're still human. You're still your own person. The entire point of those failing-to-make-a-replacement stories is that clones don't work that way, so there's no point being existentially angsty about it. You're still a human, you're just made different, born different. It's not all that different from IVF when you think about it.

But find out you're a robot? Suddenly, by definition, you're not human, you're a machine, an item, someone can legally own you. Someone could claim that you're just pretending to be conscious, that you're no different from an MLM, that your intelligence, your consciousness, is by definition artificial, and you'd have no way to prove them wrong.

And you know what you can't do to a human body, clone or otherwise? You can't wipe their memories. You can't reformat their hard-drives or adjust their personalities on a whim. You can't program them.

Even a clone can always be certain that their memories are on some level real, even if they turn out to be staged or manipulated. With a robot? You'd never be able to know for sure.

Clones are human, and all humans are individuals; science hasn't managed to eliminate that. Robots are objects, and we build objects to be replaceable.

[sklerbkl]

I feel like the only person who would find the fairy more shocking

[ultrawhalnar]

first of all, there is already a precedent for creatures previously thought to be mythical turning out to be real. krakens exist. they're called giant/colossal squid. and i don't believe fairies exist, but in this scenario that we are positing, wherein it is revealed that they are real, then "combination of small primate and weird bug" is in the same category as "combination of beaver and duck" to me. if the humble platypus is allowed to exist, then sure, fairies can too, I guess. whatever. and i live in florida, so "combination of small primate and weird bug" might as well live here, which leads me to my next point,

location is a big factor in the walrus vs fairy thing. if you live in a colder climate, and especially if you live close to the water, then yeah, a walrus showing up at your door is plausible enough. hell, if you live relatively close to a zoo it can be rationalized. but for a walrus to show up at my door, it would have to have either left its natural habitat to come here, escaped a zoo, or survived a zoo transport crashing in such a way that unlocked/busted open the door to its enclosure, possibly swam through various waterways without getting eaten by gators or bull sharks, shuffled along the hot asphalt for MILES without being tranquilized and hauled away by animal control, approached MY HOME SPECIFICALLY and banged its head against the door. and the more landlocked/hot you get, the more shocking this scenario becomes. can you imagine some poor motherfucker in arizona finding a walrus on their doorstep? this isn't even mentioning people who live in apartment buildings, or on mountains, or what have you.

and thirdly, walruses are one of the most surprising wild animals. fairies are one of the least surprising mythical creatures. this partly depends on location too, like if an alligator moseyed on up to my door and thwacked its tail against it my worldview would not be challenged at all. but if a gator showed up at the door of someone in, like, canada, they'd probably be surprised. and fairies have a lot of folklore behind them from a lot of different places, so not only are there people who already believe in them because they are an integral part of various cultures' superstitions, but also there's the "well I may have thought these weren't real but there are recorded sightings of these things popping up and fucking with people dating back a Long Fucking Time so sure, this might as well happen" factor of it all. so the scenario posited cannot be framed as simply "something that exists vs something that doesn't exist", because the options we have been presented with are "giant fucking marine mammal with a very specific natural habitat that sure as shit is not my neighborhood vs a creature generally conceptualized as sentient and humanoid and thus capable of going wherever it damn well pleases and knocking on someone's door." like, this isn't dog vs dragon. this isn't woodpecker vs griffin. this isn't even kangaroo vs mermaid. this is walrus vs fairy. it's "thing that I know for a fact logistically should not fucking be here vs thing that hasn't been studied by scientists yet and therefore has more wiggle room in where it shows up and what it does." it's "GIANT ANIMAL WITH TUSKS AAAAAAA vs tiny thing with wings."

and i don't even understand the framework of the "seeing a fairy would fundamentally shake my understanding of the laws of physics/the universe/whatever" argument. like. what? magic is just science we don't understand yet. what's so earth-shattering here? that it's flying? hummingbirds hover in place with their wings. that it's tiny and has a proportionally small brain and yet seemingly has human-esque intelligence? yeah that is weird. i can't wait to find out how this thing works. octopi break out of their enclosures in aquariums and know to do it when humans aren't around so they don't get caught. crows can use tools. isn't biology magical? isn't the world amazing? what fucking nebulous "laws of the universe" do you hold so dear? tardigrades exist. fuck you.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Absolutely fascinated by the Fairy Walrus Discourse. Naturally, I have a take:

This actually is also a fantastic illustration of a truism about Telling Stories that we all implicitly know but rarely acknowledge aloud: the improbable is far less believable than the impossible.

When you invoke the impossible, you silence the critically thinking, reality checking, lie detecting circuitry. Simpler rules reign supreme.

The Walrus, however implausible, is a thing which is real, and so whatever narrative you imagine either precedes or follows the reveal will be constrained by the envelope of the possible.

This is a webbed site all about Narrative.

The person answering the door to a Fairy is in a fairy tale, and frankly most of us would be overjoyed to find ourselves in a fairy tale. Fairy tales have sensible rules, structures we understand, tropes we love and hate.

A Walrus on your doorstep is just one more giant reminder that the world is a maelstrom of chaos, incomprehensible in its complexity, full of moving parts which obey no narrative. It’s another dose of “what fresh hell is this?”

A Walrus on your doorstep is a burden. A Fairy on your doorstep is an escape.

[pyrepostings]

I just got to the fairy episode of spn and- oh boy.

My prediction was that the boys would give their names away Immediately upon meeting a fae, and now I'm slightly disappointed.

I love that Sam was reciting the spell with Latin pronunciation. A-goose instead of ah-gus. Goddamn monolingual westerners, not immediately understanding the pronunciation guide of a language you've never studied before.

Love the redcap. They never referred to him as one or even mentioned his hat when they had the chance, but he was there and we love him.