Common Knowledge

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One man’s intuition is another man’s labyrinth.

You’ve at least heard the sentence “That’s common knowledge” once in your life. Maybe you just asked a genuine question. The other person then answered in a condescending way, adding those words at the end of their answer.

Or maybe you’ve used those words on another person. Perplexed that they didn’t know something.

But is there actually a thing like common knowledge? A base line for knowledge which all people inherit?

I’d argue that there is no such thing.

For every fact that you know and consider common knowledge there is probably a fact that somebody else considers common knowledge and that you don’t know.

Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.
Source: xkcd.com

Instead of thinking “What an idiot. He doesn’t have a clue.” you should be happy to show or teach them something new.

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