Monday, July 4, 2022

The Pet Rock Fad - As Crazy as It Sounds?

17 comments :

  1. The pet rock was the perfect pet for people who wanted a companion that was no-maintenance. Ours sat next to our fireplace. Never made a noise. Never made a mess. Always available for holding. Lasted for years. Only left our family because we moved and my father, a"h, said "I'm not taking that rock! It's a rock!"

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  2. Kalonymus HaQatanJuly 4, 2022 at 5:51 PM

    you see, in my family, we would always improvise, buy wholesale, or wait for sales, and rarely pay full price on anything. So the question was not whether to buy the rock, that was obvious, because i could pick one up for free in the back garden. The question was whether it had any benefit as a toy, which it didn't.

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  3. So your family members were also taken in by the alleged Geneivas Da'as?

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  4. What geneivas da'as? It was advertised as a rock. There was a rock in the box. It was quite a nice rock and it did exactly what it was promised to do.

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  5. Sorry. I confused your comment with "Kalonymus HaQatan's" comments on another thread, who argued that the fish keychains constitutes Geneivas Da'as.
    I posited there, that there is no G. Da'as here, since there is no misrepresentation, and compared it to the Pet Rock craze, saying that you might be crazy to buy it but there is still no G.D. involved.

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  6. Kalonymus HaQatanJuly 5, 2022 at 1:40 PM

    if you read the instruction booklet, that is deceptive, i have posted PDF of this. example, "move towards your rock, and it moves towards you.."


    sheker v'kazav

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  7. No, it's true. It's actually a variation on how the Rebbe z"l explains that the Sun revolves around the Earth. I move towards the rock so naturally the rock is moving towards me.

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  8. Kalonymus HaQatanJuly 5, 2022 at 3:18 PM

    damn. how did you read my mind?
    the Rebbe used Einstein ztl ' theory of relativity to explain the movement of the sun.
    We are revolving on the earth's axis, so it appears that the sun is rising. Appearance and actual movement are not the same.
    If throw a ball at 20mph from train travelling 30, in the same direction, the ball will hit someone at 50mph.
    The guy sitting at the station is not moving towards the train or the ball, but let's hope the ball misses him.

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  9. Kalonymus HaQatanJuly 5, 2022 at 3:33 PM

    Also, when your train is waiting, and the train next to you starts moving forward, there's an optical illusion that our train is moving backwards. They did a famous expemirent with toddlers, and they fall over because of this illusion.

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  10. Read a good book about Judaism and the heliocentric solar system in which he quotes Einstein say, in effect, "If you use my theory of relativity to say the sun revolves around the Earth, you clearly don't understand my theory of relativity."

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  11. Yeah, with us it was that a couple other people on the street had one...

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  12. People paid for the rock, because it came along with an "instruction booklet", which was an entertaining and humorous read.

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  13. You mean people will believe anything and even pay if it comes from am allegedly authoritative source?

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  14. No. I don't think that anyone was mislead to believe that the pet rocks would really move. They paid money to get entertained by a humorous novelty item.

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  15. It was the 70's. Look at the fashion. Look at the music. Look at the general culture. Nothing was too weird.

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  16. Unfortunately, also today, nothing is too weird.

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  17. I saw some old home movies from the 60s, and hareidi bochrim wore narrow ties, small collared shirts. By the 70s, they wore flaired ties. And even spectacle frames changed with the times. And reflected in hareidi fashion. So no one escapes fashion or other influences.

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