The easiest way to debunk the Mandela Effect

[deleted]

Well, there is a book, published in South Africa that says Nelson died in the early 90s. How do you debunk that, genius?

"Do you know of anyone who woke up and was surprised that a dead relative was no longer dead? Or that their last name was spelled differently? Or people refer to a job they don't recall having?"

Yes, accounts like that exist. I don't have any links but I've seen videos and read forum posts over the years from people with stories along those lines. I remember one video where a woman said she went home to her apartment one day to find out that it wasn't her apartment at all, nor had it ever been. This world is full of claims about just about everything imaginable: aliens, ghosts, time travel, dimensional shifts, and so on, and you seriously think there are no claims about the things you mentioned?

"So far, the Mandela Effect has only affected public figures (not knowing Mandela was alive, not knowing how to spell the names of the Berenstain family, or thinking Sinbad made a genie movie)."

Wrong. See above.

"This proves it's just people forgetting or remembering certain things differently because they don't pay attention to world politics, or because weird names are hard to spell, or they forgot certain movies from 20 years ago. People are easily influenced in groups. All it takes is for one person to swear up and down they remember a Sinbad movie where he plays a genie for other people to vaguely recall something similar due to the fogginess of childhood memories."

Trying to debunk something by using broad generalizations is pretty much always futile, because there are pretty much always examples which contradict the broad generalization. A lot of people have very vivid memories (i.e., not foggy, not vague) reinforced by repetition and accompanied by what's known as "anchor memories," i.e., memories that don't make sense unless the core memory is also true. A common example is with Berenstain vs. Berenstein. Many people remember arguing over whether the last syllable was pronounced like "stine" or "steen," which only makes sense if the spelling is "stein."

Another example is with "dilemma" vs. "dilemna." First, the "dilemna" spelling is too specific and counterintuitive (i.e., it's not a spelling that matches its pronunciation) to make sense as a naturally-arising common error, and second, many people remember being in the habit of pronouncing it in their heads with the "na" sound at the end in order to remember how to spell it, in the same way that a lot of people do with other counterintuitive spellings, like Wednesday, February, colonel, Connecticut ("[you] connect, I cut"), and so on.

I have this odd memory of this movie being a big hit.

Your point is valid because at some point in our lives we would have actually met someone has had one of these experiences. I mean a significant experience like you mentioned, not a faulty memory of a minor event.

Also for example , someone who actually worked on the set of Moonraker would remember Dolly had braces.

the Mandela effect cant be proved or disproved, that is the beauty of it.

The only thing for me about the Mandela Effect is the James Bond "Moonraker" braces thing otherwise I've never gone through any experience.

But yes it could be lapses in memory that creates such an effect for the Bond "Moonraker" film all the circumstances force you to actually believe the girl had braces so again it could be memory playing tricks on you.

Just re-watched one if the better Star Trek next generation episodes 'Yesterdays Enterprise'

Where a Federation ship comes through a time portal twenty years past.

The time travel effected the present Enterprise, nobody save one member noticed the difference.

The Mandela effect, while a fantastic idea, works on that same principal. That somehow timelines are being subtly altered (by a time traveling race or group?), and with it our conscious knowledge of the past.