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What Would Aliens Think Is the Weirdest Thing Humans Do? | Curious Questions to keep kids thinking · The Curious Kidcast | Fun Facts and Curious Questions

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  OK, so picture this. You're sitting at breakfast,
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  eating your cereal, staring at nothing, when suddenly your
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  brain asks you a question so strange that you nearly choke on
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  your cornflakes. What if aliens were watching us
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  right now? Not scary aliens, just curious
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  ones with little notebooks staring at us, wondering what on
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  earth we're doing, and more importantly, what would they
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  think is the weirdest, normal thing we do.
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  Curious kid cast? Here we go.
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  Questions popping minds will blow.
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  Big ideas. They're taking flight.
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  Let's explore. Feel the light.
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  Welcome to The Curious Kid Cast, the show where we answer the
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  questions that your teachers probably wish you'd stop asking
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  in the middle of maths. I'm Charlie and today we're
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  going full alien mode. This brilliant question comes
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  from Jasper, who's nine years old and lives in Adelaide,
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  Australia. Jasper says he came up with this
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  question while watching his dad spend 25 minutes carefully
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  arranging cushions on the sofa before guests arrived.
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  Jasper looked at the cushions, looked at his dad and thought,
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  if an alien saw this, what on earth would they think was
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  happening? Jasper, mate, that's a genius
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  observation and your dad sounds like a very dedicated cushion
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  professional. So this week's question is, what
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  would aliens think is the weirdest normal thing humans do?
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  Buckle up, because the answer is going to make you look at your
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  own life very, very differently. Imagine a spaceship lands
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  quietly in a field. Out step a group of aliens.
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  They're not scary, they're just curious.
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  They've got notebooks, possibly tiny pencils.
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  They want to study humans. At first they're amazed by the
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  big stuff. Cities, aeroplanes, roller
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  coasters, supermarkets the size of small countries.
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  They're furiously scribbling notes.
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  But after a while, they stop noticing the big things, and
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  they start noticing the small things, the ordinary things, the
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  things we do every single day without even thinking about
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  them. And that's where it gets really
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  interesting, because those things, the totally normal
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  things, are actually completely bananas when you look at them
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  properly. Let's start with time.
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  Humans have decided to chop up the entire day into little
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  invisible pieces, and then let those pieces boss us around
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  completely. A clock says 830, and suddenly
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  everyone panics. One person runs to school.
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  Another person spills their coffee.
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  Someone else shouts We're going to be late for the 14th time
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  that morning. But the aliens are looking
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  around, going nothing in nature, just shout at 8:30.
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  The birds didn't say 830. The sky didn't say 830.
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  Why are they all running? And it's not just morning panic.
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  Humans wake up because a sound tells them to.
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  They eat lunch at a certain time, even if they're not hungry
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  yet. They celebrate one specific day
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  as a birthday, even though they're changing and growing
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  every single day, not just on that one day.
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  Imagine explaining that to an alien.
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  So you pick one day and you put candles on a cake and you sing a
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  song, and then you blow the candles out.
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  Now here's the one that would really break an alien's brain.
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  Money. Imagine trying to explain money
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  to someone who's never heard of it.
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  OK, so this piece of paper you say, or actually this number on
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  a screen can be swapped for food, clothes, toys, or a train
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  ticket. And the alien goes why?
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  And you go because everyone agrees it can.
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  That's it. That's the whole explanation.
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  It works because everyone believes it works.
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  Humans spend their entire lives working for numbers, saving
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  numbers, worrying about numbers. They compare themselves to other
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  people using numbers. Whole countries make enormous
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  decisions based on numbers in computers.
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  And yet you can't eat money, you can't wear money, you can't
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  plant money in the ground and grow a money tree.
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  Although honestly, a money tree would be amazing and someone
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  should invent 1 immediately. The alien writes in his
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  notebook. Humans invented a giant game of
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  pretend and then forgot it was pretend.
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  To be fair, that's a very accurate description.
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  Then there's language, which aliens would probably find
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  absolutely fascinating and also completely exhausting.
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  Humans make noises with their mouths, and those noises mean
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  things fine. But then the same noise means
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  different things in different places, and some sentences mean
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  the opposite of what the words say.
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  If someone says yeah right, they probably mean absolutely not.
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  If someone says break a leg, they want you to do well, not
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  actually fracture anything. If someone says I'm fine,
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  there's roughly a 50% chance they're not fine at all.
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  And that's just the words humans also communicate with their
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  eyebrows, their arms, their silences, their tone of voice,
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  their shrugs, their waves, their polite smiles that mean please
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  stop talking. The alien would need about 47
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  notebooks just to get through a single school morning.
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  Speaking of school, here's something aliens would
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  definitely find strange. Humans have a system where you
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  spend years sitting in rooms learning about things, and then
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  at the end someone gives you a piece of paper saying you
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  learned the things and that piece of paper is very
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  important. Not the learning the paper.
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  The alien goes, couldn't you just learn the things?
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  And humans go, yes, but you need the paper.
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  And the alien slowly closes it's notebook and stares into the
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  distance. Now let's talk about food,
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  because humans are very, very weird about food.
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  Humans don't just eat to stay alive.
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  No, no, no, that would be far too simple.
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  Humans have breakfast foods. These are foods that are only
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  acceptable in the morning. If you're eating cereal at 7:00
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  PM, some people will look at you like you've done something very
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  suspicious. There are table manners.
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  There are birthday cakes. There are tiny decorative herbs
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  placed on top of expensive restaurant meals, mostly just to
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  look nice before you push them to the side.
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  And there's the great debate that's divided humanity for
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  generations. Pineapple on pizza?
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  An alien might think you need energy to survive.
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  Why not simply eat the energy? And we'd have to explain that
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  the biscuit goes better with tea, and the sandwich must be
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  cut diagonally, not straight. And actually, this particular
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  chocolate is only for Easter. The alien would leave Earth more
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  confused than when it arrived. Then there's music.
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  From a purely scientific point of view, humans push air through
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  their throats or through metal tubes, arrange the sounds into
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  patterns, and then cry about it, or dance, or both.
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  Entire stadiums fill with thousands of people who've all
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  agreed to stand in the same place and experience the same
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  organized vibrations together, and they call this a concert.
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  And it's one of the best things humans do, the alien writes.
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  Humans make air vibrations and then get emotional about them.
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  Unclear why. Results.
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  Very impressive somehow. But here's the thing, the more
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  the alien watches, the more it starts to realize something.
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  All of these weird habits, the clocks, the money, the language,
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  the food rules, the music. They're not actually random at
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  all. They're all humans, doing the
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  same thing in different ways, turning ordinary life into
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  something that means something. Animals eat, sleep, move and
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  protect themselves. Humans do all that too.
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  But then humans add approximately 1000 extra layers
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  on top. We don't just eat.
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  We've got recipes, family traditions and birthday cakes.
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  We don't just build shelter, we argue about what colour to paint
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  the walls. We don't just communicate.
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  We write novels and invent slang and make up knock knock jokes,
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  Which, by the way, humans have been making knock knock jokes
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  for so long that nobody remembers who started it.
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  An alien would hear its first knock knock joke and think this
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  is clearly some kind of sacred ritual.
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  And honestly, they wouldn't be entirely wrong.
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  We also do something that the aliens would find very funny.
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  We apologize to furniture. You walk into a chair and you
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  say sorry. Not because the chair has
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  feelings, not because the chair will be upset, just because it
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  felt like the right thing to do. Humans say sorry to chairs, to
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  doors they bump into, to dogs they accidentally step near, and
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  sometimes to robots when they ask them to do things.
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  We're a very polite species, even to objects that definitely
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  can't hear us. The alien writes in its notebook
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  entry #412 humans apologize to a chair, no further context
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  available. And then there are cushions,
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  Remember Jasper's dad? Humans have soft objects on
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  their sofas that serve no clear purpose except to be arranged,
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  rearranged, thrown on the floor by children, put back by adults,
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  and adjusted slightly before guests arrive.
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  The aliens look at this and go, Is this a ceremony?
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  And in a way, yes, it absolutely is.
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  So what's the weirdest normal thing humans do?
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  Is it obeying clocks? Is it believing in money?
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  Is it talking to chairs? Is it the cushion arrangement
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  ritual? Is it crying at songs made of
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  air? Maybe the truest answer is this.
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  The weirdest normal thing humans do is take a planet full of
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  rocks, water, plants, and sunlight and turn it into
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  culture. We agree on invisible things
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  until they become real. We make meaning out of
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  everything. We wrap presents in paper just
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  so someone else can excitedly RIP it off.
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  We queue politely. We wave goodbye even when the
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  other person can't see us anymore.
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  We sing happy birthday, even though everyone always sings it
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  at slightly different speeds and it always sounds a little bit
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  chaotic. Aliens might find all of this
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  very, very strange, but honestly, they'd probably also
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  be a little bit jealous, right? Quiz time 3 questions Get ready.
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  You can shout your answers out, but if you're listening on the
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  bus, maybe just think them very loudly instead.
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  Question one In today's episode, I said that humans obey
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  something invisible that bosses them around all day.
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  What is it? Is it a gravity B time, or C
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  their mother? The answer is B time.
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  Although to be fair, C is also a very strong force and shouldn't
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  be underestimated. Question two.
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  What did I say you can't do with money even though humans spend
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  their whole lives chasing it? Is it a you can't eat it, B you
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  can't fold it, or C you can't find it in your pocket when you
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  actually need it? The answer is A.
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  You can't eat it, although C happens to basically everyone at
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  least once a week. Question three.
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  What did I say humans do when they accidentally walk into a
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  chair? Is it A they laugh, B they
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  apologize to the chair, or C they pretend it didn't happen
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  and walk away very casually? The answer is B.
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  They apologize to the chair. Don't deny it.
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  You've done this, we've all done this.
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  The chair forgives you. And that's it for today's
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  Curious Kid cast. A massive thank you to Jasper
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  from Adelaide for sending in such a brilliant question.
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  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, a
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  sibling, a parent, a grandparent, or honestly, anyone
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  who's ever apologized to a piece of furniture.
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  And if you haven't subscribed yet, please do because there are
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  so many more. Weird, weird and wonderful
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  questions waiting for you. And here's the big one.
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  If you've got a question you'd like me to answer on the show,
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  head over to curiouskidcast.com and send it in.
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  Your question could be the next one we explore.
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  It might be about space, animals, science, history, or
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  something so brilliantly strange that I've got to sit down for a
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  moment before I can answer it. Until next, keep asking weird
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  questions. Hey Let.
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  Your questions rise. Lift them up to the endless sky.
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  Everyone is as far so bright. Curious Kid cast Ignite the
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  Light.