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The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

zapatopi.net

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Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#21

Post by cratermoon »

blamazon wrote: post #2

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Inter…

It's revealing that a substantial part of that wikipedia article is about Internet literacy studies.

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#23

Post by MattGaiser »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #18
blamazon wrote: post #2

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Inter…

> I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: I believed it too. The thing is, this is something no one is really incentivized to lie about. If some website says "politician did X", then your lie detector turns on, because it's worth it for lots of websites to lie or…

Add in that the animal world is full of wacky creatures that don't fit heuristic models for plausibility.

People thought the Platypus was a hoax was it was initially discovered. It is real.

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#24

Post by tracerbulletx »

blamazon wrote: post #2

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Inter…

The poster at the bottom kind of gives away the parody. Pretty fun though, I wish there was a tree octopus now.

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#25

Post by furyofantares »

wood_spirit wrote: post #16

The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing. A quick google shows it seems to be a well known classic hoax from the late 90s. But there really are crabs and lobsters that live in trees and things, as do lots of type of mollusc (eg slugs and snails). So it isn’t completely silly. So it’s not like a tree octopus is any more ridiculous than the coconut crab? It seems there…

> The context of this showing up on HN made me kinda assumed it was a chatgpt generated thing.

It's very likely OP discovered it through the link on this HN post that was at the top yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36739920

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#26

Post by replygirl »

oatmeal1 wrote: post #18
blamazon wrote: post #2

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Inter…

> I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: I believed it too. The thing is, this is something no one is really incentivized to lie about. If some website says "politician did X", then your lie detector turns on, because it's worth it for lots of websites to lie or…

i know enough about octopuses and forests that i don't have to care about the author's motives--i just have to skim the text or look at the photoshop. thinking a tree octopus is real because you saw a lot of words and can't relate them to a nexus of disinformation is a perfect example of gullibility

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#27

Post by mc32 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #23
oatmeal1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: I believed it too. The thing is, this is something no one is really incentivized to lie about. If some website says "politician did X", then your lie detector turns on, because it's worth it for lots of websites to lie or…

Add in that the animal world is full of wacky creatures that don't fit heuristic models for plausibility. People thought the Platypus was a hoax was it was initially discovered. It is real.

Add the propensity to colloquially grant newly discovered things names that borrow from existing things: sea cow, catfish, etc. so why couldn’t there be something called a tree octopus?

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#28

Post by rootsudo »

I didn't believe it and was widely thinking it is fake, and then I come to the comments and there we are.

First the scientific name, obscura just sold it out as fake - but as someone who lived in the area - it would've been much more obvious and probably involved in tons of actual campaigns and protests.

Re: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

#30

Post by bantou_41 »

blamazon wrote: post #2

I don't mean to spoil the fun, downvote me if this is not in the spirit, but it took me way too long to figure this out and others may be as slow as me and save some time by reading this comment: > The Pacific Northwest tree octopus is an Internet hoax created in 1998 by a humor writer under the pseudonym Lyle Zapato. Since its creation, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus website has been commonly referenced in Inter…

I think part of the purpose of sharing this website without saying anything about it might be to show that, in the age of the internet and AI, we don’t really verify information before consuming it. It’s not just children who are gullible. A lot of what we read on the internet is second hand information, facts with subjective interpretations, opinions, or straight up false information.
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