What are some examples of 'common sense' which are nonsense?

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I'm in one of those places. In Utah, many crosswalk lights won't turn on at all unless you press the button, and the button can completely change the light timing and ordering (e.g. a protected left turn light activates at the end of a cycle instead of at the beginning).

Traffic engineers here are sometimes allowed to do some fairly interesting things.

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we need more working powers to keep our wealth and our standard of living up. obviously, as things are crumbling around us, this means we don't put in enough effort to maintain things, and more hands would help.

that is a false thought. The labor market is regulated by supply and demand. That means, fewer workers lead to higher wages and a higher quality of life. It might seem paradoxical, but having a smaller workforce means people in the country will be able to afford more stuff.

That is especially important as people discuss the birth-rate, and immigration, in all countries, also in the US and in Europe. People say things such as "women have 1.6 children on average, which means our population is declining, and obviously that is the reason why our quality-of-life seems to be going down as well". However, the opposite is true. As automation takes over and well-paying (and meaningful) jobs are eroded, having fewer people around doing all the work actually drives wages up, and leads to an improved quality-of-life.

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Lemme try my favorite way to explain the birthday problem without getting too mathy:

If you take 23 people, that's 253 pairs of people to compare (23 people x22 others to pair them with/2 people per pair). That's a lot of pairs to check and get only unique answers

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the government can go into unlimited debt if it is willing to cause a hyperinflation at some point later in the future to eliminate all of that debt.

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Folk idioms that contradict each other are my favourite. For example, "the cream rises to the top" vs. "it's not what you know, it's who you know".

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The immune system is strong and defends your body against germs.

Which is why you should get vaccinated.

Vaccination primes your immune system so it can mount a coordinated response the first time it actually encounters the pathogen.

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Of course! Our society couldn't have multiple moving parts, could it?

And honestly, that's a great example of why "common sense" is so frequently wrong. Saying there's not enough is basically implying that everyone you don't personally know must be stupid.

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The sky is actually the entire colour spectrum with a bias toward the short wavelength end of the spectrum, which is why it appears pale blue.

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Moss doesn't exclusively grow on the north side of trees. Local conditions are too chaotic and affect what side is most conducive to moss. Don't use moss for navigation.

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Hmm. Business budgets are pretty similar to household budgets.

Government budgets are where things get a little fuzzy, because historically they always run a slight deficit until they fall to war or revolution and "reset". They're still budgets, though.

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Them and what army? (Well, the PLA, but going into MAD and great power military strategy would be too much of a digression)

A classical example of Westerners thinking human laws are laws of physics somehow.

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Nuance is boring, voting and/or complaining is easy.

I mean, people are right about slimy politicians too, but they never seem to consider that it's them that keeps electing those people.

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The thing about that is that it's a little too complete. How can there be both negativity bias and normalcy bias, for example?

To make any sense, you'd need to break it down into a flowchart or algorithm of some kind, that predicts the skew from objectivity based on the situation.

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Or overreact, and kill you that way. Viral fevers, allergies and septic shock are all examples.

Evolution is not a human designer. It's an endless pile of kludges that ends up working well enough. Although, in some ways that's even more impressive.

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In my experience it's only automated in the cities and most of the lights are manual everywhere else.

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They enlarged rt 3 near rt 95 in MA many years ago. It was getting backed up due to all of the people moving further out from Boston. I said "It will be full again in a few years." Yup. It was moving well for a few years so everyone piled into that area because the commute was better and within a few years it was a traffic jam again.

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“Survival of the fittest”

bitch, explain cows

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Cows are the most fit for their environment. Their environment being a useful and sustainable food source for humans to cultivate.

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"The squeaky wheel gets the grease"

"The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

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What are some examples of 'common sense' which are nonsense?