The Pub Discussion Board

Quite a powerful rant there! I would use it myself, but thankfully the last chain letter I got was from my great aunt a few years ago(2 days before the family reunion.)

Another way to deal with chain letters, supposing they are done by people you know, instead of random email strangers(blocklist is great to stop that) is to take the approach I took with my Great aunt pat. I printed out the note(which was the Dihydrogen monoxide scam) and then to go to our family reunion. Thankfully that year we had record attendance, with over 900 people showing up. We had a small auditorium that we were able to use, and each cousin was expected to do some small performance, similar to a cabaret or variety show. Each of us has a small amount of time, and thankfully my 2 cousins after me allowed me to take their time slots. I walked onto stage, read the email, then explained how HORRIBLE that we all allowed Dihydrogen Monoxide into our bodies, that many of them had it in hand, that many of them were drinking it in their cups right this moment. It is the sole contributor to erosion and floods yada yadda yadda. I think only a few out of the 900 got the joke by the time I was done. I then went on to tell them that this letter was sent to be by my dear great aunt Pat, who lovingly sent this out to almost the entire family. I was soo glad that she sent this out, so that we could all raise awareness about the horrible things that water does to all of us. At that point about half of them realized what was going on, and the other half were totally dumbfounded. I went on to explain that yes, dihydrogen monoxide was water, H2O. Pure and simple. That our dear aunt Pat, who we all love soo dear had spent time and effort to add every person there to an email list to tell us that we should ban water. She had not taken the time to THINK about what she wrote, or what she was saying. I embarrassed her in front of most of her extended family. While I have no problems with Pat, and she and I are still on great terms to this day, the rest of my small speech was to go on, and explain that snopes.com is the place to go to find out about this crap, and not to trust the email if it says verified by snopes. I took up about 30 minutes total, and by the end of it got a standing applause. Not really effective in every situation, but the general principal does work wonders.
If you have an over concerned person in your life, who constantly sends out these warnings and chain letters, talk to them. A smarmy email, while it is very satisfying, most of the time will just end up being deleted, and discarded. The best you can hope for there is that the person stops, but more often then not, they will just take you out of their mailing list.

Be kind, Family doesn't let family send chain letters.

Hey, if they're not sending the crap to ME, then MY problem is solved, now isn't it?

There are two types of people who send out chain letters:  The ignorant, and the stupid.  Ignorant people don't know how to verify the information, and are passing it along because they're really concerned about the problem.  These people can be cured with a polite letter informing them of the ways to check the information.

Stupid people don't have any desire to verify the information.  They take every panic-letter as gospel, and immediately, without any thought whatsoever, forward it to everyone they know.  No letter, skit, or rant will stop these people from doing what they do.

In short:  Ignorance is curable, but stupidity is a terminal illness.  The BEST you can hope for with a stupid person is to get them to stop mailing YOU.  If everyone on their list got them to stop mailing that person... then the problem would be solved.

Unfortunately, stupid people tend to have a lot of stupid friends, thus........

Eric

Or the one while learning Science in class at school. The teacher told us to all run home and tell our parents, "Your epidermis is showing!" (Back then, we were just learning the word. It was funny!)