Communication is key

Something that amazes me is the human ability to interpret things. There's a wonderful and hilarious game that shows (in a really bad metaphor) how interpretation can change things depending on what the message is, who is doing the interpreting, and who is receiving it.

Here's a photo:

It starts with "Hitler gets so angry his toupee falls off." Then the person next to me reads the sentence, draws a picture, and folds down the paper so the next person can only see the drawing. The third person writes a sentence based on the drawing and folds it down again; the system repeats with alternate drawings and sentences. Somehow, the last sentence is "Hitler with Antlers' toupee falls off and he calls lightning on people."

though the results are frequently hilarious in this game, it can also show how much you really need to know the facts in order to actually know what is being communicated to you. Though the humor in the game is dependent on misunderstanding someone's artistic ability and/ or penmanship, you need to actually communicate with your peers in order to be effective.