“Chemicals” in food. Literally every substance, every food and people are composed of them. The common usage has bastardized the meaning and latched on to the naturalistic fallacy. Snake venom is natural. Cyanide is natural. Arsenic and Uranium are natural. Botulinum toxin is natural. Something being naturally occurring does not automatically make it good for you just as something being made in a lab does not equate to being bad for you.
I really liked this post by Hank Green regarding “natural remedies”.
tl;dw The chemicals used in chemotherapy are naturally occurring, and science uses what we know works. So when people say “you should use natural remedies”, what they really mean is, you should use something:
- we don’t know whether it works
- we know doesn’t work
- we know is actively harmful
And the first two categories aren’t necessarily bad, an Epsom salt bath can feel really nice, but don’t think it’s a replacement for proper medical science.
On one hand I agree with you, the way “chemicals” are used in everyday speech differs from the text book definition.
On the other hand, if we take our heads out of our asses and stop the "well actually"s I kinda have to agree with being against “chemicals” in food. Arsenic is naturally occurring, sure, but at what concentration? Radioactive uranium is a naturally occurring element, but I would hardly call nuclear fallout something natural.
If you are not worried about the chemicals in your food, your long term health would like to have a word with you.
Not just your food, even the water. It’s full of H2O.
Being overweight or obese, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, prolonged sitting, loneliness will all kill you way faster than all those “chemicals” in your food that you are so terrified of but no one really cares about any of that because its much harder to lose that extra 30 pounds and break up sitting every once in a while with light exercise than it is to act like a picky 5 year old and eat nothing but organic food satisfied by the false notion that you did something of consequence for your health.
Water is a chemical. Salt is a chemical. Everything is a chemical.
Absolutely, but not at all chemicals are the same as you know. Some are harmless and some are not.
My least favorite is “it’s processed”
I can count the ingredients on my hands, and the “processing” is like 4 steps max.
“Unga bunga me invent new process for food. It called cooking. Make less parasites in meat. Very good.”
“Cooking bad, garg. We no want processed food.”
A guy at a deli counter slicing cold cuts and assembling them into a sandwich is “processed food”. Using the term as a health concern marker is meaningless.
Even Kraft Singles, the posterchild of “processed food”, famously disallowed to legally call itself “cheese” on its packaging, what is it made of? What hellish process hath humanity wrought? Cheddar cheese, sodium citrate (a mundane variety of salt), and water. That’s it.
It’s not forbidden from being called “cheese” because it’s a bastard concoction of mad scientist chemicals that approximate cheese to ruse consumers. It’s simply cheese, literally watered down to the point that you can’t call it cheese anymore.
All that the sodium citrate is doing in this situation is acting as a binder that helps the cheese solids hold on to the water. This action is what gives many dishes, sauces, and the like their smooth, creamy texture. But use the word for that – “emulsifier” – and suddenly people think you’re trying to poison them, because that’s a scary chemical word.
Why does this product exist? Because it offers a unique melty texture that people appreciate in certain contexts. It’s a niche product with a niche function. Treat it like one.
I haven’t run into anyone who considers emulsifier a scary chemical word. Most people I know with any baking skill know what the word means and use egg yolks for that purpose all the time.
Cooking is processing food.
Have you heard about the chemical dihydrogen monoxide?! It’s 100% fatal! Too much causes death, too little, death! Massively addictive.
Same thing with people thinking that organic food is healthier. Organic food might be good for the environment, but not necessarily the climate or your health.
I worked in produce as a quality inspector for a couple years. Organic generally just means lower quality for higher price. No one is regulating it as far as I know, they can just skip pesticides, do everything else the same and charge more for the same product that actually cost them less to produce. We refered to it as a hillarious scam when the boss wasnt around.
Doesn’t it cost more to produce because you lose more crops to pests?
No, thats just the bullshit they use to justify it.
Anything not looking good enough gets sent to a secondary outlet and is sold as is with no organic labels. The stuff that is a grade below that gets juiced ( dont drink fruit juice that you didnt make yourself if you can help it…). They are not losing a single pennie, they are making out like thieves
That depends on where you live though. Here in Denmark, as an example, we have a certificate called “Statskontrolleret økologisk” which basically translates to “Government-certified organic”. There are specific guidelines and rules that need to be followed, to be allowed to use this seal on your product.
We have a similar system in the US. The US department of agriculture has a stamp they put on food that has strict criteria for what goes in it
Organic has less pesticides. Which is probably healthier no? I mostly buy non organic, but always get organic for certain foods like strawberries and oats since they tend to have so much pesticides used on them.
Not necessarily less pesticides, but “natural” pesticides. In my opinion, organic food is probably either equivalent or better than not-organic, but I don’t think there’s much scientific consensus.
People tend to think “organic” means that a food item is free from the ills of industrial agriculture, but it really doesn’t. It’s the same thing with people directing hate at GMO’s: most complaints people have about them are really complaints that apply to industrial ag whether GMO or not.
Organic has less pesticides.
Less pesticides also means more bacteria and more bug poop. There is a reason why they use pesticides, after all.
Even if there are trace amounts of pesticides left, you can just wash the produce, which you should always do anyway. Same reason you wash the organic produce to get rid of bug stuff…
The trace amounts of bug poop or pesticides really makes no difference when it comes to your health.
I feel like that’s one of those things where the conversational use of chemicals and scientific use has drifted apart
There’s plenty of examples but the only one I can think of is evolution, like In every terrible sci-fi movie ever using evolution to describe the individual evil monster gaining some change
Anyways 100% agree with you tho
AI. In the real world, AI is any computer process that can make decisions as if it were smart. Expert systems, genetic algorithms, hell even fuzzy logic. A smart lightbulb is artificially smart. Artificially intelligent.
In movies and bad tech blogs, AI means a sapient machine and that’s why LLMs aren’t actually AI.
The word theory is another one.
I find myself thinking this a lot. Someone goes; “and that’s my theory about…” And I’m like; that’s not a theory, that’s a hypothesis…
But that’s just a theory, a gaaaame theory
Matpat is a fascist piece of shit.
Like how some creationists try to dispell evolution by saying that it’s only a theory.
I just say “so is gravity”
Idk if that helps your point as it’s simultaneously one of the most studied and least understood things in physics. Although I doubt a creationist could mount that argument.
I love when they compare food labels from two countries but don’t notice the ingredients are the same just described in different words or with different levels of verbosity based on the local regulations.
Fat people. There, I said it.
I think the issue is with normalizing unhealthy bodies. idc how you look as long as you’re healthy, but society is becoming increasingly accepting of obviously unhealthy lifestyles and bodies. It’s no better than anorexia.
Unhealthy bodies like how? What dobyou mean by that? How can you know someone’s health status and or lifestyle by the way they look? If that were true, blood Labs and other tests would be useless.
If your eyeballs are missing, I can make an assumption that your vision isn’t great just by looking at you. That’s not a moral judgement.
Doesn’t mean blood tests are useless, and in fact it means we have some idea where to start investigating a potential health problem.
Yes, I agree that there’s bias against folks who are overweight, and also that there’s a range of risk associated with being overweight. It’s pretty clear, however, that obesity is a health concern that we should take seriously. If someone smokes five pack of cigs a day, I’m going to make an assumption about their lung health. There’s always outliers that live to 100 smoking and not doing exercise, but it would be a shit doctor if they didn’t tell folks not to follow their example.
ask any doctor, being overweight is unhealthy.
I’m not saying we should be assholes to fat people but we should still teach kids that being overweight is unhealthy
You can get the rough strokes from looks. Blood tests give you more specific information on what is wrong, if anything.
Meh, that is lazy medicine IMHO and at the same time, it says a lot about the health system and its practitioners. We need better educated more empathetic doctors who go beyond looking at someone to make assumptions about someone’s health.
I would say that this is a problem of lacking resources, not laziness. I’ve never met a doctor that didn’t have a constant stream of patients and non-stop work to do.
Ime fat people are pleasant to hang out with.
If I’m ever trapped on a deserted island I hope it’s with a fat person.
You know they would eat you first right?
I can run faster scared than they can hungry.
But then you won’t be eating dinner and you’ll be wasting calories and energy.
Yeah, being fat shouldn’t be a qualifier for anything IMHO. Like, let people live their lives in peace! There are pleasant and unpleasant fat people, as there are thin, so why does weight have to do with anything?! It is baffling to me we have to work so hard to humanize fat persons. Fat bias is so ingrained in our culture people think is ok.
Some of the fat people I’ve worked with were so much more hard working than others. But on other hand some customers I’ve dealt with were the worst customers. There was a notorious mother daughter duo that my co workers labeled the “Thunder Cunts”. The sad part is they had kids that probably.lived a life of hell.
Yeah, child abuse is no joke. I bet you also had non fat customers who were a pain in the ass too, so it is not about weight, but about being an insufferable tw4twaffle.
Yeah I worked in a really shitty area. It was heartbreaking seeing how shitty people were.
Oh I feel for you. It is never easy to witness some stuff.
And very cuddly and squeezable. I like touching fat folks as much as I like touching for folks. All bodies are nice.
Conservatives seem to really hate electric cars for some reason. You’d think that for all the bitching they do regarding how Dark Brandon is personally hiking gas prices as part of his pinko commie agenda they’d like to stick it to him and stop paying for gas, but no, they take personal offense as if an electric car is somehow emasculating.
Bidets!
Comic sans.
It is literally a font. Sometimes when some corporate partner is annoying me I will pdf lock a document, with a signature, to them in comic sans.
Optical discs (blu-rays, DVDs, cds, etc…). I hate that I have to justify buying one or having a collection.
How dare you store media on a reflective plate?!
MSG
Clowns. I never found them entertaining, but they just want to entertain kids and people at circuses.
Nickelback. I mean they’re not good but they’re not really bad either, just a complete nonevent. They don’t deserve the hate they get, they don’t really deserve anything
Oh, boy, they most certainly deserve the hate. This article sums it up pretty well: https://www.grunge.com/51980/nickelback-became-hated-band-music-industry/
Breeders who responsibly create a hybrid breed for sporting or companion purposes. Doesn’t matter if all applicable health testing is done and every puppy has a home in advance before it’s even born, people seem to immediately think backyard breeder if a dog isn’t purebred.
I think this applies to every breeder, regardless if they do pure breeds or trendy mutts.
I’d rather mix breeds gain popularity than pure breeds
The man who created Labradoodles regrets his actions
Can we find the pug guy? Theres someone responsible for some animal suffering
How come?
Because Labradoodles wound up very cute but inherited all the bad traits from both breeds and almost none of the good. Just a bundle of nerves and health issues, or so Ive heard/read
I know you probably already hate me for mentioning it, but foot fetishes. It’s a very common fetish people have and I don’t think people should be ashamed of it. It’s not even the weirdest fetish out there when it comes down to it. I understand the stigma comes from weird dudes asking girls for feet pics in creepy ways and I feel like that’s reasonable. But most of us are just regular people just trying to live our best life. I used to feel comfortable telling women I’m with that I have a foot fetish and most of them were even down to give it a try. Nowadays I’m too embarrassed or ashamed to even mention it and when I do I get shot down more often than before because of this stigma. I’m more comfortable these days telling someone that I’m bisexual than telling someone I like feet. Which I guess is a win for the gay part of me, but it still sucks.
ngl, having my toes sucked sounds good rn
See, you get it. :)
I’m not into that at all (tbh I find feet kinda disgusting) but I’ve never seen it as something really weird because it really isn’t that weird.
I spent some time explaining amputee fetish to my CW the other day (which is actually called body identity integrity disorder). I’m just glad there are people who like their limbs and appendages attached.
You should avoid judgemental sexual partners anyways. Foot fetishes are considered “weird” if that’s how you phrase it. Generally speaking, it’s not that uncommon. Don’t open up with a partner about kinks unless you trust them not to run their mouth.
In that regard I definitely agree with you. It could even just be the people I associate with. If anything the people that have given me the most shit for it are other guys that I have as friends.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism. Barely anyone who actually understands them and the theory supporting them hates them, but tons of people have been fed Red Scare propaganda on the matter.
Cyclists, some people just see red when they came across cyclist at the road.
That’s not “for absolutely no reason”. Some cyclists make a bad name for the rest.
Downvoted for saying the truth. Most cyclist I met here are absolutely jerks, they drive not even on the sidelines - no, they fucking drive in the mid of the road and if you try to surpass they move to the left.
For some it’s not their fault they are a bit of a nuisance obviously (those who cycle near the sidewalks, who signal were they are going etc), the cyclist infastructure is non existent here
Yeah I know an A-hole driver so all drivers must be A**holes.
No some people just don’t have good reason.
You can say ass on the internet bud, it’s ok.
I think the thread was titled poorly. Anything that gets a lot of hate usually has some sort of reason, even if it may not be justifiable.
There’s absolutely no reason to hate on a cyclist when you wouldn’t hate on a car polluter, because unlike car polluters, we aren’t murderers.
I’m sure there are many reasons to hate on a cyclist, (not that I personally believe this, but) such as when they block a single lane road slowing traffic to a crawl and placing the responsibility of possibly accidentally killing a cyclist in the motorist’s hands, though you could argue that’s more about the fact that the roads don’t have dedicated bike lanes, and that’s not the cyclist’s fault, but it is still a reason, not that that reason is justified, I like cyclists!
For thousands of years, people walked on roads. That’s what they were for. They were also for horses, donkeys, and carts, but humans were a big part of it. And none of those four things really goes faster than a bike. Cars are new. Taking people and horses off roads is new. Being able to drive the speed limit is a new, temporary condition, and it can be taken away at any time. Blaming this on cyclists is a reaction based on a misunderstanding of what roads are for. Personally, I support legislature to let people walk on the road however they like again.
That’s exactly what I was trying to say. I was also a (very cautious) cyclist until my bike was stolen.
Truth. Furthermore, accidents involving a bike and a car have mostly happened because of a lack of infrastructure and options for safe travel on bikes. Public residential streets, for example, are for all modes of transportation, not just cars. Car brains are hysterical and don’t like that, and my life has been threatened many times while riding my bike on residential streets. I even had an older woman match my speed, roll down her window, and say “Next time I see you I’m running you over.” Cyclists do absolutely nothing to deserve this, and even if they’re holding up traffic, it’s no excuse for homicide.
Cycle infrastructure, even.
Bike lanes are car infrastructure. We cyclists are perfectly within our rights to cycle in the middle of the lane at a speed comfortable for us. And it’s safer for us to do that than hug the shoulder and risk getting clipped by an impatient driver. A bike lane gets us out of your way so you can drive the speed limit. It’s for your benefit.
I thought this as well but German drivers will dangerously swerve into oncoming traffic to overtake me sometimes when I block a lane. Even if there is a red stop light 50m down the road.
Well, it’s less of them, and at least they’re risking their own lives too. If there’s an accident I want the person responsible coming with me to the hospital. That might not be rational, but it’s how I feel.
Lol it’s not rational but I know how you feel. Sometimes I daydream somebody hits me and wrecks my bike and then feels so bad that they give me loads of money in hopes of me not suing them, and then I use that to buy a better bike. And then I wonder wtf is going wrong in my brain
Holy words
That’s why it’s hate for no reason!
The same hatred from the same haters for public transport too: if everyone else is in public transport there more room for you on the road.
It’s a bizarrely prevalent attitude from a bizarrely large portion of car users.
We had some nice mini-traffic island things separating a cycleway on a road, drivers kept hitting them and damaging their cars. They complained and the council removed them despite it being obvious to anyone that they were doing extremely what they were supposed to do: stopping those idiots from hitting actual cyclists!
There’s really no winning as a cyclist when most people are in cars. If you stop at all stop signs, and obey they right-of-way, people will yell at you and/or try to wave you through ahead of your turn dangerously. If you do an Idaho stop (which is the safest way to approach a stop, whether it’s legal or not), people will honk and yell at you and possibly try to run you off the road.
I used to commute by bike a lot during rush hour. If there was a lineup of cars waiting at a red-light, and I just waited in line, people in cars behind me would honk at me as if me preventing them from being one cars-length further ahead in line would somehow affect them. If I filtered forward, like I should, people would actually edge their cars over to try and block me.
I think for the most part, it’s misplaced anger from drivers who don’t want to face the fact that they are the source of danger on roads. The worst bicycle collision is way less severe than a car crash. They also really hate when bicyclists can get anywhere faster than them, which is often the case because it shows them just how much time they waste being traffic.
what’s an Idaho stop?
If you are on a bike, you treat stop signs as yields, and red lights as stop signs. Iit has been shown to be safer.
If it were codified like this as law everywhere, people would accept it better. The rule breaking is what pisses a lot of people off. It would be much more predictable and safer too.
Yeah, the government needs to get behind it (and tell people about it). I’ve come up to stop signs before, and been nearly run over from behind by cars that didn’t expect me to stop.
But not the cyclist as the cycle right through it.
Classic, I’m guilty of this. The best part about cycling in my small city is squeezing into the gaps and not waiting around in the wind for the lights to cycle.
I see it as my reward for biking instead of driving to be both a pedestrian when I want (go through red lights when traffic is clear on safe streets) and a car when I want (take a lane to get around a delivery truck)
That and getting places faster!
Congratulations, you’re one of the dickheads giving cyclists a bad name.
Studies show all the things I do actually make it safer for me as a biker. Example: https://www.vox.com/2014/5/9/5691098/why-cyclists-should-be-able-to-roll-through-stop-signs-and-ride
When you are riding in and around drivers in 2 ton machines because your city doesn’t have proper bike infrastructure, you take every single opportunity to avoid them. Call me a “bad cyclist” but I’m going to prioritize my safety over a law or someone’s bad driving any day.
Except Berliner cyclists. They scare me.
Non-monogamists. Not referring to simply polyamorists or even relationship anarchists, but non-monogamists in general. When I saw LGBT equality unfold in the first world, I thought “yay we’re finally throwing off those norms” but here we are a decade or so later and polyamory still gets everyone saying “meh”. The only time I’ve ever seen polyamorists in late night media was in an episode of The Resident, and it was used to illustrate the man as a cult leader, which tied into the show like pineapple ties into pizza (I do not miss that show). But you have an LGBT couple in every five episodes.
Oh lots of things
Women
Ethnicities
LGTBQ+
Drag Queens ( they are so entertaining)
Inconvenient truths
People who hang toilet paper the wong way
The French (cowards? They won more battles than anyone and have mastered the art of standing up for themselves)
Furries
Pineapple on pizza ( its good, Ill die on this hill)
Bronies
Caillou - not, that whiney snot deserves it
Marijuana
Ned Flanders
Bell bottoms
Satan ( the word in acient hebrew that we translated to Satan first appears in the book of Job, and would more accuratly be rendered as accuser of prosecutor. In the whole bible satan only goes after 10 people, and only when god tells satan to do it. Half way through satan is like ‘um god? This guys like, broken now. Call it good?’ But that rapscallion god was like ‘no, he could still recover keep hitting him’ and all that because god ‘knew’ Job was the most loyal and devout of his followers and his narcisism just couldnt help but make a grand display of proving it)People who hang toilet paper the wong wayWait, there’s a wrong way?
You are one of Them, aren’t you?
Yup, if you hang it so the “waterfall” is on the right hand side it’s wrong
There are two right ways, and 1 wrong way.
The right way,
“I have a cat/dog/toddler”
The wrong way.
T R I G G E R E D ! ! !
Yes, and I will die in this hill.
I told my wife ten years ago that if she hangs it so it’s close to the wall spiders will make their nest there.
After that day it’s always been hung correctly.
Drag queens are wonderful. I finally got into Drag Race (just not a reality show viewer generally), and those queens will totally tug your heart strings if you just watch, and they’re real artists too. RIP Chi Chi DeVayne.
Bronies deserve it because they still haven’t denazified. Furries are a mixed bag with half being outright pedophiles and the rest being insanely cool people, with bronies it’s a guarantee they have at least one filly in their spank bank. But in either case if a nazi comes along trying to start shit with either i’m shutting that shit down right away because they don’t have the right to get on a high horse when they’re 20x worse.
None of the furries I am friends with tolerate Nazis
…anymore
MOST of the furries I am friends with did not ever tolerate Nazis
TBH I do know someone who has a “not checking if the character they’re posting porn of is underage” problem, and I’ve actually only seen them do it with human characters, though they have no special preference between humans and anthros.
I’m really hoping it’s something that they figure out over time, but it’s going to be a lot of work so probably nothing that will happen overnight.
I don’t really think the sexual violence rates in the furry community are higher than in the general community. There’s just more awareness of what consent is. I mean I could say “look at r/jailbait, straight people have a pedophile problem”, and I’d be right, but only because society has a pedophile problem.
The pinapple on pizza one is weird to me, do these people not enjoy the idea of contrasting and complimentary flavours?
Savoury + sweet is a good combo and they dont seem to have a problem with tomato on pizza if they are getting technical over ‘fruit’ being an ingredient.For me pineapple on pizza is just mid. There are better ways to do the salty and sweet thing (eg. local pizza place does oscypek + cranberry jam).
I had pizza once with almonds and honey and chicken. It was suprisingly good.
That sounds absolutely terrible. But calling it almond & honey cake instead of pizza (and omitting the chicken) might solve the problem.
It sounds awefull but tastes amazing. This was years ago when I was still moving furnature across the nation and drinking more booze than water. I wonder if I would like it sober tbh
pineapple needs to go under the cheese, then its sublime.
Well, I hate pineapple and putting it into things just kind of ruins the thing you’re adding it to anyway, so there’s that.
Nope, nope, nope. I hate it. Savory + sweet is not my jam. But, you do you. I don’t care what other people eat.
