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[+] 47 points 8 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Doesn't help that you practically get assaulted with ads for gambling if you watch any sort of sports.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    In the UK at least, most gambling adverts are showing off how easy it is to stop when you use their platform. Just a solid minute of "stay in control of your gambling" etc.

    I dont know what fallacy or whatever it is, but it makes me queasy.

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  • [+] 27 points 8 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 26 points 8 months ago

    you know when you see one of those dashcam videos where some idiot has run over a sign or a bollard or whatever and just kept driving with the thing stuck to the car, throwing sparks everywhere and making a big rip in the asphalt behind them?

    100 horsepower is a lot.

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  • [–] 23 points 8 months ago

    Cheap, easy to get, abundant and hyper palatable calories.

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  • [–] 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Before the AI craze, LLMs were a neat niche academic tool. Then the cults started forming...

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  • [+] [S] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    By cults I refer to the CEOs and influencers proclaiming things like "if you're not using AI for everything right now then you're making yourself obsolete." Then they go and show a few personal anecdotes to support their claim, while at the same time dismissing any and all criticism of LLMs and their products.

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  • [–] 21 points 8 months ago* (1 child)

    Little addictions.

    Addiction is a real problem and incredibly hard to diagnose. I'm not talking about drugs, I'm talking about those little additions that subtly sublimely control nearly every decision in your life. Addiction to caffeine, sugar, social media, TV, driving too fast, being an asshole, being a complainer, etc.

    There's a lot of reasons why we do what we do or why we think we do them but for the most part it's about chasing those bits of dopamine. But chasing them can lead to some very destructive behaviors.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago

    I think im "addicted" to all of these things.

    Although im not a complainer.

    Also try not to be an asshole but im sure someone thinks i am.

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  • [–] 42 points 8 months ago*

    Social media. Every person is now inside a filter bubble that is not reality but they think it is.

    Affects how they think about absolutely everything. Thats why its the most dangerous threat to humanity as a whole, with big tech algorithms pushing content to people.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

    Cat.

    Yes, hello, I am here having my third ER visit.

    This was my hand on Saturday, one day after cat bites (I counted 8 punctures), and after two doses of antibiotics.

    In case you are like me, and have no sense of medical emergency, that is a serious infection.

    I have had two butt shots, an X-ray, five days out of ten of courses of two different antibiotics, and I just had a CT scan.

    Edit: Btw, it looks a lot better now. Most of the swelling is gone, and almost all of the redness. CT scan results came back, the knuckle is good, no deeper infection. :)

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    Did you never attempt to wash it out after getting bitten? Any time you puncture skin you should wash it.

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago* (4 children)

    I washed it thoroughly, cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide, applied Neosporin, bandaged it, then went to urgent care, where they washed it again and prescribed me Augmentin. And even after all that, that’s how my hand looked the next day!

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  • [–] 15 points 8 months ago

    The Republicans

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  • [–] 12 points 8 months ago
    [–] 10 points 8 months ago

    Stress, mental/emotional stress. When my biologist kid was talking about how harmful stress is, I was just thinking it's normal, right? Like how the fuck am I supposed to avoid stress? No person could, we have to be made to handle it, or even benefit from it? Like how stressing my muscles makes them healthier?

    No. Early life stress, damaging. Midlife stress, damaging. Old age stress, damaging. Mental stress causes physical damage.

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  • [–] 39 points 8 months ago (14 children)

    Alcohol

    iirc it’s a confirmed, 100% proven carcinogen and is a poison with zero net benefits.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago* (7 children)

    Some of the best times of my life in my 20s were enabled through alcohol. I traveled the world using my own money, met countless interesting people in pubs and at festivals.

    As I sit, fully sober at my workstation in the office some 20 years later, I can think back to those times and can only smile when someone claims it has zero net benefits.

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago (6 children)

    keyword is "net" -- you made friends, but the health risks involved may considerably offset that benefit.

    i'm sober and have made countless friends sans alcohol, many of them drink themselves; and if alcohol was a contingent on them being my friend, I'm not sure I'd want to be friends with them.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago* (5 children)

    Hard disagree, but that might have a lot to do with me being Scottish.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    “Only the people who prayed lived” is an easy statement to make as the dead ones can’t speak for themselves.

    “Alcohol is why I have friends” is understandably believed because you’ll never know the life you’d have had had you not drank it.

    I get it’s the pillar of many cultures and a welcome one at that, but the fact it’s a proven carcinogen should not be dismissed, forgotten, or trivialized.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago* (3 children)

    Nobody’s denying alcohol has risks — it’s a carcinogen, that’s just a fact. But risk isn’t all-or-nothing. A weekend drink in a social setting is not the same thing as chronic heavy use, and public health research makes that distinction.

    The “you’ll never know the life you’d have had without it” line is basically unfalsifiable — you could say that about anything from coffee to football to religion. Humans bond over shared rituals, and in many cultures moderate drinking is one of them. That social connection has measurable wellbeing benefits too.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    It being unfalsifiable is the point because it meant to be a pendulum to your unfalsifiable original point that you’re thankful for alcohol because you see it as the reason you have the outcome in life that you did.

    Many people have traveled and made friends, they did not need a carcinogen to do it, which nullifies it from being a positive exclusive to alcohol.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (1 child)

    Dial back the sanctimony, Amigo. BBQs are a carcinogen. Do you berate people who invite you to a BBQ as trying to lure you to a carcinogen event?

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    There’s no berating here or superiority being touted. At least that is not my intention.

    The entire point of the question was to provide an example of something that is understatedly more harmful to us than originally presented.

    I said alcohol and it hasn’t a “net” positive; meaning whatever benefits people think it has is outweighed by the fact it may give you cancer. Your response— as I read it, as it met my statement with a smile— was dismissive of that because you’ve made friends.

    I’m now just arguing that that positive benefit is not exclusive to alcohol and should not be in its “pro” column.

    At no point have I meant to imply someone is better than others to abstain from it; however, perhaps this is an example to clarify what I think your point was that this is a negative of being sober or opting to not drink, is that you cannot make friends with some people because they will feel judged by your abstinence.

    I did say I wouldn’t want to be friends with those people, but that’s more because I don’t enjoy the social pressure or situation in which someone else in my immediacy.is uncomfortable by my personal choice that only affects me.

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  • [+] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    That isn't "religion", it's a tenet of a fraction of Christianity.

    Many religions (Judaism, Islam, Shinto, Bhuddism) do not hold faith up as a virtue, and many Christian denominations (Roman Catholic, non-evangelical Protestant) assert that your faith must include good action and rational thought.

    (We could have a conversation about the good things inspired by religion or the terrible things done by irrreligious folk who share your reverence for skepticism, but I really just wanted to point out that you were using an overly broad brush)

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  • [–] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

    If you do nitrous oxide excessively & often it depletes your B-12 and deteriorates the lining of your spinal column and you can lose feeling or reduce motion and become paralyzed in worst case

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  • [–] 7 points 8 months ago
    [–] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Making exceptions for violations of civil rights.

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    [–] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago
    [–] 7 points 8 months ago
    [–] 7 points 8 months ago

    Capitalism

    Weed (the addiction part, not necessarilly the drug itself)

    Sugar

    Plastics

    Smartphones

    Cars

    Proprietary software

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago
    [–] 1 point 8 months ago
    [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    I dont know, a train was much smaller treth until it came closer :O

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Cows

    Bougainvillea

    Household ladders

    Vending machines

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    I was walking the Cornish coastal path past some cliffs and saw a side path that the map showed led to a cave. It was really a narrow ledge, cut in the cliff side. I walked along it, stepping over a gap and spent a bit of time looking at the cave.

    Heading back to the main path, I had the sudden realisation that the gap I'd stepped over earlier was where a section of the ledge had broken off. Which meant that the bit I was standing on was also at risk of breaking off. I don't think I've ever experienced fear like it. I got a shot of adrenaline that left me shaking. The sea was a long way down, big waves pounding jagged rocks. I had to hug the cliff and wait for my heart rate to settle before I could step over the gap again.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago*

    Hippos. In Fantasia, they're delicate ballet-dancing animals. In reality, they're ravenous maws, obliterating everything they become aware of.

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  • [–] -4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    Population decline is going to be a massive problem in the not too far future yet hardly anyone is talking about it.

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