5G, Vaccines, MSG, WiFi, Socialized Medicine, Jews.
Why did I read that like the Pokérap
Or lyrics to an updated Billy Joel song “We Totally Started This Fire”
Studies showed that MSG is entirely safe and only that some people may have “sensitivity” to it, akin to caffeine or any other food sensitivity. (note this is not allergy)
I’ve always wanted to try mixing my Bugles with a dusting of MSG, it could be so tasty!
2.4ghz WiFi is actually classed as a carcinogen by the WHO. There’s some pretty interesting and heavily peer reviewed research supporting this. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10643389.2021.1951549
Socialism.
Careful, friend. Once you start giving a shit about people who don’t have much money it’s a slippery slope
Yeah…good trolling there.
The government providing a baseline existence for it’s people is like super fucking dangerous.
Dangerous to the profit margin of a lot of companies, maybe.
There are already programs. Run by a government that obviously can’t help. We don’t need to share our wealth, if we were provided wealth through real jobs. With a paycheck to buy whatever it is you need and be able to save. Less taxes, less inflation. It’s the government chopping your wealth at your knees too “feed” other people will only make it harder to become financially well set for your chosen life style.
Nuclear power in general.
Completely harmless? C’mon.
There have been three accidents related to nuclear power generation, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. There were a total of 33 deaths attributed to those three incidents (32 from Chernobyl and 1 from Fukashima.)
There are 58 deaths per terawatt-hour attributed to coal alone, mostly due to air pollution.
I’d say that nuclear power is very close to completely harmless in comparison. Certainly in contrast to its perception among the general public.
The death toll from Chernobyl is debated, but way higher than 30.. More like several or tens of thousands. Especially since you compare with air pollution deaths from coal.
Just shows how terribly it was built, I hope we learned since then
It’s like saying airplanes are completely harmless. Compared to cars sure, you are much less likely to die in one, but it isn’t a nill chance.
You’re right, but it’s all relative and almost anything could kill you. Eg, vaccines are also a fantastic answer to the title question. They undeniably save lives and are extremely safe. But they can still kill you in very, very, very rare cases. I’m not sure any answer to this thread could have a nil chance. Even the video games answer, there’s been people who got so addicted to video games that they played them till they dropped dead (but that’s obviously an utter insane extreme and obviously video games are very, very safe).
It’s just the radioactive waste we don’t know what to do with and becoming a military or terrorist target parts that are dangerous.
No, we’ve known what to do with the waste for decades. Put it in cans, fill the can with cement, coat the can in cement, put the cans in a facility that is protected from geological events like earthquakes, and periodically check the cans/facility. In the US for example, The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was being made before political pressure shut it down.
The waste issue is and always will be one of political pressure and ignorance by the masses, not an actual logistical issue
MSG. People will swear it gives them all manner of ailments
I bought a big pack of msg from the Asian supermarket and use it instead of normal salt for many things. My partner and I call it wonder salt.
(Of course, msg like normal salt or anything should be used in moderation lol)
I bought a big pack of msg from the Asian supermarket and use it instead of normal salt for many things. My partner and I call it wonder salt.
I hear the voices of my ancestors cry in confusion.
But seriously speaking, I’ve never encountered MSG being used in place of salt. We use it here to give food more of that nondescript meaty taste (aka umami).
Personally, if I need both salty and umami tastes I’d reach for soy or fish sauce first (depending on what’s being cooked). I’d only add MSG and/or salt if I really have to—usually to make minute adjustments.
I’m sorry for offending your ancestors. I hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive me lol
Tbh, I’m not very good at cooking and I rarely add salt to my food. If I want saltiness, I usually get it through ingredients like soy sauce, for example. I guess I don’t mean that I use the msg instead of salt, but I do use in foods where you might add salt, and I just happen to not since I added something else that serves a similar purpose. Does that make sense? But then, like I said, I’m not good at cooking and I just try to make things and experiment a bunch (a lot of experiments have failed horribly)
Also - maybe it also makes a difference that I eat vegan/vegetarian and I don’t always know how to fill in the “meaty” gap that I feel like can be missing.
The purpose of salt in cooking is as a flavour enhancer. It brings out the other flavours that already exist in the food. Salt is not a flavour. It’s why a lot of recipes call for salt to taste, as how much you add can vary a bit. Next time you cook something that tastes a bit dull, try adding a small amount of salt and note what it does to the flavours as you add more. If it tastes “salty” you probably added too much.
Source - I was a chef/cook for 9 years
I heard a lot about how msg can make stuff taste great, so I bought some a while back and I try it every now and then, but I can’t really tell the difference. If I use too much I do notice that it makes the taste worse. I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong.
Yeah, using too much is going to make your food taste gross, just like adding too much salt would too. I also think it might not be suitable for every dish, so I think there’s some experimentation required. For me, I like to add it to things that have a lot of tomato in them (like a sauce) or when I feel like there’s something “missing”. I find it rounds out the taste.
Maybe while you’re cooking, taste your food before and then immediately after adding some msg, taste it again. It won’t be like a huge, in your face difference - it’s pretty subtle imo. Then again everyone’s tastes and taste buds are different and it might just actually not be for you!
Yeah it just adds umami. Some dishes don’t want umami added. Whiskey really doesn’t from personal experience. Alcohol and curiosity are a dangerous combination
I remember when I was looking up diet videos years ago everyone was VEHEMETLY advocating against MSG and how bad it was for you, especially for diabetics. I’m still not entirely sure what to believe, but I know MSG isn’t as bad as everyone thought it was.
It’s basically just salt. Salt can be bad for you if you eat too much of it. Don’t over salt your food and you’re fine.
That was the conclusion i came to, it’s just another seasoning like paprika or salt. The opposition to it is what keeps me skeptical, if it’s just a seasoning why are people so randomly against it? I think it’s because it’s used in lots of fast food.
It’s rooted in racism. Chinese American food was cheap and delicious, steadily growing in popularity. Non-Chinese restaurant owners viewed us as a threat. So the racists among them used dubious studies, which have since been discredited, to try to spread this myth that Chinese food was unhealthy because it contained MSG.
Of course it was all a fabrication. People would claim to feel bloated/sick even after eating Chinese food containing no MSG, probably because it tastes so damn good and people are bad at eating in moderation. Likewise, people could eat non-Chinese food containing MSG and somehow there are minimal complaints.
My family’s restaurant was put through the ringer over this in the 80’s-90’s and almost went out of business, but thankfully the science prevailed in the end.
MSG isn’t “bad” at all, it’s just another ingredient really. The campaign against it was entirely bullshit that was driven by racism against Asian people because it’s a common ingredient in Chinese food.
That’s actually a misconception within a misconception.
It’s not that MSG allergies don’t exist, it is that they are often downplayed for the same reason that Celiac’s disease is downplayed. When a few people fake or overexaggerate their symptoms, credibility is taken from the rest of us who actually suffer from it. Now people are always quick to invalidate those who are symptomatic.
Yes, it’s true that some of the rumors around MSG are racially motivated, and that some people who claim to be affected are lying. But that doesn’t mean that MSG related symptoms aren’t real for the rest of us. Speaking as someone who is from Hong Kong, grew up with MSG, and absolutely loves the taste of it, but developed health conditions that were comorbid with MSG intolerance.
As a chronic pain and migraine sufferer, large quantities of MSG is a common trigger for migraines (or headaches when I’m lucky). I’ve been blind tested before with someone else’s help using the same quantities of salt vs MSG in a cellulose capsule. Each time, I would happen to be fine after taking the salt capsule with a glass of water. But after taking the MSG capsule with a glass of water, I would have have a headache or a painfully tense sensation around my head. This was done multiple times across separate days to rule out confounding factors.
It’s likely true that for the vast majority of people MSG doesn’t trigger a reaction. However, a few of us have an intolerance and we are frequently dismissed and medically gaslit. Please believe us. I’m so tired of people telling me that what I’m experiencing isn’t real. I wish it didn’t have to be real so I could go back to eating whatever I want and not worry about migraines.
I was confused at first how anyone thought that Madison Square Garden was dangerous, could it be all that ice-hockey they play there. Then I read the other comments and now I realize it’s the basketball.
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It’s almost like a cheat code to make almost anything taste better!
But I also I don’t understand people who think that it literally is cheating and shouldn’t be used because of that. If msg is cheating, salt is also cheating.
For me, msg has become almost as important “tool” in the kitchen as salt.
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The holy trinity 🤤.
My understanding of “cheating” when it comes to cooking is that you’re becoming reliant on something that might be/become difficult to get ahold of. Pure salt is ubiquitous in western cuisine, so most would feel comfortable relying on it. That’s not the case with MSG.
Well if people won’t use it because it’s “cheating”. Then it’ll never make it to bw ubiquitious next to salt, like it imo deserves to be.
I love the taste of msg, unfortunately over the past few years it seems to have become a trigger for my migraines. I miss eating noodles with msg.
Had a gnarly migraine yesterday after having msg. Hope its not msg causing it, so tasty 😩
I sometimes eat it knowingly and then question all my life decisions once the migraine sets in 🤣
Video games. There’s absolutely no evidence that they make people more violent.
It’s not quite NO evidence. I would say that it’s very weak evidence of a minor effect. For example: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/04/video-games
It’s a nuanced point where the people who complain that video games are ruining society should be completely ignored, but things like age ratings on games are probably a good idea.
I think part of the nuance may be that people who already have violent tendencies might gravitate towards more violent video games. In that regard it may be an indicator of existing violent urges but the game being the cause of violent behavior in otherwise non-violent tending people seems not to have any hard evidence.
It’s very easy to correlate a lot of things. Particularly if weak correlation is sufficient. For example, what do you think we’d get if we tried to correlate murderers with cheese consumption?
I would suggest using the word evidence very carefully. Particularly in a scientific context.
Except age rating is a joke - especially 18+. I get that many games are violent, contain sex scenes, drugs etc., but in my eyes 18 is a barrier when you become responsible for your actions, which would imply playing 18+ games is dangerous like alcohol and cigarettes, while it’s just a PEGI’s way of saying “Somebody said fuck several times”.
Like Witcher 3 obviously fits into 18+, but not because it’s should be 18+, but we got used to these games being 18+. At the age of 14 in school I was required to read Sapkowski’s novels, but god forbid you play Witcher 3.
No informed person I know takes the numbers seriously for ESRB. They often do look at the rating, but they don’t consider the “17 and up” rating to actually mean 17 and up.
Even my own parents who honestly could barely understand video games still understood that the ratings were heavily inflated. I mean, I remember being I think 13 and my dad being like “you’re finally old enough to watch an R rated movie with me if you’d like”. Video games were similar. For my family, once I was about 13 or so, I was considered old enough for M (17+) rated games.
Nah man, my friend plays GTA and the next morning he got hit by a bicycle, that’s very dangerous
Friend of a friend sued an antibiotic manufacturer. I think it was Cipro? He started a course for something then a few days in snapped and stabbed someone several times. His claim was that the Cipro caused him to become violent. I don’t think my friend is friends with them anymore.
Gacha games and addiction though.
More violent? No. But there are mountains of evidence that video game addiction is detrimental to people’s mental and physical health.
Nothing wrong with spending some spare time gaming, but when it becomes something you arrange your life around it’s not healthy.
Would you still consider “arranging your life around” a problem if it were a different hobby?
Yes.
So like… not even like biking, gymnastics, programming, woodworking? Like all those in-depth hobbies are just like… off limits because they’re resource intensive?
ITT: people that don’t know what completely harmless means
Right? Jews aren’t completely harmless
LGBTQ people and drag queens.
Speak for yourself, sis. I’m a dangerous homosexual. 💅🔪
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Well dressed people that can often dance (in high heels) and sing and are comfortable in their bodies. What the hell
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First the gay agenda, now the trans agenda, when will the agendas end?!?
I’m telling ya, it’s all a part of Big Agenda…
Can we go back to the simple, front picture changing, neato math/science fact having, paper agenda instead? I’ll even have my mom sign in daily it we can agree to this.
The most dangerous thing about drag shows is that a Christian can show up with a gun
This is a great quote. I may have to borrow it.
“Christian”
Nah, quotes not necessary.
True Scotsman Fallacy detected.
Staying in hostels when traveling overseas. The amount of people who tell me I’m crazy and going to get murdered if I stay in a hostel is ridiculous.
Hostels are great, and not any more dangerous than hotels are, you just have to look at reviews and go for the type you want. You can also rent private rooms at a lot of them. I always stay at one’s with a kitchen so I can save a bunch on food, too.
That fear is what happens when the only exposure people have to hostels in the US comes from horror movies. I didn’t know that you can rent private rooms and get a kitchen - sounds like a nice setup.
Who thinks hostels are dangerous? lol I’ve stayed at hostels all over the world including places like La Paz and had a fucking awesome time every time. I could understand a single female not wanting to stay in a mixed dorm but other than that, they’re fine.
Spiders.
Even black widows basically have to be harassed into biting.
I wouldn’t take that bet with a funnel Web spider.
that said the fear is way out of proportion to risk, yes many people are bit, but antidote is a thing. I think there’s only been a very small handful of actual spider bite deaths in Australia in decades and those that were were mainly untreated
Good, I’m glad someone said this already. I love the spiders in and out of my house. Most are totally harmless and keep the numbers of other bugs in check. Plus they can be really fun to watch. Granted I’m in the US, some places have really wicked spiders I wish to never meet.
In South Korea most fans have timers so they’re not left on overnight, because people think it’ll kill you if you do leave it on.
This belief wasn’t helped by medical examiners putting “death by fan” on the death certificates of suicide victims to help the dead save face and spare the families the embarrassment of a “cowardly death” for a few decades.What is death by fan supposed to mean? Like how would you die from a fan?
Ask John Lennon.
Lol, Jesus Christ
Many people believe that death by fan sucks but really, it blows.
I used to work in a real sweatbox of a factory so we had huge fans running all day. It was deceptive because you’d normally be drenched in sweat but the fans prevented it. So you’d drink a gallon of water and take maybe one brown ass dehydrated piss. I could see something like that being blamed on a fan. Just heat exhaustion or dehydration
People who are dependent on opiates and opioids.
Some people who are in a lot of pain legitimately need the medicine in order to have a normal life. It doesn’t make us high, it makes us ‘normal’ because we actually require the medicine to bring us to normal levels of activity.
Just because someone is physically dependent on the medicine, does not make them an addict too
Most of us would rather never take another pill in our lives if we were suddenly healed.
If you’re dependent on the drug that’s an addiction. You may feel that your addiction is more justified than others, and that’s ok. Humans have been using drugs for thousands of years both recreationally and medicinally.
That’s not true. There’s a difference between addiction and dependence medically.
You don’t say that a person on insulin is an addict. You don’t say that a person on heart medicine is an addict. We shouldn’t say that a person on opiates are addicts.
Addicts take the medicine without a medical need. Dependent people need to take the medicine in order to live a normal life.
I was just commiserating with my wife about how we both exhibit a bunch of signs of ADHD but can’t get medicated because doctors are highly discouraged from prescribing them, because of the misuse associated with them.
GPs won’t prescribe them because of societal pressure, and yet there is also a nationwide shortage of psychiatrists.
The end result is that people who need something to get them to baseline suffer because politicians need to make a hammer-style policy for a scalpel-style problem.
A lot of people are turning to the dark web to get just basic medicine because it’s such a headache to get the medicine that they need. It’s WAY cheaper too.
It’s sad that people have to resort to that, but it’s better than suffering.
Hmm. I’d be concerned that the lack of regulation from medicines from the dark web would cause you to take something that makes me suffer even more.
Yeah, but it’s easier and more reliable in some cases.
For example, every three months I have to go through a renewal process to get my diabetes medicine with my insurance. That’s up to a week without my life saving medicine.
If I were to get it on the darknet, I’d add years to my life since I don’t have to wait weeks to get the proper medicine.
A similar thing with me. I am on Trazodone for sleep. If I miss one dose the next day I will have panic attacks where I’ll sit curled up in the shower and bawl my eyes out until I get another dose. I am chemically dependent on this medication. Whether the or not it even helps for insomnia anymore I don’t know.
The Tor Browser, it’s just a normal Browser with some functionality to improve privacy.
It’s more than just privacy. It allows you to visit
.onionsites, which will not load in a traditional browser. As a harmless example, this is Duck Duck Go: https://duckduckgogg42xjoc72x3sjasowoarfbgcmvfimaftt6twagswzczad.onion/. Trying to click that in a normal browser doesn’t work because they don’t support the onion network. But using the Tor browser unlocks that as well as all sorts of nefarious sites that you can’t access through a “normal browser”Like many tools, it can also be used for nefarious things, but that’s not its only use.
The use case for TOR is illegal activity. Some illegal activity is not immoral, like organising a protest against a dictatorship. But Tor is not a useful tool for simply browsing websites. The inconvenience isn’t worth it when a regular browser fulfills your needs better.
It’s like money laundering. It could be done recreationally, but that’s not the normal use case.
Tor isn’t explicitly developed to promote illegal activity. I’ts just another browser with some more layers, just like an Onion.
Those layers get in the way of casual browsing. Like you could use a bucket to fill a full size swimming pool, but a hose is better suitrd for the job.
I’ve encountered DNS poisoning (or similar?) multiple times. Wouldn’t call this completely harmless. I wouldn’t use it for online banking.
For my country (Germany): Catching a draft. Basically people believe that a light breeze from an open window will make you ill.
We have a similar one here in the US. People think if you go outside when it’s too cold, you’ll get sick.
It’s not completely baseless. You can’t get sick from the cold itself, but lower core body temp does weaken your immune system until you warm up, making it easier for you to get sick if you do get exposed to something.
The cold, dry air during the winter can also dry out the mucus membranes in the sinuses which can make it easier for pathogens to enter the body. Again, doesn’t make you sick directly but does interfere with your body’s defense mechanisms.
In the US, I hear this more when your hair is wet: “Don’t go outside, it’s cold and your hair’s wet, you’ll get sick!”
Not only colds, but you also get stiff necks! According to my mother, it’s almost instantly. Leaving two windows open makes here neck stiffer than a priest in a kindergarten, but only inside. Standing in the wind outside is perfectly fine.
Also Russia and probably most eastern European countries. One of my kids will catch a cold and the first thing my mother or grandmother will ask is if they were somewhere drafty.
I don’t know about that, I always get a pink eye and my sinuses start to hurt if I stay in draft for a longer period of time.
Muslims.
On the surface level, yeah. But if you dig a bit deeper a religious person upholds the idea that religious belief is reasonable. When people have the opinion that religious belief is reasonable it causes measurable harm to everyone on this planet.
An individual believer cannot be separated from the religion.
My point was that people fear the average person who works a common job raising a family but is also Muslim. There’s definitely crazy religious zealots in Islam, but they are the minority of the ~1.5 Billion.
Yeah individually religious people can be fairly benign. The fundamental problem is with religion.
Extremists are able to hide behind the guise of religion because non-extremists enable them. Because the only way for “moderate” religious people to oppose religious extremists is to admit that it’s all metaphorical bullshit.
I think you mean that the problem is with extremist, not with religious people. Also, people where I live do oppose them because being an asshole is generally against Islam. (I live in a Muslim majority region)
I meant oppose in the theological sense. Religious extremists are given legitimacy by religious moderates. (I live in a Christian majority region)
Not all religious people are fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims (and Christians and Hindu and Jews and Buddhists etc etc) are moderate to progressive believers who aren’t necessarily any more toxic than those of us who aren’t religious.
Not separating individual believers from the religion and each other is every bit as bigoted and stupid as claiming that all atheists eat babies just because I do.
This is a very narrow viewpoint in my opinion. I’m not denying religion has caused harm, but a large portion of people have found it to be a means to do good (and I mean legit good that almost everyone can agree on, things like foodbanks, stopping addictions and so on)
That’s ridiculous, secular people do lots of good all the time. In fact, religious people have a far greater chance of doing harm, because they sometimes believe in things like homophobia, misogynism, genital mutilation etc. If people didn’t have religion to back up these evil ideas then we’d see less of them.
Any culture can be harmful and secular people can and often do good.
I’m not a Catholic, so I don’t consider bad deeds to be ok so ling as you do a few good.
Someone call a plumber, /r/atheism is leaking again
As an Icelandic guy in Palestine I confirm this is true.
How are you finding Palestine in general. I’m planning a trip in a couple years to visit the done of the rock and although I’m a Muslim in a very white blonde hair blue eyed American with very limited Arabic skills.
It’s pretty nice all in all, I reccomend it. The old city of Jerusalem is a bit tense but the rest is chill. Since you’re blonde blue-eyed and would like to go to Al-Aqsa mosque I’d reccomend bringing some proof that you’re a Muslim. :)
I don’t know about this one man.
I’m sure that most common day Muslims are fine normal people that live their lives as decently as anyone else.
And there are crazy ass Christians and Jews and Buddhists out there of course. But the kind of crazy levels Muslims can attain are astronomical!
I mean… The dress code of women alone are just out of this world…
Extremists are extremists.
Everyone’s got crazies.
Muslims as you said.
For Christian’s in the US they are the largest terrorist group.
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/s894/BILLS-116s894is.xml
For Jews (I am Jewish and Half Israeli) look at the current Israeli administration.
Frankly it doesn’t matter what religion, dogma, ideology, or doctrine you follow. Replace label X with Y. Someone will always take the rhetoric to far.
A lot of that has more to do with modern politics than with religion, most of that is a reaction to Western Imperialism. Look at the way women dressed in the 50s and 60s in Tehran. Even Indonesia, the country with more Muslims than anywhere on earth had a female prime minister before Hilary even ran.
There’s definitely a lot of crazy ass Muslims as well as Jews, Christians and Buddhists like you mentioned. However, I think the fear is irrational. Most of them just want to raise a family and live life. There’s extremists in all groups: every race, every religion, every political belief system, etc. This doesn’t mean that the minority extremists should define the majority.
I love to read. As a young teen, I read lots of religious texts. As an autistic teen I found religious people illogical and wanted to understand them better. Old / new testament, buddhist dhamapada, hindu vedas, quran AND hadith (you need to read the hadith to understand historical context of many surah).
I’ve also lived amongst muslims for most of my life. Taken at face value, it’s a horrible, divisive, violent religion and imo with exception of some genuinely peaceful sects (eg ahmadi, who are considered not real muslims by majority) is not very compatible with modern western societies.
Everyone should take the time to read the quran, educate yourselves. Learn which surah are abrogated by later ones, and which parts majority sects live their lives by. You might be shocked or surprised. FWIW I think all fundie religions are incompatible with modern western societies, before you think I’m singling islam out.
My favourite excerpt from islamic texts is from hadith, might not have it word for word but it’s when Mohammed wants a new wife, suddenly gets a commandment from god that it’s allowed, and his wife (Aisha) says “Oh how your god rushes to fulfil your whims”. Even she knew it was bullshit.
Most US cities are not as dangerous as the news makes them out to be.
What about Detroit? I’m not even remotely near US and I see a lot of stereotype about Detroit
There are certanly a lot of very not nice places in the city. You probably don’t want to be walking around them after midnight, but there is also no reason to be in these places at night as a visitor.
The downtown area is relatively safe (some recent gun clown activity in nightlife areas but it’s the USA after all) and populated.
The city has come a long way since the bankruptcy in 2013. It had been struggling for decades before this too. Industry and population leaving the city for the suburbs. The stereotype comes from this and it’s hard to move on from because the city stil hasn’t even though it’s made some big steps.
It’s not a perfect city but having basic street smarts you would use in any other city will keep you out of trouble.
The downtown area is relatively safe (some recent gun clown activity in nightlife areas but it’s the USA after all) and populated.
This doesnt exactly match my definition of “completely save”
