[vowelless]

What if the person continuously says “smoking isnt bad for you. It’s actually great for you” on their podcast that is delivered by Spotify to hundreds of millions?

What about they say something even more egregious like “seatbelt laws are against freedom and they do more harm than good and so we should stand up against them?”

I dont care either way. But i think its not clear.

[ravenstine]

This position only works under the premise that the Approved Facts never wrong.

Nutrition is a prime example of where the Approved Facts have been wrong and have likely lead to earlier deaths for people and industry lobbies promoting their poisons. All of these supposed "facts" have been widely considered true in my lifetime:

"Don't eat fat because fat just clogs your arteries just like when you pour it down the drain. Eat plenty of low fat foods, and replace saturated fat with industrial seed oils."

"Sugar is just energy you burn off. It's pure calories!"

"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! You shouldn't skip breakfast even if you're not hungry."

"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"

"Salt just raises your blood pressure! Never add salt to your food and only eat things that are low in sodium. The less sodium the better."

"If you eat too much protein then you'll destroy your kidneys. High protein diets are bad for you."

"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."

---

Although attitudes towards such ideas have been changing significantly, in my life I've had teachers, professors, and even doctors tell me these things. And they're all essentially wrong for the average healthy non-elderly person. There was enough scientific data available in my lifetime that authorities should have known better.

The only way that I was able to come to the conclusion that the bulk of generic health advice is wrong was that contrary information was available to me, even though you can almost certainly still find a horde of medical experts to say that I'm wrong.

If I couldn't hear facts and opinions that went against the mainstream, I'd probably still be overweight with prehypertension and possibly prediabetes. By now I'd be in even worse condition.

To say that people should only be allowed to hear the mainstream facts is the same as saying that you should only listen to health advice approved by Coca-Cola.

And yes, to a certain extent, there's natural selection. The idea that you can save everyone from themselves is the same as saying that we can bend the law of averages so that bell distributions no longer apply.

[gruez]

> Eat plenty of low fat foods, and replace saturated fat with industrial seed oils."

How is saturated fat from "industrial" animal farms or "industrial" palm farms any worse than unsaturated fat from "industrial seed oils"?

>"Calcium builds strong bones! Therefore, you can never drink enough cow's milk."

The first part seems true, the second part seems like a strawman just so you can debunk it.

>"If you don't eat then you'll starve, your body will go into starvation mode, and your metabolism will crash!"

Again, first part seems objectively true (unless you can photosynthesize or something), the second part seems like a strawman.

>"Distilled water will weaken your bones and you won't get enough minerals! Never drink distilled water."

The first part seems to be true? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water#Health_effects. All else being equal, you'll get less minerals by drinking distilled water than without. You can certainly adjust/supplement your diet so it's not an issue, but that doesn't mean the effect isn't there. As for the second part, it seems to be either a strawman or a general advice taken out of context. I interpret it not as "not drinking distilled water ever" (like it's poisonous or something), but that there's no real reason to go out of your way to specifically buy distilled water to drink.

[modzu]

if people are that gullible, why not just tell them everything is fine?