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by Levitz 29 days ago
If you have to stretch the meaning of words in order to try to paint the present as comparable to the past, you've already lost the argument.

I'm sorry but an statement like:

>There is nothing that I can feed my children without worrying how many poisons and microplastics or some endocrine disrupting shit it contains.

Is an obscene display of ignorance. Do you know what dysentery is? Do you have any idea of the immense amount of pain and suffering caused through the ages by famine? Sickness? Have you in your life taken a history course?

You worry about your children, how afraid were you of their mother dying when giving birth? Because that happened constantly.

I mean the word. It's obscene. That people like you can be so utterly detached from the harsh realities of nature is the greatest testament imaginable that by God yes, we do have it easy.

1 comments

What? we don't have sickness now? Or an ever increasing amount of sickness? We now have kids with diabetes now! Childhood cancer anyone? We don't have Dysentry for kids, but we have diabetes, and cancer for them now. They can now happily live a 100 years in a hospital!

Congratulations! What a win!

You are still stretching, nobody is claiming suffering doesn't exist.

But to compare modern medical care and nutrition to even 100-200 years ago and say it was better in the past is quite... insane.

You can't cherrypick specific problems now and then compare to the entire existence in whatever before times you think were better.

To put it another way... I would easily trade being below average income/class now, to top 1% 200 years ago every single time.

>But to compare modern medical care and nutrition to even 100-200 years ago and say it was better in the past is quite... insane.

No one is saying that though. I am saying that if the price for that is that everyone is more sick, then it is not a better thing.

Ok, I agree if that is your hypothetical. But we have t define "if its happening" and what "everyone is more sick" means relative to before microplastics, or whatever your argument is.

I get your point, just disagree that more people are sick now (depending on the definition of sick). If you die, you're not sick anymore.

>just disagree that more people are sick now..

There are more sickness inducing things in air, water and food. And it is not slowing down. We are adding more and more of it..Look up "Regrettable substitution", and that is exactly as hopeless as it sounds...

So regulations are not doing shit.

So given that, and the basic implication that consuming more sickness inducing stuff would make more people sick, why do you need additional proof that people will get more and more sick going forward?

>There are more sickness inducing things in air, water and food.

I mean, just no. Unfortunately I don't have a time machine to kick your ass back 300 years ago to a city like London so you get to experience it for yourself.

Grab a coin right now, try to call the result. If you fail, your child dies before age 10.

That was REALITY in the XII century. If you like that better by all means, contact a therapist as soon as possible.

>Grab a coin right now, try to call the result. If you fail, your child dies before age 10.

And today's reality is that the child would not die, but with a similar chance (may be not right now but in the near future) will have some disease that would make the child's and the families life hell until they run out of resources...and then child dies anyway....

Do you like that better?

You think *half of children* are going to have life-ending diseases that will "make the child's and the families life hell until they run out of resources"???
I think we are on that trajectory, yes.

And a huge contributor is the perception that it is OK, because we have advanced medical procedures for them...for who can afford them.

So capitalism/consumerism makes them sick (indiscriminately) and then sells them cure (when they can). Progress!

Then I'm just going to reiterate the "Talk to your therapist" and end this conversation.
What's your point? The fact that we still have sickness means things are worse? What I find fascinating is how people like you, who reference a "pure" and "analog" world, have very "binary" views. Nature is complex, everything is continuous and lives on a spectrum, nothing is binary (not even death). Things can be way better, slightly better, worse etc. There's no such thing as "good" or "bad", everything exists somewhere in between. But your thinking is so simple and naive, it's a travesty of the nature you appeal to.