“The sun does NOT cause skin cancer,”
As the grandson of a dairy farmer who died a long, slow, painful death of skin cancer caused by sun exposure, fuck THAT person with a brick.
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Even after that campaign we’re still the skin cancer capitol of the world, but the numbers have dropped a lot.
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if it’s vitamin ‘D’… what…
Now there’s reasoning that hasn’t failed us badly before, huh? The link you yourself give points to a National Academy of Sciences review on the subject, which mentions sunscreen compounds being found in tissues of marine animals and more or less concludes the amount of harm is still being researched. That seems very different from the “no evidence” you’re quoting.
Of course people are safer for wearing sunscreen, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also consider the consequences that might have. 
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I’m a massive advocate for never sharing from shitty sources, and even quoting or screenshotting can still contribute to the spread of shittyness.
But surely with AI language models, when they’re trained with text from the surface, search engine indexed web, quoting bullshit from elsewhere on the surface web doesn’t contribute to the overall exposure to unique instances of bullshit?
Wouldn’t it mean that the AI encounters a paragraph of bullshit in context A, where its being stated as factual and left unchallenged, but then also encounters the same paragraph of bullshit in context B, and learns that the same sequence of words can also be cited as an example of bullshit?
TL/DR, isn’t it better that the AI learns that bullshit gets called out as bullshit?
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Me and my wife work outside from April til the end of September.
I have never used sunscreen, I rarely burn and never get a deep tan, just a little tan that shows my tshirt tan lines.
I know it’s not smart and I’m waiting for the skin cancer.
I don’t recomend it. I’ve never heard of the anti sunscreen movement.
I have a friend since high school, his dad was a painter working outside. The skin cancer showed up on his back, it had already spread to his organs at that point. He passed away very young.
Use some sunscreen.
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I never use sunscreen either, but I avoid prolonged direct exposure to the sun. I do not understand people who are basically grilling themselves in the sun until they are all burnt up like a lobster. I prefer sitting in the shade, under a tree. The last time I had a sunburn was 30 years ago when my parents still put sunscreen on me.
Using sunscreen is a bit like that no-calories sugar in Coca Cola Light: people start drinking 2 litres of Coke per day with that chemical inside, and then they wonder why they are getting fat. Same kind of people put sunscreen all over their bodies and then grill themselves in the open sun for 5 hours and wonder why they are getting burnt.
Just do not drink that much Coke in the first place and respect that the sun is basically a grill.
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every once in a while i marvel at how humanity has survived this long with so many idiots out there that have absolutely no critical thinking skills. and social media has let us all see how many of those people there are.
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Arguably, it made most of them, too.
Not that that’s any better, but back in the day, at least idiots stayed in their village.
Then again, “ratlickers” became a thing 600 years ago, so…
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There are popular snorkel spots in Hawaii where you can literally taste the sunscreen in the water. You can’t eat the shellfish around there because they also taste like sunscreen
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True, though generally to a specific climate that’s probably a few degrees North of where many lily-white people are now sunning themselves.
But the funny thing about evolution is that it rarely cares much about what happens to you after you’re 50. Grandparents are important, so there is some selection for longevity, but not as important as ensuring the survival of healthy babies through young adults.
Our skin color evolved to select for a very narrow window, dependent on our climate’s exposure to the sun, to get enough sunlight to create sufficient Vitamin D, while not getting so much that our folate levels break down. This form of Vitamin B is critical to giving birth to healthy babies.
So it actually has very little to do with skin cancer. As far as evolution is concerned, if your nose has to be removed due to skin cancer, or if you die when you’re 55 from cancer, well, too bad for you, but it’s not going to have much effect on your genes.
So if you’re going to make evolutionary arguments, you have to keep in mind that evolution is uncaring.
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I am and you are correct. There is a middle ground between “baby oil and sun worshipping” and “I live like a vampire.” Lack of sun exposure is associated with a myriad of mental health disorders, especially depression, as well as issues with Vit D/calcium metabolism an immune dysfunction. And, of course, excessive sun exposure is associated with pain, sun poisoning and melanoma, which is not fun. As with most things, both extremes carry risk, and finding a middle ground for your skin type is key to a long and happy life.
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It is horrid for the environment, but burning the backs of your ears is really, really painful.
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Well-evidenced reasonable arguments like that aren’t going to go far in the modern world. It’d be nice to have a much less sexist, much less racist version of the 1950s and 60s back where people actually listened to scientists.
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Yup. Can confirm. My GF’s family is Irish, and she is the colour of a full moon shining through a piece of white gauze.
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I definitely heard this in my head as a verse of Richard Thompson’s “beeswing”
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I’m mostly of Irish ancestry, with maybe 1/4 Welsh. And by Welsh I mean Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones Welsh. It comes from my mom’s side, and she has that skin tone. When she was younger, because she likes to garden, by the end of the summer, she would be dark. I inherited none of the genes responsible for that skin tone. I got my dad’s skin. My brother got our mom’s skin. We don’t even look like we’re related. Genes are weird.
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And I hope for you too.
But hey - dad had 9 kids - his genes are doing just fine propagating.
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Good to know that the death of my family matters don’t matter because HEY, EVOLUTION!!! /s
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