Today I Learned
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
view the rest of the comments
My possibly unpopular opinion is that just using water is probably more than sufficient unless you've been handling something that has visibly stained your hands. Some level of "dirt" on your hands is probably better for your immune system than perfectly clean ones. I've never been much of a hand washer myself. I use my hands a lot, I touch everything, I don't wear gloves at work and I bite my nails. Yesterday I pulled carrots from the ground and rubbed worst of the soil away onto grass and ate them like that. I can't help but feel that behavior like this is to thank for the fact that I'm never sick and I have zero allergies or food intolerances.
And that's what we call survivorship bias. Sure you'll be ticking along fine until some Legionella or Botulism just kills you before anyone knows it, other than maybe the doctor if you see one on time and the coroner. Then the next you online just assumes no need to wash things with soap because you just blipped out silently from existence.
There's a reason billions of humans didn't populate the earth until modern sanitation and understanding of disease.
Now sure some dirt every now and then from gardening (you still breathe some in after all) will do you good, keep your immune system busy. You're right on that. But eating carrots straight from the ground is just rolling an unnecessary gamble you don't need. You're not wrong in that too much sanitation isn't good either - but you do misunderstand a bit what that means. You don't have to wear gloves working the ground - unless you have open cuts. You don't have to soap up your carrots - but you do gotta give em a good rinse. Just dial it back a bit and you'll make it unlikely to end up in a miserable time later in life, while still getting those benefits. A castle is strong, but just takes one thing to sneak in to bring it down from the inside - best not invite too many invaders once it's already been built
Water won't prevent the spread of disease. Things like flu viruses, C diff, jock itch, antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc will spread if you don't use soap.
If you're healthy and just staying at home, sure it doesn't hurt to be eating some dirt bacteria. But you should use soap after being in public places, at hospitals, after pooping, or after touching genitals or feet.
Like you, I stick all kinds of shit in my mouth, got a real oral fixation. OTOH, I wash my hands frequently with homemade soap. And also like you, I rarely get sick.
If you don't give your immune system a workout, it seems to taper off.
Well, let's agree to respect each other's opinion, no matter how wrong your's might be.