Humans are famously garbage at comprehending statistics, and most Darwin Award winning conservative behaviors are born of it.
Take any mundane thing that was part of a status quo of a previous era in recent memory. Anything at all. Research comes out suggesting that thing has a small, but non-negligible risk to be quite harmful. So we collectively shift to a new behavior that tries to eliminate the risk. A shift that, in most sane and civil peoples’ opinions, is so unobtrusively small that any theoretical benefit we’re trading away is probably well worth the risk elimination.
But oh, a certain group of people will bitch and moan and scream and piss all over themselves in rage over how you dared to take away something so integral to their culture and lifestyle! The risk aversion is never worth the vain fringe benefit of whatever perceived quality was lost because the risk is completely invisible until it actually hits them personally.
Milk used to taste so great! God’s gift to the world! Then we all started boiling it and now it tastes worse! And for what? Because a couple of weak-bodied cosmic lottery losers were getting a few tummy aches? The vast majority of us are all suffering over nothing! Life was so much better when we weren’t all scared of things that won’t happen! We did it for millennia and we turned out just fine!
Then you point out all the people actually getting hospitalized from pathogens in raw milk, the very thing we were trying to avoid in the first place, and if they even believe you at all they simply consider it an acceptable price to pay. Better to live in a rich and interesting society where you’re free to risk harming yourself and others than a milquetoast one where imperceptible threats have been preemptively eliminated at great cost.
And then they turn around and work to ban books that mention trans people or ban porn websites to save the children or some other dumb shit.
Yeah back in the 2000s my permaculture/crunchy granola/woo woo/socially conservative/Catholic friend liked raw milk because of the health benefits, live cultures, etc., and believed that it was worth the risk that someone, somewhere, might get sick. But he’d be ok though because he knew and trusted His Farm.
I didn’t agree with him but I was tempted.
Imo if something can’t be regulated to within acceptable risk, it’s probably too dangerous.
That’s why Alex Honnold can go free solo a cliff because he’s only risking himself and his family’s future without him, but selling raw milk puts a lot more people at risk.
I would. My Dad grew up on a dairy farm and drank milk out of the cow that morning - if I see upon a farm, I’d certainly try it
Just like on a veggie farm (IPM, no pesticides) I tried carrots out of the ground, flowers off the stem, berries off the bush. It’s a really neat experience.
However I’d never make a habit out of it, nor try it when it’s not absolute fresh and I knew what was on it. The odds are ok if you do it once under known conditions, but like any other gambling, the house always wins
Humans are famously garbage at comprehending statistics, and most Darwin Award winning conservative behaviors are born of it.
Take any mundane thing that was part of a status quo of a previous era in recent memory. Anything at all. Research comes out suggesting that thing has a small, but non-negligible risk to be quite harmful. So we collectively shift to a new behavior that tries to eliminate the risk. A shift that, in most sane and civil peoples’ opinions, is so unobtrusively small that any theoretical benefit we’re trading away is probably well worth the risk elimination.
But oh, a certain group of people will bitch and moan and scream and piss all over themselves in rage over how you dared to take away something so integral to their culture and lifestyle! The risk aversion is never worth the vain fringe benefit of whatever perceived quality was lost because the risk is completely invisible until it actually hits them personally.
Milk used to taste so great! God’s gift to the world! Then we all started boiling it and now it tastes worse! And for what? Because a couple of weak-bodied cosmic lottery losers were getting a few tummy aches? The vast majority of us are all suffering over nothing! Life was so much better when we weren’t all scared of things that won’t happen! We did it for millennia and we turned out just fine!
Then you point out all the people actually getting hospitalized from pathogens in raw milk, the very thing we were trying to avoid in the first place, and if they even believe you at all they simply consider it an acceptable price to pay. Better to live in a rich and interesting society where you’re free to risk harming yourself and others than a milquetoast one where imperceptible threats have been preemptively eliminated at great cost.
And then they turn around and work to ban books that mention trans people or ban porn websites to save the children or some other dumb shit.
Yeah back in the 2000s my permaculture/crunchy granola/woo woo/socially conservative/Catholic friend liked raw milk because of the health benefits, live cultures, etc., and believed that it was worth the risk that someone, somewhere, might get sick. But he’d be ok though because he knew and trusted His Farm.
I didn’t agree with him but I was tempted.
Imo if something can’t be regulated to within acceptable risk, it’s probably too dangerous.
That’s why Alex Honnold can go free solo a cliff because he’s only risking himself and his family’s future without him, but selling raw milk puts a lot more people at risk.
I would. My Dad grew up on a dairy farm and drank milk out of the cow that morning - if I see upon a farm, I’d certainly try it
Just like on a veggie farm (IPM, no pesticides) I tried carrots out of the ground, flowers off the stem, berries off the bush. It’s a really neat experience.
However I’d never make a habit out of it, nor try it when it’s not absolute fresh and I knew what was on it. The odds are ok if you do it once under known conditions, but like any other gambling, the house always wins