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Comment on Am I right to be afraid of germs / is my family disgusting or am I overreacting and this is germaphobia? (read post)

cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I subscribe to the George Carlin immunity theory. Your immune system is not a perfect machine, but it’s evolved for thousands of years to be able to defend us against the bad germs we are exposed to. Key phrase there is exposed to. If you are never exposed to at least small amounts of germs, your immune system has no training and will be unable to respond effectively to real threats, or it will freak out and panic at minor threats, making you sick from things that wouldn’t even bother someone else, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In George Carlin’s monologue, which I think is faithfully reproduced in text form here he makes the observation that for his whole childhood he swam in the Hudson River with raw sewage, and he never gets sick. The point he makes is most people’s immune systems cower and hide when they encounter an unknown pathogen, meanwhile his immune system is patrolling his body with automatic rifles and grenades and a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy.

Most germophobia is sold to us by cleaning product companies (through government representatives that they own). It’s all a fucking scam, they want to convince us to do things that make us sick and then sell us the cures and have the cures also make us sick so they can sell us cures for that too.

Thousands of years of evolution may not be perfect, but I trust it more than I trust these fucking corporate fucks, that’s for sure.

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starlinguk@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OP isn’t a germophobe. Has anyone who says this actually looked at the pictures?

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- BlindFrog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Ikr, some people are like, “yum, this is the kind of lowest standard quality establishment I would totally eat. Soap? Handwashing? What is that?”
  
  Preventing cross contamination is just responsible hygiene
  
  I wipe down my trash can at least every other time I take out the trash, or else the residue of something left behind starts stinking it up worse than it should be.
  
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JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Your immune system is not a perfect machine, but it’s evolved for thousands [sic] of years to be able to defend us against the bad germs we are exposed to.

Millions of years. Not thousands.

People also used to get sick a lot more and die a lot younger before we understood germs. The immune system isn’t magic, it helps protect us but if you get the wrong bug or too much of a bad bug, it can fail. Also, it evolved when we were living in caves and trees, not in cities and houses.

The ramifications of getting sick can go well beyond the acute symptoms you see (cold, cough, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.) There can be long term, chronic, hidden affects you don’t realize, like heart or other organ problems.

Also, our immune system is not particularly good at fighting off parasites, and they can do real damage.

You shouldn’t walk around in a hazmat suit, but practicing basic hygiene and avoiding extreme exposure are important to short term and long term health.

And, washing your hands after you use the bathroom isn’t just for your own health, it’s also for the health of others. Not washing your hands is disrespectful to everyone else.

Thousands [sic] of years of evolution may not be perfect, but I trust it more than I trust these fucking corporate fucks, that’s for sure.

Right, it’s just corporate fucks and lobbying. Best to trust a comedian over the last 150+ years of fucking science. George Carlin was great, but come on. Spouting off his anecdotal feelings about health theory as fact? Yeesh.

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