Edamamebean

This will not happen. Fluoride is already available to people who can afford it in the form of toothpaste, and toothpaste is a way more effective method of fluoride application than drinking water. The point of fluoridated water isn't that it's the best way to prevent tooth decay, compared to toothpaste it really isn't. The point is that it provides fluoride to literally everyone, even people who can't afford toothpaste, because everyone drinks water. It is completely pointless as a product.

You should be using fluoride toothpaste regardless of if your water has fluoride or not. Fluoridated water is better than nothing, but fluoride only prevents tooth decay when it's actually physically in contact with your teeth. Obviously that contact is much more consistent with two minutes of brushing compared to the seconds it takes water to pass through your mouth when you drink.

Alleviating suffering is an incredibly admirable endeavour, and it is certainly true that at this moment the majority of suffering in our world is unnecessary and a result of injustice. However at the same time, even in an ideal world suffering will exist, it is a fact of human existence. Even in a classless moneyless society we will still feel the sorrow of heartbreak, the grief of a loved one's passing, the pain of injury and disease, the existential angst of wondering who you are and what your place in the world is. These are topics which spirituality and religion address in a way that materialist analysis often fails to. We do ourselves no favours by denying this fact, we just appear like out of touch assholes to the countless people who find relief from suffering through spirituality and religion.

I can reduce your hobbies to "past-times" too. There's nothing creative about putting some pre-made car parts together. Might as well call building ikea furniture a hobby. I go into sports stores all the time and I don't see rc cars or miniatures, so it's pretty clear those things require no creative skill and are on the same level as watching tv.

This is an absurd take. Even by this pointlessly reductive definition of a hobby, plenty of video games and sports still count. Do you honestly think there's more creativity involved in fixing a car than creating an entire city in City Skylines, or figuring out new tricks on a skateboard? Watch a video of Danny MacAskill on his bike and ask yourself if that's honestly less creative than fixing a car.

I've got an idea for an electric jet

Some of my favourite sci fi I've read so far includes The Dispossessed, A Memory Called Empire, Solaris, and Dune. I've been reading a lot of sci fi the past year or two, but have been trying to branch out a bit in the new year. I loved The City and The City, and am currently really enjoying House of Leaves, but I'm not sure I'd call either of them sci fi exactly.

Fair enough, that interpretation makes sense to me, and I'm glad so many people found a book they enjoyed so much. Also thanks for the recommendation! I really enjoyed both Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, so I'll have to check that one out.

I liked this one fine, but not enough to understand all the raving people do about it. I enjoyed it, but I definitely don't consider it a must read, and I probably won't reread it. I've heard people say that they have a hard time finding other books they enjoy as much as Blindsight, and I just don't exactly understand what stands out about it to so many people. I also was kind of turned off by the evo-psych vibes the narrator gave off when talking to his girlfriend. Idk, I'm not a hard science person and it's certainly hard sci fi, so maybe there were some aspects of it that flew over my head in that regard.

While this is absolutely true and I don't wanna sound at all like I'm downplaying things, does anyone have information on why we haven't seen any deaths yet despite the high fatality rate?