The scientific method - eviltoast
  • Smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Corpse size has a lot to do with it. I wouldn’t swim in even a large pool with a dead human in it (knowingly), but one dead fish or rodent or dozens of dead tadpoles or bugs? Not an issue.

    Heck, most household swimming pools have dozens of dead bodies in them, but they’re 99% insects.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    4 months ago

    People will walk through a forest that definitely has many corpses in it. Humans will not walk through an alley that has 1 corpse in it.

    Humans have a corpse: proximity ratio that they find acceptable.

    Edit: typo

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        If you knew there was a dead person next door you might be a little uncomfortable, but could go about your day. If you knew there were 50 dead people next door you would need to get out of there.

        The number is relevant, not just the proximity to the closest one.

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      How does graveyards fit into the equation? You could knowingly be just a few meters away from rows of corpses, but not really care.

      Does the dirt provide insulation?

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell you that, like, you’ll walk through a graveyard, or a morgue, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan”. But when I bring ONE corpse to a job interview, well then everyone loses their minds!

      • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        I think the corpse acceptability must also account for whether the person expects a corpse to be present.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        People are often uncomfortable in graveyards and, for example, would not want to walk through one at night when they would be willing to walk through a field.

        The dirt does provide a sort of insulation however, as people would be more willing to walk through a graveyard than through a house that had the same density of corpses in the basement. It’s the theoretical accessibility to the corpse that plays a factor here.

        • oo1@lemmings.world
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          4 months ago

          Ah, so the corpse acceptability depends on the coefficient of corpse-permeability of the intermediate space as well as the distance.

          Lead lined coffins are safer than wooden ones. This might also explain the thick metal doors you always see in morgues on tv.

          • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            I think it would depend more on how easy it is to open the coffin. If the lead lined coffin has well maintained hinges that allow it to open with little effort, that’s less acceptable than a wooden coffin that is nailed shut.

            Corpse acceptability is inversely proportional to corpse accessibility.

        • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          I’ve never felt any feeling about being at a cemetery. I performed hundreds of funeral services and it never came up with any of us doing them and we talked about so much shit being stuck together for over a year more or less with exception to a few rotations. I’m unreasonably curious how common/uncommon to feel uncomfortable in graveyards now.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    4 months ago

    A lot of human survival is based on heuristics, if you can tell there’s a corpse in something, you probably shouldn’t drink or eat it… As a general rule of thumb

    For large body of water since you’re unaware of the corpse two kilometers away on the bottom, it’s probably not an issue for you.

    However, primal human heuristics are not calibrated correctly from modern media. There was the reservoir where somebody was caught on camera peeing into it, hundreds of millions of liters of water, and they decided to drain the entire thing to prevent the public concern. That’s just a heuristic run amok

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      A lot of human survival is based on heuristics, if you can tell there’s a corpse in something, you probably shouldn’t drink or eat it… As a general rule of thumb

      And this is why it’s dangerous to drink ocean-water.

      Also why you should drink lots of that delicious peepee pool-water

      ETA: If you’re having dinner with someone who dies in the middle of eating their food, you can safely finish their food, drink, and poisoned soup as long as they didn’t die face-down in it.

      This PSA brought to you by the Society of Selective Listeners

    • OpenStars@discuss.online
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      4 months ago

      Also what is the intermixing of water two kilometers away, especially affected by currents (which I presume, without checking ofc bc this is the internet 😁, are more horizontal than vertical - thus would intermixing occur more readily on the horizontal but the fact that it’s vertical distance mean… what really)? So yeah, it makes sense then that due to the unknown factors, the default would take over.

      • Zwiebel@feddit.org
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        4 months ago

        Sometimes the water sits stable with next to no vertical intermixing and sometimes it intermixes to homogenity. Depends on the external conditions

  • joranvar@feddit.nl
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    4 months ago

    I wonder if there is a point where the graphs of “perceived effect on the water” cross for both this experiment and homeopathy, and what that means.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    You are a little soul carrying about a corpse.

    –Some Roman guy paraphrasing some Greek guy.

  • Nicoleism101@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    There are molecules of human shit in every pool and they get into your mouth. The density is just not enough to feel the taste or become ill

    That old guy swimming in front of you probably forgot to wipe or wash his ass so the density is getting close to detectable sometimes

    As they say the dose makes the poison. See ya at the pool

  • III@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    This is like eating bugs. Everyone eats bugs all the time, it is awareness of the bugs and bug to food ratio that tends to cause hesitation.

  • littleblue✨@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Similar to the water:piss ratio regarding (US?) swimming pools, insofar as the knowledge that the “nostalgic” smell of swimming pools is not the comforting presence of chlorine so many believe it to be, and is in fact the confirmation of a volume of piss in the water that is rapidly nearing the extent of said chlorine’s capacity to neutralize (sapped also by ceaseless sunshine & innumerable contaminants hitching rides on patrons’ oblivious meatsacs).

    In short: if you smell “pool”, someone(s) have pissed in it. A lot.

        • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          Agreed, I take showers in the morning but sometimes I’ll end the night with a really hot bath, it helps my body not hurt in the morning if I’ve been working hard that day. I will take a piss before I get in the tub but I’ll be damned if I don’t almost always pee some while I’m laying in the tub relaxing. It’s never seemed to be anything to give a shit about to me but some people do seem hyper sensitive to that kind of thing. My partner and I have peed while in the bathtub together before and it didn’t gross either of us out. Maybe it would be more gross if our urine was dark yellow or more noticeable beyond feeling the warmth for less than a minute.

          • littleblue✨@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Nope, too much piss. Also, “peed while in the bathtub together” is a bit too far, and that’s not even including possible eye contact. To illustrate: what simple thing makes eating a banana in public creepy/hot? Eye contact. You do you, but stay outta my tub.