Evaluating Statements

[OO]

I'd like to take this chance to help people evaluate the statements they read on these message boards.

Quite often I observe that people are afraid of the unknown. There is a fear of anything that they do not understand. Oftentimes I read posts like "i wouldn't want X in my Y" but there is no basis for this statement given. I nearly always conclude that the statement has no basis other than a fear of the unknown. What scares me is how many people willingly accept the advice of others without any qualification, which might not be bad if the cost of one thing over another is a few dollars, but vapes are generally on the order of hundereds, and the parts are in the order of tens, which is a considerable expense when you don't make much money.

I'd like to point out that there are many things which are safe, and yet are criticized quite harshly on these boards, and I only want the consumers who frequent these boards to take statements at face value, and never assume that the person speaking knows what they are talking about. I try my hardest to give correct information, but i've been wrong in the past, and will almost certainly be in the future, but imagine how bad the information would be if it was coming from someone who didn't try hard to give correct information.

This being said, things like radiation scare people. Why? Because they do not understand it.

Another example of a statement that i will automatically disqualify, "X is bad because it has CHEMICALS in it." It couldn't be any easier to disqualify this statement on the basis that there is no supporting logic. Everything is composed of chemicals, but is everything toxic? I think you can see where I'm going with this.

If you're thinking about giving advice on a topic you do not understand, please research the topic prior to taking action, and don't spread fear of the unknown based bias.

 

[OhTheAgony]

Honourable effort no doubt, but is it really worth your time?

If one wants to find an answer it's right around the corner nowadays, just 'google it'. Thoroughly.

Going by that kind of logic ignorance doesn't seem much more then a choice I'd say. Let the lazy bastards figure it out for themselves good man.

 

[Gunky]

On the surface your argument about 'chemicals' makes sense, but in a way it blows past the obvious idiom that most people are using in context. Say you are in a supermarket and you pick up a jar and it has 'peanuts and salt' for ingredients. Another jar also contains peanuts and salt but in addition a long list of stuff. What is that stuff? Well it's not stuff that grows on a plant or animal. The names sound life stuff we remember from science classes. So we non-chemists refer to stuff like that as 'chemicals'. Shorthand for nasty-sounding stuff which probably do not appear in that form in nature. Am I wrong in preferring to buy things that have recognizable ingredients, as opposed to nasty-sounding names? I think there is a rational basis for preferring well-known ingredients which have been consumed for hundreds or thousands of years over johnny-come-lately compounds whose purpose is often unidentified.

 

[lwien]

If you're thinking about giving advice on a topic you do not understand, please research the topic prior to taking action, and don't spread fear of the unknown based bias.

We're a pretty analytical group here so I believe that just about any advice that is given here will be challenged regardless if the advice was researched or not.

Personally, I would much rather see a debate/discussion resulting from a topic that has not been researched than not have the topic brought up at all, especially if that topic has to do with things that could potentially harm us.

A prime example of this was the discussion of the potential harmful use of brass in the construction of vaporizers. It ended up in a very lengthy discussion with a lot of good information coming from both sides of the debate and it ended up with a vaporizer manufacturer altering the materials used in manufacture. Did that change make for a healthier vaporizer. I think the jury is still out on that, but, in cases like this, it's wise to error on the side of safety and this never would have happened unless someone brought up a "potential" problem that was previously un-researched.

 

[OO]

On the surface your argument about 'chemicals' makes sense, but in a way it blows past the obvious idiom that most people are using in context. Say you are in a supermarket and you pick up a jar and it has 'peanuts and salt' for ingredients. Another jar also contains peanuts and salt but in addition a long list of stuff. What is that stuff? Well it's not stuff that grows on a plant or animal. The names sound life stuff we remember from science classes. So we non-chemists refer to stuff like that as 'chemicals'. Shorthand for nasty-sounding stuff which probably do not appear in that form in nature. Am I wrong in preferring to buy things that have recognizable ingredients, as opposed to nasty-sounding names? I think there is a rational basis for preferring well-known ingredients which have been consumed for hundreds or thousands of years over johnny-come-lately compounds whose purpose is often unidentified.

I understand where the emotion stems from, but I still see no rational reason to consume things in the manner you suggest.

just because something has a chemical name does not mean that it does not occur in nature, lest Delta-9-TetraHydroCannabinol be synthetic.


just because you cannot identify the purpose of the compound, does not mean that the manufacurer does not know the compound's purpose.