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611 points sohkamyung | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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ehnto ◴[] No.43102277[source]
The pathology for broken collar bones was changing right as I took up mountain biking, and subsequently shattered my collarbone.

It was hotly debated at the hospital, if my specific case should be operated on or not. Each time I had a checkup, one doctor would say "wait and see" while the other was saying "I can't believe we didn't operate on this".

At any rate, the outcome was as good as if they had operated on it, according to the doc anyway. Nice of them to test it out on me!

More related to this though, I have broken both my collarbones, the first time I had little direction and just held my arm still for 2-3 months. It took forever to heal, and my arm atrophied significantly. The second time, similar severity. I was guided through rehab and I was back using my arm within the first month, very little atrophy.

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edwcross ◴[] No.43102787[source]
Given the amount of injuries related to mountain biking, is there some specific insurance needed for it? It seems one of those "net-negative for the society activities", like trampolines.
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grayhatter ◴[] No.43103177[source]
this is such a wild take to me... it's impossible to quantity at what point something becomes a net negative for society. Smoking seems to be an obvious example, because it's addictive quality inhibits a fair decision to the smoker, and it's something with a lifelong pathology.

But trampolines and mountain biking are both activities that result in ephemeral injuries. There is the rare case where a particular injury might become chronic, but how is that a drain on society, and not primarily the individual?

by your logic, should we also ban (or require insurance?) for football (hand egg), boxing, martial arts, (Tai chi?), cars, religion, guns, knives, prescription medicine, children, leaving your house at all?

edit; I'm happy to steal more ideas from sibling comments! I already stole football, but now I want to add obesity, and all mental health conditions.

I'm really curious about the context the idea of net negative comes from, but I probably should also take a stab at a conclusion; why contrast individual actions and decisions in the context of society at all? The decision to do anything should stop at 1st order, and maybe 2nd order effects. That is to say, when trying to improve society, it's fair to look down into smoking and say, we should spend attention on fixing this. But it's incorrect to look at an individual decision "should I smoke" and weight it's effects on society. (How will this effect my family, or my environment is 2nd order, and should be accounted for)

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1. avn2109 ◴[] No.43104239[source]
Controversial take: On a population level, the negatives of smoking are at least partially mitigated by the "smoking suppresses obesity" side effect. Obesity is such a huge (pun not intended) public health issue in modern American society that any intervention reducing it is actually quite valuable.

It's at least arguable and perhaps even true that we as a society would be better off if everybody used tobacco at 1950's rates and therefore got skinnier, especially if we all just dipped Zyns or similar smokeless "low harm" nicotine formats instead of smoking.

That said, I personally use 0 tobacco/nicotine etc.

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2. aerostable_slug ◴[] No.43104544[source]
Smoking is significantly worse for you and your family than obesity. It causes a greater reduction in life expectancy, and can impact the physical health of those who live or work with you via secondhand smoke.

It is simply wild how many ways nicotine can find to kill humans. All kinds of stuff stems from the lowly cigarette. Obesity impacts many more people (that is to say, we have more fat people than smokers/tobacco users), but it's far from as significant a health risk. I'm not sure we know enough to quantify vapes and chew vs. obesity.

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3. cma ◴[] No.43115722[source]
Nicotine itself isn't very dangerous, it's the carcinogens in tobacco that are and the combustion products in the smoke.