this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
52 points (98.1% liked)

Ask Lemmy

37948 readers
1648 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Have you ever heard or seen something that initially seemed to be totally fine, until you saw just how truly dangerous it actually is?

What is a much bigger threat than initially presented?

all 39 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] hateisreality@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

The Republicans

[–] Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 hours ago

Digital age verification. It is not "to protect the children". I saw it for what it was right away but literally everyone I talked to about it thought it sounded really positive.

[–] Fontasia@feddit.nl 3 points 3 hours ago
[–] SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 hours ago
[–] sefra1@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 hours ago
[–] nis@feddit.dk 13 points 9 hours ago

Cheap, easy to get, abundant and hyper palatable calories.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 20 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Social media. Every person is now inside a filter bubble that is not reality but they think it is.

Affects how they think about absolutely everything. Thats why its the most dangerous threat to humanity as a whole, with big tech algorithms pushing content to people.

[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Religion. For most of my life I've seen media both implicitly and explicitly claiming that religion is a fundamental human social need, and that people who aren't religious are the weird immoral outliers. What I've found is true though, is that religion is a primer for believing things contrary to evidence or reason. Faith is often promoted as a virtue in religion, and many aspects of religious thought are fundamentally unverifiable. Once someone starts down the path of believing things without evidence or critical thought, it gets easier to believe things contrary to evidence, and once you get far enough in that you could potentially be convinced to believe anything. You see this with the antivaxers, flat earthers, conspiracy theorists, far right extremists, etc. Many of these beliefs have a root in established religions, if not explicit religious justification. These things aren't necessarily directly because of religion, people don't really need religion to believe wacky bigoted shit contrary even to the evidence of their own eyes, but religion by it's very nature encourages people to be uncritical. Even if the tenets of a religion are objectively good, the uncritical acceptance of ideas can easily start being applied to a person's own biases, because it's just so easy. It's already easy to be uncritical of ideas but practicing it makes it so much worse. Religion is basically taking a major human weakness and promoting it as the height of virtue. Faith is intellectual sloth.

[–] DomeGuy@lemmy.world 3 points 3 hours ago

That isn't "religion", it's a tenet of a fraction of Christianity.

Many religions (Judaism, Islam, Shinto, Bhuddism) do not hold faith up as a virtue, and many Christian denominations (Roman Catholic, non-evangelical Protestant) assert that your faith must include good action and rational thought.

(We could have a conversation about the good things inspired by religion or the terrible things done by irrreligious folk who share your reverence for skepticism, but I really just wanted to point out that you were using an overly broad brush)

[–] ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz 3 points 7 hours ago

Just try to make sure you don't end up as narrow-minded as they are.

[–] lemmyng@piefed.ca 16 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Before the AI craze, LLMs were a neat niche academic tool. Then the cults started forming...

[–] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I don’t know much about the cults. I imagine a bunch of tiktok idiots treating ChatGPT like god.

[–] lemmyng@piefed.ca 3 points 4 hours ago

By cults I refer to the CEOs and influencers proclaiming things like "if you're not using AI for everything right now then you're making yourself obsolete." Then they go and show a few personal anecdotes to support their claim, while at the same time dismissing any and all criticism of LLMs and their products.

[–] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 7 hours ago

no the cults are the people building the things. most of the openai leadership seem to be afraid of roko's basilisk.

[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

If you do nitrous oxide excessively & often it depletes your B-12 and deteriorates the lining of your spinal column and you can lose feeling or reduce motion and become paralyzed in worst case

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 hours ago

Capitalism

Weed (the addiction part, not necessarilly the drug itself)

Sugar

Plastics

Smartphones

Cars

Proprietary software

[–] Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 35 points 16 hours ago

The ease of gambling in the US.

[–] doug@lemmy.today 26 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Alcohol

iirc it’s a confirmed, 100% proven carcinogen and is a poison with zero net benefits.

[–] YeahIgotskills2@lemmy.world 9 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Some of the best times of my life in my 20s were enabled through alcohol. I traveled the world using my own money, met countless interesting people in pubs and at festivals.

As I sit, fully sober at my workstation in the office some 20 years later, I can think back to those times and can only smile when someone claims it has zero net benefits.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I mean nobody drinks it because it's healthy.

[–] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 0 points 13 hours ago

But but but muh 1 glass of red wine a day study!

[–] Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 6 points 11 hours ago

Zero net benefits my ass! 🖕🏻

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 14 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Cat.

Yes, hello, I am here having my third ER visit.

This was my hand on Saturday, one day after cat bites (I counted 8 punctures), and after two doses of antibiotics.

In case you are like me, and have no sense of medical emergency, that is a serious infection.

I have had two butt shots, an X-ray, five days out of ten of courses of two different antibiotics, and I just had a CT scan.

Edit: Btw, it looks a lot better now. Most of the swelling is gone, and almost all of the redness. CT scan results came back, the knuckle is good, no deeper infection. :)

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Did you never attempt to wash it out after getting bitten? Any time you puncture skin you should wash it.

[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 9 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

I washed it thoroughly, cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide, applied Neosporin, bandaged it, then went to urgent care, where they washed it again and prescribed me Augmentin. And even after all that, that’s how my hand looked the next day!

[–] Artafernes@lemmus.org 1 points 7 hours ago

Ileven after all that you hand is like this than l am so cooked

[–] lime@feddit.nu 21 points 16 hours ago

you know when you see one of those dashcam videos where some idiot has run over a sign or a bollard or whatever and just kept driving with the thing stuck to the car, throwing sparks everywhere and making a big rip in the asphalt behind them?

100 horsepower is a lot.

[–] kboos1@lemmy.world 18 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Little addictions.

Addiction is a real problem and incredibly hard to diagnose. I'm not talking about drugs, I'm talking about those little additions that subtly sublimely control nearly every decision in your life. Addiction to caffeine, sugar, social media, TV, driving too fast, being an asshole, being a complainer, etc.

There's a lot of reasons why we do what we do or why we think we do them but for the most part it's about chasing those bits of dopamine. But chasing them can lead to some very destructive behaviors.

[–] fizzle@quokk.au 5 points 12 hours ago

I think im "addicted" to all of these things.

Although im not a complainer.

Also try not to be an asshole but im sure someone thinks i am.

[–] Nomad 2 points 11 hours ago

Climate change, ~~dumb~~simple people in a complex world, anti vaxxers.

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 4 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Cows

Bougainvillea

Household ladders

Vending machines

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

What does the bougainvillea do…?

[–] atx_aquarian@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago

It's sharp with surprisingly sturdy spines.

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Slice and dice.

[–] PrincessCory@lemmy.wtf 1 points 10 hours ago

I dont know, a train was much smaller treth until it came closer :O

[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk -3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Population decline is going to be a massive problem in the not too far future yet hardly anyone is talking about it.

[–] ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I don't know, guys like Elon Musk can't seem to shut up about it.

[–] Iconoclast@feddit.uk 2 points 4 hours ago

Must be nazi propaganda then