I floss and brush religiously every night, have for many years. I had a cavity when I was young and the whole experience was terrible.

I still ended up with multiple cavities as an adult.

Not an excuse, but an explanation: ignorance.

Most people don’t know how ads or data collection works beyond the obvious uptick in a product after you search for it. They don’t know what impact it might have.

Full disclosure: I’m mostly in this camp. I only recently started using firefox over chrome, for example. I know that big tech collects obscene amounts of data, and monetizes it by targeted advertisements, but…beyond that, I don’t know what FAANG can do with the data collected on me. I only have a vague idea of what’s being collected.

Fundamental rights

I was homeschooled. Never went to public school. And my parents were christians, so naturally they bought christian apologetic textbooks.

One science (biology I think, high school level) textbook had most of a chapter discussing why the “theory of evolution” was “wrong”. Another book from the same publisher discussed at length why global warming (and the ozone-thinning effect of certain chemicals) was untrue.

My chemistry professor in college, wonderful man that he was, was the first person to explain divergent and convergent evolution to me.

I spent it hunting down a reddit alternative and browsing on lemmy.

I’m not going back. Reddit will go downhill gradually as it tries to squeeze out value at the expense of the community, and that’s not something I’m going to support it any way.