Being
1mo ago
I wouldn't say I know things, or at least not these ones ;). It's not my area of expertise nor am I particularly interested in the question of "How does fluoride work?" (That being said... I think the current consensus on mechanism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#Mechanism) is pretty well supported - even the (smart) anti-fluoride folks agree. My, barely informed, take on the evidence is that topical applications can have the benefits with harms.)
My curiosity relates to the following three questions:
- Does fluoride work? Is it worth exposing oneself to at all? Answer: Yes
- Is it dangerous* at commonly observed levels of exposure? Answer: We don't know yet.
- Is fluoride skepticism a rational belief? Is there good evidence to even bother worrying about the impact on development? Answer: Yes.
*Dangerous is shorthand for the belief that "Water flouridation has a significant negative impact on a significant number of people". Note: this does not mean net negative. Even IF the evidence emerges that it is "dangerous", there is a good chance the benefits could still outweigh the costs
I did a deep dive a few weeks ago and thought about making an effort post of “Everything you wanted to know about Flouride”
But alas, I didn’t. Instead I’ll just drop this low effort summary:
- Recent studies are compelling
- (High probability) Fluoride is incredibly important for dental (and general health). Don’t pivot to the opposite extreme.
- (Moderate probability) Fluoride is bad for early development. Even at relatively normal levels of exposure.
Reasonable (according to me) responses:
-
Don’t panic about your current consumption. It’s probably fine.
-
IF YOU ARE PREGNANT, current evidence suggests it would be VERY WORTHWHILE TO TRY TO ELIMINATE FLUORIDE from your diet. Buy an appropriate water filter/purifier (not all remove it). Maybe even consider removing it from your toothpaste. 2a. If you have small children consider limiting their exposure.
-
The magnitude of the effect is insanely large if true. National healthcare systems should be urgently prioritizing studies on it. This should be the number one priority study. ( the most compelling reason is that this would be an easy intervention. It’s not like we would have to tear out our entire infrastructure like with lead pipes. It’s about as close to flipping a switch as any intervention could ever be)
Since your post didn’t mention it: even more concerning than the IQ drop is the effect on rates of severe emotional/mental illness. That LA (?) study had some insane rates (if true).
*posting from phone so probably lots of typos. Sorry.
Edited summary #3 to add "Even at relatively normal levels." The interesting question is not: "can extreme levels of fluoride cause issues?" The interesting question is "Are current levels extreme?"
Being
1mo ago
Since this post came out a little more negative than I intended, here are some positives:
- Food and drink scene is great. Especially for the price (compared to most major US cities. It probably will feel expensive to you)
- Lots of great hiking opportunities. If your family has any interest in that direction, I’d strongly urge you to do a few
- Weather
- For whatever reason, people in LA don’t go to the beach. There are nice beaches that are almost never crowded
- Good museums and art
- Lots of iconic places that your family will probably will recognize from movies. A walk around Rodeo is recommended
- Those Star Tour buses are surprisingly fun and a decent way to see some gorgeous residential areas you otherwise probably wouldn’t
Being
1mo ago
LA suffers the same plight as other urban Western cities.
Natural beauty is amazing, the diversity of biomes and the weather are underrated if anything.
Nothing near crypto arena is calm or safe*. Unless you stay in La live (like at the JW), you will be forced to deal with DTLA. DTLA never recovered from the Floyd riots - incredible number of boarded up and abandoned storefronts are still present.
*by 1st world standards. It’s still incredibly unlikely you will be victimized unless you are walking alone late at night with zero awareness. Every street is littered with homeless people on drugs, passed out with pipe and torch in hand. Expect mild harassment if you walk around.
I’d recommend spending as little time in downtown or Hollywood as possible.
As far as actual places to stay, I think it largely depends on what your family wants to do or see. Beverly Hills is still nice and fairly centrally located, but boring. Generally speaking, the closer to the coast the nicer the area. Without knowing more about your itinerary, you will probably want to stay somewhere within 30 min of the 10 freeway.
Everywhere in LA is accessible “within a few hours.” Traffic is bad, but less bad than its reputation.
Although a lot has changed in twenty years, I don’t much will surprise you. It’s basically just general urban decay; everything is just a bit more dirty and rundown.
One idea may be to stay in Santa Monica and plan on taking the new metro line to crypto arena. It’s definitely not the nicest public transit system but it works.
Being
2mo ago
Seems to me like the term “parent” covers more than you intended even without expanding it to cover parents of adults.
Wouldn’t your childcare proposal only benefit a certain subset of parents? I’d avoid confusion by stating directly: instead of “parents” maybe consider using “parents of small children”?
Being
2mo ago
Where did someone in this thread claim “fabricating [tens of millions of] votes wholesale?”
That seems like quite an extraordinary claim and I’d love to see the evidence they presented for it.
Being
8mo ago
I'd probably do exactly this if we were aiming for the DINK lifestyle, but with children it's disruptive to pull them away from their friends and classmates for significant portions of every year.
Being
8mo ago
It’s like a vacation area for plumbers.
Haha, don't sell it too hard! What about Pensacola drives it the #1 spot on your list?
Which developing world city would make be at the top of your list? Mexico City? My hesitation (perhaps unfounded) around many developing countries is instability of the political/economic variety. The Americas, at least, tend to more extreme swings than the first world typically experiences. Instability isn't a big deal if you are buying a vacation/second home, but for someone like me I'd be hesitant investing the significant resources (primarily time) to assimilate in a place that has a high chance of becoming significantly less hospitable.
Being
8mo ago
I've never seriously considered island life. I tend to think of the islands as a pretty strict dichotomy between the working class locals (involved in service and tourism industries) and the wealthy who bring their money with them.
Neither of us has spent any non-vacation time in any island nation so we are coming at it blind. Is there a particular nation you'd recommend above the others? Also keep in mind the kids aspect: would you want to raise your children there?
Being
8mo ago
Is there a specific country you would recommend if the visa wasn't an issue?
I don't want to trivialize the difficulty and I may just be naive, but I don't think that the visa question is actually that much of a determiner. Young, educated, financially successful professionals from the West are more able to obtain visas than others so YMMV. If it matters, we have EU and US citizenship currently.
Being
8mo ago
Wow, this is a very thorough document. While most of it is either stuff I already am factoring in or not relevant (looking at you fire ant map), there were enough things I hadn't seen before to make it worth the read.
Thanks for sharing!
Being
8mo ago
Agreed. I think the best criteria for determining when a challenge will cause growth or trauma is the likelihood of success. If you force a child to repeatedly endure a ritual they have 0 chance of succeeding at, that is abuse.
Overcoming a challenge provides a sense of accomplishment that has no substitute - for children and adults alike. Kids (over the age of 10 at least) can assess difficulty well enough to know whether the challenge was real or not.
Of course in order for a challenge to be real enough to provide that positivity there has to be a real chance of failure too. But then, learning to deal with failure is it's own sort of reward. It's a tough calibration and has to be adapted to the individual child as well.
Being
8mo ago
Never would've guessed monarchy as anyone's selection criteria. Even though this community (and precursors) provides way more exposure than typical to neoreactionary thinking, I guess I never internalized someone would deliberately select for it.
The culture, economic prospects, geography, genetics, laws, etc vary so widely among those countries that it makes me wonder why you think that the style of government matters so much more than the governing (what laws exist and are enforced)?
Tough break on the hand you were dealt, not sure I see a great way to achieve your goal of living your monarchistic dreams. There's always being successful enough it doesn't matter, I suppose.
Being
8mo ago
Great comment. I never considered Pittsburgh as a place people choose to move to - I'm obviously ignorant but the impression among myself and peers is that it's a steel city that is dying as US manufacturing has declined (like Detroit or Cleveland).
I'll spend some time doing some research to fill in what is clearly a gap in my knowledge, thanks for the rec!
Being
8mo ago
Are these constraints too strict or relaxed for you?
If I could live anywhere, it would be NYC... [you should live] in Eastern Europe
That was quite the twist haha. I'd love to know what context clues were used to make this determination. Has our measly 250k income condemned us to being Europoors forevermore? On a serious note, I will say that you did correctly deduce that NYC would not be our first pick for places to live. Is there a specific Eastern European nation you'd recommend? I hadn't considered these nations as I've never been there or known anyone contemplating emigrating there.
Being
8mo ago
Unrelated to this thread, but I'm a usual lurker who very much enjoys your slice of life reflections of living in Japan. Your writing style is a pleasure to read and you're one of the few posters who I would gladly read a full length novel from. Your relaxed, reflective tone depicting a rather mundane (meant as a compliment) life as an outsider is one I have rarely come across. Everywhere else I see people either playing up the differences to exoticize the destination (as in a travelogue) or minimizing the differences and focusing on the global, homogenous culture that exists everywhere in the 21st century.
Please write the book,
A fan.
Being
8mo ago
See my response to @Antitheticality who raised a similar point below.
Being
8mo ago
relationships are more or less everything.
I agree with this and and everything you wrote about the value of family proximity, but I think geography is far from a red herring.
First off, this is a (hopefully) fun question and if you reduce the answer to "you should live wherever your parents live" then all the fun is gone.
Second, I think that you would agree that geography matters more than family's current location at least some of the time. Without needing to go to full Godwin, history has shown that those who were living in towns in severe decline benefited from leaving vs their more stationary peers. The question then becomes one of severity: at what point does the severity of decline tip the scales?
Third, the "type of people who you like being around" are not evenly represented across every geography. Someone looking to surround themselves with those who consider themselves urbane and cultured is probably going to struggle finding them if they live in rural Alaska. While living in any sufficiently large city should afford opportunities to find a fit for any taste, there are benefits to having more of your "chosen people" nearby. Having neighbors who share your values is immensely important - just speak to anybody who has lived in a neighborhood with those who did not. This goes in both directions: the quiet folks who have to put up with their neighbors partying wildly late into every night are not going to be happy. But neither will the free-spirited folks who are constantly harassed by their HoA demanding they take in their garbage bins or keep the grass at the length their bylaws require. With children in the picture, your ability to self sort decreases further. You will end up spending time with the parents in your children's classes. Being "compatible" with 1/10,000 citizens will no longer be sufficient, now you need to be compatible with at least 4/50 or risk your child's social opportunities or your own mental health pretending to get along with those you do not.
My framing about being freed of the typical ties that bind one to their geography was not just a hypothetical framing, but an accurate description of our current living condition. If it wasn't for this condition I wouldn't be considering such an open-ended destination search and would likely just move close to family. Our immediate family is spread out across 6 U.S. states (not including our own), the only way to be close to most of our family is to convince them to move. And, imo, the easiest way to convince them to move is for ourselves to move to a place worth moving to (and flexing our powers of persuasion). We are also blessed to have family that will likely move - many of them are not particularly tied to their current locales. Neither of our families live in the towns where we grew up; likewise all of our closest friends have also departed our hometown and are spread across the nation. While this is rare, it is not as rare as it once was. In our atomized society there are a decent number of youngish professionals who find themselves in similar shoes. I think we all know many who went away for college, moved to a new city for career opportunities after college, and don't want to return to their hometown for one reason or another.
Being
8mo ago
Am I looking at the same quiz? Looks to me that a super harsh upbringing "trial by fire" by loving parents would still result in a 0/10 on those questions.
Being
8mo ago
Consider it added to my list. I'll get back to you in 5 months with my post visit review.
Being
8mo ago
Language barriers
A language barrier is insanely difficult to overcome. I didn't want to spend too much on this one in my opening post and hoped that my caveat was sufficient. But let's do it now.
For context, we have each attempted to learn several languages. My partner is a heritage speaker of another language and significantly beyond fluent. She is also fluent (depending on definition) in another language. I had the typical American school experience of attending years of classes only to be barely conversational in the language and am currently in the process of learning a separate new language .
My belief is that it is possible for a sufficiently smart person to get fluent within a few years IF they are willing to put in the time. Immersion is one hack to force you to put in the effort. I do not believe most people will ever reach a native speaker level of proficiency even after living in a country for decades. I do not expect us to be the exception. Therefore, living in a non-English speaking location means accepting that you will always be an outsider to some degree - full assimilation is not possible. This is not a dealbreaker for us, however, and we are at least be open to living in a foreign country knowing that our children will be able to assimilate in a way we never could.
@AhhhTheFrench, I have to say that your thinking aligns alarmingly close to my own on just about everything.
Regarding the "already discovered" aspect. While I know that this is almost exclusively thought of as a negative in popular attitudes, I think it may actually be more of a positive. (To the people living in an area who like the culture/vibe it had: you have my condolences. Your beloved town will never be the same). A discovered city means that the population is selected for a few aspects that I think are very positive:
- The population is largely comprised of people who CHOSE to be there. It's hard to quantify this, but the "vibes" between a town like this and a town that is filled with only the people who never left (think West Virginia as an extreme) are impossible to ignore if you've spent time in both.
- The population has more people who share several positive (to me) values:
- Long term mindset - willingness to sacrifice in the short term for expected future returns. This is the grown-up version of the marshmallow test and I believe this trait to be central to many optimal societal outcomes.
- Entrepreneurial Spirit / Internal Locus of Control - People who move great distance have taken a massive step to shape the direction of their own life and control their destiny.
- Hardworking & financially self sufficient
For the sake of completeness I'll include one big negative: people who were willing to uproot their lives to move to a new location are also much more likely to do the same thing again and leave. Obviously some of the recent additions to the city are going to be trend chasers who plan on regular relocation. If my goal was property value growth this would concern me a lot. To assess the likelihood of someone leaving I think it's important to distinguish the recent immigrants into two classes: those who moved to the town because it was "hot" and those who moved to the town because the town itself had some core aspect that they felt aligned with (apart from being trending). Of the three cities I listed, I think Austin has more of the former. I believe this also explains why Austin has had more of a recent collapse than the others.
re: Colorado (Denver in particular). I could not agree more. It really is amazing that the entire town just spends every weekend sitting in traffic in the passes. There are some political currents in Colorado that also concern me. I would love to live in the Colorado of the 90s. But if I ask myself honestly, "Would you like to live in the Colorado of 2045?" I think the answer is no.
While I lived in Boston for a few years and have spent at least a few days in each of the NE states, I have never really considered living there. Do you have a particular spot you think would be worth us checking out?
The backwater/castle living idea I think is one of those romantic ideas that I love to love. The idea of spending my days laboring to restore some 500 year old piece of history to it's former glory really pulls at the heartstrings. If I'm being honest I think it's also better as a dream - I'll continue to tell myself I don't want to sully it by burdening it with the shackles of reality.
Being
8mo ago
This is exactly the sort of niche pick that I wouldn't think of myself that I was hoping my question would draw out so thanks!
I'll do some research into it (I may have a problem with finding myself deep in research rabbit hole. Last time I found myself reading individual teachers' classroom pages at a random school in a random town before I pulled myself out.)
But since I have you here... my very limited mental model of Couer D'Alene is from when I visited there as a childhood. In my head it's a lake town where people have second homes and not something I had considered as a primary residence locale. The area is definitely beautiful, but what makes you think it's worth being THE PLACE to commit to? Proximity to a moderate size city is definitely a strong plus (maybe even a requirement), but there are hundreds of cities just within the U.S. that meet this criteria.
Being
8mo ago
I think almost everyone (or at least anyone I'd consider listening to) would agree that children "ought to be arguably a main factor contributing to your other life choices."
In my experience, most people want to transmit their values and lifestyle onto their children and see themselves reflected in their children - hopefully as a better version of themselves. In practice, I've found that this means that everyone rationalizes their own preferences so that "My preferred lifestyle" just so happens to always to be "What is best for children." If a person has that "Black lives matter. Women’s rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love Kindness is everything" slogan plastered on their car and foyer I think we can also predict quite a bit about what they would value for their children as well.
There are many theories on the best way to raise a child. These theories differ significantly. I'm not so cocky as to believe that only I know the Truth and everyone else is wrong. My summary of the messy evidence we have would simply be: "There are multiple approaches that work. How you parent is more important than which framework you adhere to."
I think anyone's answer to my question already has what they think is the best place to raise children baked in.
If people think that a farming lifestyle getting exposed to the harsh realities of death from an early age is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that a Huck Finn (free range, largely self directed outdoor exploration) approach is the optimal route, I want to hear it! If people think that an urban lifestyle holding your child's hand as you tour art museums, I want to hear that too! If people think that living in an third world slum exposing your children to the lowest depravities of man, I will probably discount their opinions, but I still very much want to hear it!
Agreed. Thanks for the note.
My inclusion of that line was intended to be more of a rhetorical flair to highlight how fluoride consumption is probably only relevant for the pregnant (and small children). Upon rereading I don't think I was successful at conveying that. The risk of using fluoridated toothpaste is likely to be zero or close to it.
My personal read of the evidence is something like:
If you are an adult in a 1st world country, don't sweat fluoride. If you are pregnant or have small children, maybe try to limit exposure when it's convenient. Don't freak out if your child drinks tap water at a friends house.
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