You see I too often sat in school classes and thought “when am I ever going to need this, I’m never going to be an engineer, I’m never gonna be a scientist, I’m never gonna be a linguist” and then I grew up and it turns out a lot of bigots and cults and scams and grifts hinge their entire business model on you just. Not knowing what a protein is or some shit
If people knew what a fucking atom is and how molecules are defined, at least a quarter of all health related cults like movements and scams wouldn't work.
"Ohh it's a different sugar than refined sugar" it's the same molecule.
"Ohhh my water filtering apparatus making beauty water and cleaning water and alkaline water" Water is H20. What you're doing is reverse osmosis, and if it's alkaline then there is a substance that's not water in there to make it alkaline. You can't purify water to a pH of 12, because pure water molecules have, by definition of how the pH system works and several phyics rules, a pH of exactly 7.
"Ooohh it has ~different~ sodium atoms." That's called an isotope and sodium isotopes aren't created by magic woowoo, and the magical ability of most isotopes is radioactivity.
"Low toxin" what toxin. Tell me their names. What are they doing. "They are endocrine disruptors" what part of the endocrine system? How? Do you have a source that doesn't try to sell you something?
"Just mix vinegar and baking soda to cleanse all the toxins of your fruits" you just created water molecules and CO2, and some calcium and acetate which don't have much chemical property. That's a science fair vulcano. And doesn't have acidic or alkaline properties to chemically influence anything. Just use tap water at this point. "My wood cutting board soaked in an alkaline solution from baking soda to clear out the toxins leaves a nasty looking soup" yeah because you were dissolving the wood with an alkaline solution. Congratulations.
"There is effective microorganisms in this ceramic bead and it can cleanse your laundry and dishes and prevent mold in your fridge and it works for years" what microorganisms exactly? How did you discover them? What are they eating? Are they resistant to 60 degrees and steam? Do they procreate in the fridge? Are they spreading out on all surfaces to prevent the mold or is it an air filtration system that works without airflow or is it just magic? "Put them in your flowers, they can reverse cavities, put them in your walls" what are they eating in my walls? What kind of microorganisms are they? Did you test the safety of those things in human bodies? Are they native to my biotope? How do they survive in those fucking ceramic beads?
"Just use vinegar it's magic" it's a mild acid. Like, cool, sure, it works for several things, but it doesn't have magic properties. It's just a mild acid. Lemon juice is too. And once again, if you mix it with baking soda, they neutralise each other and you get water. Which cleans a lot of things but you dont need to do *all that* to get your hands on some plain water.
do not get me started on how bad people are about basic electrical principles, especially this abomination
warning : that link does psychic damage
Those bracelets that say they'll fix all your health problems using negative ions?
I always assumed they were a scam because ions (an atom with an electron imbalance) really really hate existing and are hard to make.
Lots of ions are ok in water because water is super polar (oxygen hogs all the electrons so every molecule is like a tiny magnet) and therefore they'll soak up all the imbalanced charges.
Go pour salt in water right now. If it dissolves you've created negative chlorine ions! (And an equal number of positive sodium ions)! Good job on being a scientist.
But in air? Nothing polar to stabilise them.
Go pour salt on your table. It stays a solid? Good job. You've proven the atoms in salt prefer being bonded to each other than being free flying ions. You're half way to a chemistry degree.
The only way to force the creation of ions in air is a fuckton of energy. This can be electricity or radiation.
Go attach leads to a 9V battery. Put both into a cup of water. If you see bubbles you've successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen will be on the positive lead because oxygen ions are negative. The hydrogen will be on the negative clip because hydrogen ions are positive. There will also be more bubbles because water has twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen atoms. These bubbles won't be ions though, because again, ions hate existing so they recombine into oxygen and hydrogen gas almost instantly. Still. You did technically make negative ions for a split second. Good job.
But most of those negative ion bracelets don't have batteries (which again, only make ions for a split second and require a renewable resource like water to do that with). So they must be a scam right? They're just rocks!
Nope. Remember the other way to make ions? It was radiation! Those bracelets and necklaces you're supposed to wear 24/7 to keep yourself healthy? They're made of mildly radioactive stone.
So they are splitting the air into ions (for a split second. You now know that ions hate existing so they recombine. Although sometimes they'll recombine into ozone (O3) rather than breathable oxygen (O2). Ozone isn't great to breathe in but you also presumably have been near a car so like... It's not a big deal in the scheme of things).
But more importantly!! They're also splitting your body into ions! Which are stabilised by the water in your body (remember the magnet analogy?) and therefore last a lot longer and can get up to more fuckery.
To;dr the negative ion bracelets do what they say on the label. They just do it by dosing you with radiation. And unlike just walking past a radioactive rock or getting an x-ray or a particularly sunny day, they're doing it on a concentrated part of your body, for as long as you're wearing it. And you're supposed to give these to children!!!
#and if everyone was taught how to engage with and create art then we wouldn't have such an issue with ai slop now
#where people simply do not understand what the creative process entails so they devalue and dismiss it
#striving to be a well rounded person educated on as many things as possible is good actually
#and in this era of intellectual incuriosity being normalised it is absolutely crucial
I was homeschooled but for some high school classes I went to an accredited co-op, and one of these was high school AP Chemistry
So while I was taking this chemistry class I walked into a health food store one day and saw a bottle of "alkaline water"
Well I bought it and brought it into class the next day and asked the teacher if we could PH test it, since we were learning about acids and bases, and she loved the idea of IRL applied science so we took ten minutes to do a quick PH test on the alkaline water
Guys it was so fucking acidic. It had a PH rating of 4. Don't ever buy alkaline water it is such a massive scam. I don't even know what they did to it or how you get that to happen. That's the PH rating of wine
