@stux Hah, by the Intermediate Value Theorem.

@stux we expect the sea to be “natural” (full of fish poop, body parts, what have you). That is part of the package. Less so a lake with duckweed and slime. Very much less a chlorinated pool with visible poop or parts.

Out of sight, out of mind.

@stux Maybe it's actually about the thoughts-of-corpses to swimming ratio. It's probably quite hard not to think about the one in the swimming pool. In the ocean, you might have zero thoughts about corpses.

Also in the ocean you can think of them as being in some different water from the bit you're swimming in, in which case you're effectively thinking of the ratio as zero.

@stux And yet. I put it to you that people also wouldn’t swim in a pool that has part of a corpse in it, until we’re down to homeopathic levels of corpse [1].

[1] Succussion may not be required to make the pool acceptable though.

@stux i guess “as far as you can see” is the approximate rule. (Assuming its not think fog ;)

@stux What's happened to https://pixey.org/, please? When I click on that link, I get this:

@stux same thing with insect bits in a loaf of bread and there are definitely insect bits in our breC

@stux
it could also be about distance...

Oh, I know! Two pools 1 meter apart, with no way for water to go from one to the other. One of them has a corpse in it. Would people swim in the other one?

@stux homeopathic levels of corpse are acceptable AND ward off death,

@stux we were always taught to walk 30m upstream to check for dead sheep before drinking from a burn. In that distance the corpse water is well enough diluted.

It might not have been 30 metres but it doesn't really matter because what I always did was walk upstream a bit and drink water there which missed the point, looking back.

But with chlorine I expect if the corpse was at the other end of a 25m pool you'd be fine and if i knew they'd drowned in the last couple of hours - as opposed to dying of cholera a week ago, - in the slow lane I'd probably be fine with finishing my laps in the middle lane. Just as long as I know they're not going to drift into my path

@stux this ratio also applies to sex, poop, and urine.

@stux

People won’t swim in a pool with a corpse in it

Well, there goes my idea for a fun new waterpark.

@stux 🤔 excellent point

RE: https://mstdn.social/@stux/117496882290652705

I think this is pretty much a perfect metaphor for life within any given society.

It's just too bad half the population has now been persuaded by fascists that swimming with corpses in a bathtub is perfectly fine.

@stux It's basically exactly the same with food contaminants. There are small amounts in pretty much everything we eat. We evolved to deal with that most of the time.

@stux Perhaps the same goes for if someone has urinated in it too.

@stux gruesome, but true.

@stux That’s why it’s referred to as a “body of water”.