2y ago

George Washington literally had skin cancer.

70 comments

I love how obsessed some Americans are with their founding fathers, it's adorably weird. I've never ever based any of my decisions or opinions on what our first chancellor did or didn't do and I don't see fucking why.
- It would be adorable if it wasn't dangerous :/ they use the founding fathers and constitution in the same way they use Jesus and the Bible - as a reason to hurt others and stop progress
  
  And it’s funny in the wtf way because the founding fathers were against religion being involved in the governing of the nation. They codified that crap! And yet, these idiots keep trying to claim it’s a Christian nation and we need god back in everything.
  
  You're of course correct and I can only be playful about it because of my privileged position of being outside the US. I get that it fucking sucks from the inside.
- The way it was explained to me, it's because of a lack of history.
  Being a new country, they had effectively no history or culture, unlike the rest of the world. It lead to a desire to develop it's own identity which lead to elevating the founding fathers to a myth like status to match those of other countries.
  It made sense to me, since there are myths involving demigods in different part of the world.
  
  Yeah its the same way other post-revolutionary countries idolise their revolutionary leaders, like how the soviets idolised Lenin or Trotsky.
- It's an important part of history. The fact that the ideology of some guys that founded our nation a few years back would be viewed as far left extremists nowadays is astonishing. These guys literally left a country and made their own country with radical stuff like freedom of speech, allowing people to come through the borders if they feel unsafe, democracy for the people and by the people and not corporate dirtbags fucking us every chance they get. Not to mention our freedoms keeping on shrinking little by little from the Patriot Act and more legislation to monitor our communications "foR tHe ChiLdRen".
  
  radical stuff like freedom of speech
  ...for white men.
- It wouldn't' be so bad if they actually knew anything about their founding fathers. Maybe did a little research on them, but the ones that idolise them the most know almost nothing about them.
- They were pretty cool enlightenment thinkers who created the first constitutional republic and were able to muscle out the British Empire. It’s pretty remarkable.
  
  What they did is remarkable, but they are often treated more like oracles and the constitution like some perfect golden tablets someone dug up in their yard (despite needing significant changes right after it was ratified).
  
  Yeah, I know. Now if anyone used their actual intellectual accomplishments as arguments instead of the simple fact that they existed, that might be interesting.
- Because it was a government that was pretty much written up from scratch and went against many of the tenants of European governments at the time, such as a right to free speech, no state religion, etc. It is still based on English Common Law though. It inspired the French revolutionaries though they went in another direction ultimately.

Back then, they seemed to just wear a lot more clothes. It's such an odd stance to think you can't use an umbrella or clothing to block out the sun. I can understand being skeptical about the side-effects of sunscreen being slathered on your body and absorbed... but it's pretty common to see depiction of parasols being used in older times.
- I have lupus and my skin has become really sensitive to the sun as I’ve got older. I think about getting a parasol fairly regularly but I don’t have the confidence or style to pull it off unfortunately!
  
  I just visited DC a few weeks ago and it was insanely hot and bright. I always carry an umbrella in my day bag so I used it for shade walking around. Even though it looked dorky and wasn't at all stylish I got a ton of compliments and nods of approval. Just do it, nobody will judge, everyone will think you're a genius.
  
  Screw what everyone else thinks and rock that parasol.

People have been using all kinds of stuff for sun screen for centuries. Ancient Greeks used olive oil, for example.
- And of course clothing. There is a reason that beduins dress like they do, or why stetson type hats became popular in the West.

Even if George Washington didn't have skin cancer, what does that prove?
- Yeah, I don't think a sample size of one really proves anything.
- It proves the OP was exceptionally stupid, and unlucky to have randomly picked as an example one of the four famous historical figures they know who happened to have skin cancer.

Hey, science is just an opinion, right?
🤦‍♂️

Just remember: these people's vote counts just as much as anyone else's.
- these people's vote counts just as much as anyone else's.
  Not true for Americans. How much your vote counts is based on which state you live in due to the Electoral College
  
  Yup. In most cases, these people's votes count more than the rest of ours.
  
  And also the amount of money you can funnel through lobbyists.
- Are you sure about that? These opinions are overwhelmingly represented in low-population counties, so their vote counts way more than most peoples.
  Don't you know? Democracy is about making sure all land is equally represented, not all citizens.
- Dumb people like this usually live in lower population red states, so their vote counts for more than mine.
- The first vote on this post was a downvote… they’re everywhere!

Come on, we already have anti vaxxers, is there some kind of underground anti sunscreen movement now too? And even if George Washington didn't have skin cancer... What evidence is one dude's lack of cancer to prove that a modern protective product doesn't work? We have no idea how much time he spent in the sun, we don't know if he always wore long sleeves, etc.
Obviously we know he did have cancer, but I just can't get over how many levels of flaw this argument contains in so few words.
- There is, an old friend of mine posted a ridiculous video about it on instagram....sure, there MAY be side effects to using sunscreen (not sunblock) that have turned up inconclusive in studies, but it has been proven that sunscreen and sunblock are VERY effective against skin cancer.
  It's just like the "covid vaccines can have an extremely small possility of side effects so I'd rather get long covid and DIE!!"
  
  Jesus christ.
  You know I don't honestly love wearing sunscreen. It's greasy, it sucks.
  But you know what I like less? Being sunburned! Being sunburned is legitimately terrible!
  You know what I like less than being sunburned? Fucking CANCER.
  Wearing sunscreen is such a laughably low effort alternative to these horrible things that happen otherwise.
  People are so goddamned stupid it boggles the mind.
- But it is simple. Also, you throw it at this crowd and they come back with evidence. Well, you throw it at another crowd and they might say: Oh right, they’ve got a good point there. Few words, simple message, inner logic = will work on a lot of people.
- To be fair, if they're underground they don't really need sunscreen.

If anyone else is curious and wants to read more:
https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/health/cancer/
- I had no idea they even knew what cancer was back then... fascinating!
  
  Cancer was first described in 3000BC! Here you go.
  
  Just because people lacked advanced analysis techniques, it doesn’t mean they weren’t observant. There are a huge number of things about the world that ancient people were very tuned into, they just didn’t have the tools to learn more than their senses could tell them.
  Just looking at the stars at night and comprehending how long and tedious it must be to track them to the point that you can determine the time of the year or your position on the ocean is a small taste of understanding how much our ancestors noticed about the world.

And his wooden teeth story was cover for the fact his fake teeth were made up of the teeth of his slaves. We don't know if the slaves had died before having his or her teeth removed for the first President of the United States.

When i was younger a former friend of mine told me that bs. I have light skin (right translation?) So it's a dangerous "advise". I never believed it, but the discusion were... exhausting.
- Light-skinned is the right translation. But you mean “advice”. Advice is a noun - it is the information. Advise is a verb - to advise someone means to tell them something. I’m advising you by giving you this advice. That not the best example but hopefully it makes sense! And one last thing, it’s discussions not discussion. But that’s really nitpicking. Plenty of native English speakers make those mistakes and what you wrote was understandable. I wish I was remotely as good at Spanish as you are English!
  
  Thank you for your advice! I turned on two languages im autocorrect, but my smart phone still is getting confused. Cause sometimes i pick Diskussionen instead of discussions or it simply doesn't get the error itself. When i write fast that always makes me anxios
  But thank you. That's motivating me!☺️

Oh, I thought he figuratively had skin cancer, thanks for clearing that up

ah, seems like moronic facebook mums have found another health product to hate: checks notes, sunscreen.
it must suck to be their kid

He was 6' 8" and weighed a fucking ton...
https://youtu.be/sbRom1Rz8OA
And invented cocaine...
- I heard that motherfucker had like 30 god damn dicks.
  
  Even on his feet!
  12 stories tall made of radiation.

When people got skin cancer back then they just called it cancer or didn't even name it. You just died.

there are so many people they could have chosen, and yet they managed to pick almost the worst possible example. they could have even said george washington carver instead if they just really had to type the words "george washington" that bad.

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