Read something the other day that kinda stuck with me:
“People won’t swim in a pool with a corpse in it but most people do wanna swim in the ocean that definitely has corpses in it. So there is a water to corpse ratio that makes it acceptable”
Oct 24, 2026, 4:43 PM@stux That’s why it’s referred to as a “body of water”.
@stux gruesome, but true.
@ZuilenV Right!
@stux Perhaps the same goes for if someone has urinated in it too.
@lydiaconwell Oh for sure!
Oct 24, 2026, 4:45 PM@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.
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 🤔 excellent point
People won’t swim in a pool with a corpse in it
Well, there goes my idea for a fun new waterpark.
@stux this ratio also applies to sex, poop, and urine.
@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 homeopathic levels of corpse are acceptable AND ward off death.
@stux This also seems like an extension of Schodinger’s theory. A body of water of any size may or may not contain a corpse, and you really don’t know until you observe it. Enjoy your swim but don’t open your eyes down there.
Hrm I may have just terrified myself.
Oct 24, 2026, 5:30 PM@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 What's happened to https://pixey.org/, please? When I click on that link, I get this:
@adrian_k Currently I’m migrating the server
I’m sorry it takes longer then expected but we’re back soon
@stux i guess “as far as you can see” is the approximate rule. (Assuming its not thick fog ;)
@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 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 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
I just saw this Spooky Ganges YouTube video. There was a drought, & human skeletons appeared.
It reminded me of the time I was on a boat in the Ganges in Varanasi... and dipped fingers in the river.😬
https://youtube.com/shorts/gIaLKnJnlWY?is=ES2L7wj47Bd3rYPk
@stux Hah, by the Intermediate Value Theorem.
I was at about 40 feet, in Caribbean... and 2 angelfish swam right in front of me - about 5-10 feet away.
Both proceeded to drop 💩 as they were directly in front of me - one right after the other.
Guess it was a message.
@stux
"Homeopathic Cadavery"
@stux
Also lots of barrels of leaky radioactive waste have been dumped in the ocean. And toxic waste. Plus basically the ocean is the world's toilet.
I stopped going to the beach after I realized that.
@stux Visibility?
A good analogy about the state of the world
@stux I mean ...
There's an acceptable level of fecal matter in your drinking water, according to law. You know, unless there's no regulation at all where you live.
There's an acceptable level of rat in your hot dogs ...
Lake Mead for sure has guys in barrels
Now I want to see the graph where the lines cross.
@stux Corpses per million.
@stux
Similarly, the trauma goes up as there is more corpse to water ratio, as when you put someone in a bathtub with a corpse, they really start freaking out.
@stux I wouldn't swim in a lake if i knew there was a corpse in it.
come to think of it, I bet most lakes have at least 1 corpse in it. yes a Human corpse.
Oct 25, 2026, 1:39 AM@stux That reminded me of all the wailing about when Japan finally decided to release some, oh no!, somewhat radioactive water into the ocean a few years ago, and like... people, the ocean is VAST, they ain't gonna kill the entire Pacific anytime soon, relax!
Oct 25, 2026, 2:33 AM@stux
Never liked going in the water in the kid because I was always like "nah I know what actually is in there and lives there. Ill just watch"
@stux I'm surprised no one mentioned the sperm from all the whales and dolphins. Some quip that this is the reason why the seas are salty.
I, on the other hand, would like to think that this saltiness is from all the angry human tears that have been shed after hearing that interpretation, right after they've gulped down a few litres of them sea water.
@stux after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans I knew many people who wouldn't eat any seafood that came out of the Gulf of Mexico for over a year. They were afraid corpses were swept into the Gulf and the crabs and fish feasted on them
Oct 26, 2026, 3:07 AM@stux @pseudonym Counterargument: it’s only “mininum corpse distance”
— and you can even define “undetectable”
If the chance of visibility is above 0.0%, it is unacceptable. (Also: future corpses, i.e. crocodile attack).
Oct 26, 2026, 7:11 AM@stux W.F. Fields, asked why he wouldn't drink water, said it was because “fish fuck in it”.