This has literally been a thing for like… 60 years

I don’t think they’d disagree with anything you said there. Their problem, I realize, has nothing to do with flouride. It has to do with the duty of government. They clearly realize that flouride is good for teeth. Maybe they don’t quite understand the sheer amount of flouride required for it to be dangerous, but w/e. The problem is, for them, is that they’re not entirely convinced that governments should be trying to protect their citizens. There’s a belief at work here that an individual shouldn’t need assistance with their wellbeing. Or at least not from a large body that doesn’t have any personal relation to the individual. So the paternalism that is assumed to be good for most people because it has a very high likelihood of doing good, a good that vastly outweighs any potential likely con, is assumed to be bad. This is because that’s a liberty and a responsibility that the government has over the public that could be exploited or neglected, and they believe that a vast body like the government suffers so little influence from the public that should something go wrong, the people would be powerless to stop it.

Not too strange of a phenomenon if one considers what populism focuses on, the fabrication of divides in order to drive tribal responses from it’s followers.Trump’s rhetoric is only one variety of it that happens to be very effective at creating that divide, those that are swayed shouldn’t really be seen as people that support all of his nastiest views, but as people that have been taken in by that sense of tribalism.

The loss of community is increasingly problematic for individuals in this day in age. There exists too many groups vying for our attention, many of which being communities that span across the globe. And with all these options, local communities may not always seem preferential to these global ones due to comparative size or accessibility. However, they still generally offer much more, and can prevent people from feeling isolated in their lives. Populist campaigns seek to take these people that are divorced from a community, often socially isolated people, and give them a group that seemingly supports them. So long as it’s welcoming, it doesn’t really matter who’s at the head of it, nor it’s beliefs.

I feel the fact that older people that aren’t quite retirement age and younger men being the people that are most likely to vote for Trump kinda speaks to this theory. I feel like these groups are the most at risk when it comes to developing rewarding communities, so a group like MAGA could be appealing to them.

Ok, I see the comment now. Yes, you seem to provide a source, but you claim that the source shows that humans are affected by prolonged exposure. Obviously that’s true, but comes with the obvious caveat that our exposure is nowhere near dangerous levels. I’m no expert, but I have some experiencing in parsing papers and trying to determine legitimacy so I’ll take a stab at what it’s saying.

In this review, it mentions that all the animals studied, problems arose when calculating the amount of fluoride measured against the body weight of the animal. Developmental toxicity occurs at ~13.2 mg/kg of body weight. A litre of water is advised to have .7 mg of flouride in the US. While some states have more or less, they’re all around there. Now, you tell how many litres of water you’d have to drink to actually reach that level of concentration in your body. I’ll give you a hint, it’s at least several times your body weight.

This review also mentions that most flouride is excreted through urine or feces, and 99% of what is preserved is found in the teeth. I didn’t read the studies on what the percentages that are excreted are, but since this review concludes that flouridated water is a non-issue, I’m gonna assume that it’s substantial enough to not be an issue when it comes to flouride buildup.

Here’s the thing though, this study is a review of other studies, why that’s relevant is because of some of the epidemiological data that’s brought up could still show that flouride is bad. However, All studies comparing populations that this review looks at have significant flaws, flaws that the review goes into. The review essentially concludes that all the epidemiological data from other studies are garbage. And rightly so, since a study trying to determine IQ between very different populations is next to impossible to make accurate.

Anyway, the short of it is that this review does not help your case. I’d say if anything, it makes it pretty clear that flouride is not an issue, and that if you’re looking for data to say otherwise, this study recommends much more substantial epidemiological research to be carried out, unlike the epidemiological data they reference in the review.

To get more on topic, I don’t believe most people would have looked more in depth at the article so perhaps they moved the goalposts when they were talking to you. That’s fair to criticize them, but then again, what you’re saying is also not entirely honest. Perhaps you didn’t mean to be dishonest, but still, that just falls under the category of “speak within your limitations”. Acknowledge that you don’t understand or can’t interpret the data. Maybe just ask for help clarifying points. Because what you had said was much too broad for the discussion you were having, and wasn’t remotely helpful, and was, for a lack of a better term, misinformation.

Honestly, the best tactic for catching yourself doing this is to assess others’ goals before attempting to comment on them. For example, don’t start with assuming that governments across the world are proactively poisoning their population. Assume the obvious and go from there. Like considering that governments want healthy populations that are good workforces and produce high quality goods in order for them to compete at the world stage for power, clout, and money. This means producing educated adults, not mindless labour drones. Thus, if there existed credible studies (because not all studies are credible, as this review and many others point out) to increase intellectual output and reduce costs of infrastructure by removing flouride from water (as you wouldn’t bother putting flouride in the water), you can bet that the government would be recommending or even forcing the elemination of flouridated water. There’s just nothing substantial to gain otherwise. Clean teeth or only so much of a positive, and governments, again, do not want a mindless population. We’re in the information age, manual labour is worth a fraction of the GDP output as high quality, educated work is.

There are a couple things that seem honest, but most of this is just rage baiting or spreading misinformation (fluoride, really? If you’re gonna talk about it being discussed you gotta bring scientific sources to the table). Like, I get it, there’re no decent places to actually discuss politics in this day in age because every space is an echo chamber, but you don’t have to actively goad people into engaging with you. Just try to act like an adult, do your research, and talk within the bounds of your knowledge. Keep in mind that the spaces you’re talking in are often echo chambers that come with some territorial behaviour, unfortunately.

All-in-all, if you want people to be nicer to you, you gotta be nicer to them. Also bring sources if you believe the audience won’t believe you.