Hacker News Reader

Comment by ornornor | Hacker News Reader

It’s hard to trust dentists on this when they’re all in the pocket of either Oral B or Sonicare and will recommend whichever one pays them.

Ditto “vet” food for pets, they’re very biased.

View on HN

fwiw my dentist doesn't shill any products and still highly recommends an electric brush, even the worst ones are better than you can do yourself. She also said a water flosser is great for gum health but to still use floss at least a few times a week because they can struggle with large bits getting stuck where the teeth make contact.

There is no conclusive evidence that flossing is helpful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_floss#Evidence

Maybe. A roll of floss is 3$ and 5 minutes a day. A filling at the dentist is 300–500$ and lasts 5–10 years before needing to be replaced + the pain. I’d rather floss just in case, it’s a cheap insurance policy at best and it does nothing at worst.

Five minutes a day is an appreciable portion of my waking life. Granted that's only like .5% of the rest of my life, but do I really want to spend one of my 200 activity tokens on flossing? (That said, I do floss sometimes, but 5-minute-a-day activities quickly add up, is my main point)

You probably spend more time looking at YT ads, scrolling on Facetagram, or sitting on the toilet.

Anyway, not telling you how to live. For me it’s well worth the 0.5% of the rest of my life but you do you. Maybe you have better teeth than me and won’t need to spend hours at the dentist over your lifetime to buy their second country house or pay for their divorce, or maybe you don’t get bits of rotten food between your teeth.

I’ve decided the trade off is worth it for me, but you really don’t have to reach the same conclusion about yourself :)

It may well be worth it! (even for me; as I said, I do floss occasionally) I just have a sort of immune reaction against "It's only <x> a day!" type things, where it's easy to miss how much that adds up to. I'm definitely not advocating for regimenting your life to the extent where you're tracking every five minutes, just... small costs add up.

Hey, if you are spending more than 5 minutes daily on YT ads I'd recommend using uBlock Origin. That time can even be used to floss! :)

This feels like the old joke about wearing an Oreo around your neck, to which the punchline is, "do you see any elephants?"

Tried to look that joke up but couldn’t find it. Care to share?

When asked about the Oreo or whatever, the wearer replies that it's elephant repellent. There's no elephants around, so it must be working!

Hey, if it works it works, right?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com